By: centraljersey.com
The play’s appeal in several revivals owes much to the persistence of prejudice. Fear of "the other" is a great reductive force. It’s simple to blame social problems on "them," whoever "they" are. The Actors’ NET production at the Heritage Center in Morrisville, Pa., directed by Joe Doyle, was somewhat rough-edged on opening night (the script is an often-rapid exchange among the 12 men). But for all that, the dialogue retains its power.
A boy is on trial for stabbing his father to death. Because he lives in a tenement, he is one of "those people." The jurors have all but decided his guilt, except for Juror #8 (a very deliberate Ken Ammerman), who is the voice of reason. To the others, #8’s an annoying gadfly who picks at the evidence as if he were a defense attorney (it’s suggested that the defense did a lousy job anyway).
There are emotional outbursts, notably a fevered one by Juror #10 (James Cordingley). The chief antagonist is Juror #3 (Ken Ambs in an over-the-top performance). Despite growing doubts among the others, #3 is adamant, menacing jurors who side with #8. But #8 calmly, methodically persists in keeping to facts. Juror #4 (Scott Fishman) thinks the boy is guilty, but keeps giving # 8 the floor, and so holds others to sticking it out until there’s consensus.
The action is concentrated on one set, the jury room, and the focus is on the dialogue and the power of one man to persuade others through reason. Is the boy guilty or not? It’s never clear; and that’s reasonable doubt. Other productions have mixed the genders to make it "12 Angry Jurors" or even and all-female cast. After all, this isn’t a play about male issues per se.
English playwright Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982), on the other hand, is pointedly about sisterhood. This, too, is an emotionally charged drama that is a product of its time and place – Margaret Thatcher’s England.
Under the direction of Brian Bara, the eight women in the Shakespeare ’70 production at The College of New Jersey in Ewing give thoroughly polished performances (accents are especially good). The play exemplifies experimental theater of the 1980s. The plot revolves around Marlene (Janet Quartarone in an absorbing performance), who is "top girl" at a London employment agency. The opening scene is an imaginary dinner party at which she hosts women of the historical and fictional past: the 19th-century traveler Isabella Bird (Susan Fowler); 13th-century courtesan and nun Lady Nijo (Elizabeth So); 9th-century Pope Joan (Sarah Stryker); Dulle Gret (Jessica Noll) from a Brueghel painting; and Patient Griselda (Emily West), a figure of medieval literature.
Despite Marlene’s attempt to unite this disparate sisterhood, they talk past one another, stepping on each other’s lines in an often-amusing cacophony. The scene then shifts to the employment agency. We pick up on office gossip, problem clients, and the tenor of male-female relations within and outside the agency. Time sequences are disjointed, so we discover things backward, as it were.
We’re introduced to Marlene’s niece, the school-dropout Joyce (Laurie Hardy) and her best friend Kit (So). They argue and tussle with each other, and with Joyce’s mother, Angie (Heather Duncan). The scene shifts back to the agency, where Joyce has appeared, throwing herself on the hoped-for kindness of Marlene, Angie’s sister.
The background for this scene is revealed in the play’s final moments, a flashback to a Christmas gathering at Angie’s place. Angie and Marlene have an extended love-hate argument over their respective sacrifices. A secret is revealed, and it’s clear why choices made over generations have locked Joyce into a bleak future. In this play, the power of sisterhood is an imperfect ideal fraught with difficulties. It should be noted that the language in Churchill’s drama can be a bit strong for younger viewers.