THEATER : The Jurors Are Guilty in ‘Angry Men’

Ladies and gentleman, please take your seats and pay attention. Here at Costa Mesa’s Backstage Theatre you are about to witness a demonstration of the American jury system at work. If this were a college classroom it would be called “Justice 101.”

Because this is a social drama, however, it’s called “Twelve Angry Men.” It depicts a jury’s melodramatic deliberations in a murder case involving a young defendant from the slums who has been charged with the premeditated stabbing death of his father. You may call it a liberal’s high-minded cry from the heart.

You may also remember the movie--same title, black and white. It starred Henry Fonda with Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley, Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam and a few lesser-known character actors. Sidney Lumet directed. It was his Hollywood debut. The critics liked it. The movie was not a big success, though. More like pro bono work for the art-house circuit.

Please don’t be surprised by the Backstage casting. Director Al Valletta has made an obvious change, but it’s no big deal. He has six women on the jury. You can stand it. This is 1992, not 1956. It would have been a much bigger deal to change the title to “Six Angry Men and Six Angry Women,” so he didn’t.

To be strictly accurate, Backstage is not doing the movie. It’s doing the 1955 stage version, which was adapted by Sherman L. Sergel from Reginald Rose’s original (1954) television script. You should know that Sergel’s adaptation eventually became known as “Twelve Angry Jurors,” a title that sounds no better than “Justice 101.”

In any case, the Backstage cast--male and female--is made up of game amateurs. Valletta, when he is not directing, runs acting classes at the theater. This production may seem like a graduation exercise, but it’s not.

Depending on your relationship to the individual players--and we’re told this tiny house regularly is filled with relatives and friends--the cast’s efforts will seem brilliant, laudable or acceptable. Those in the audience with no special relationship to cast members, however, may notice very little nuance to the acting, lots of mugging and a highly telegraphic sense of character.

As for Valletta’s staging, it has a diagrammatic quality. Perhaps schematic is a better description or, to be less charitable, lumbering. Your choice. You’ll notice the spare jury room features yellow walls trimmed with white molding, a cityscape painted in one small window and, to complete our prosaic picture of reality, a functioning wall clock.

The jurors come into the jury room, certain of what one describes as an “open and shut” case. They take a vote on the verdict. To their shock, the vote is not unanimous for conviction. It’s 11 to 1. The lone holdout, Juror No. 8, says he has “a reasonable doubt” about the defendant’s guilt. He wants to talk about the case.

This lets loose a floodgate of impatience. These are jurors with ballgames to attend and families to get back to. Impatience soon is followed by general outrage, which escalates into personal confrontations. The most unthinking jurors are exposed as racist or at least sadistic. Others are shown to harbor deep class prejudices. Almost all display abysmal ignorance.

But as deliberations ensue and the testimony of the two major witnesses in the case is subjected to greater scrutiny, all the jurors inevitably come around to the recognition of a key principle of American jurisprudence: A defendant is innocent until proven guilty. What’s more, the American jury system is revealed as a triumph of reason. Yes, the system has flaws. It may hang on the thread of one man’s conscience. But when people get in a jury room and are prompted to thrash out their appalling bigotry, they ultimately subdue their fears and become exemplars of rationality.

Right makes might, we are told, not the other way around. It is a pristine assertion that has lost much steam over the last 36 years. Please do not mention Rodney King, ladies and gentlemen, or the assertion tends to evaporate altogether.

“Twelve Angry Men”

Nancy Stewart Douglas: jury foreman

Deborah Davis: juror No. 7

George Sullivan: juror No. 9

Douglas Dolan: juror No. 5

Rebecca May: juror No. 4

Julie Castro: juror No. 6

Laura Maria Munoz: juror No. 12

Michael Cahill: juror No. 10

Wayne Mayberry: juror No. 11

Hal Ralston: juror No. 3

Peter Taylor: juror No. 8

Karen McDaniel: juror No. 2

Mark Kurtz: guard

Julian Ertz: voice of judge

A Backstage Theatre presentation of the television script by Reginald Rose, adapted to the stage by Sherman L. Sergel. Directed by Al Valletta. Set design by Peter Taylor. Lighting by Sarah Ralston. Window mural by Rebecca May. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Aug. 1 at 1599 Superior Ave., Suite B-2, Costa Mesa. $10 to $12.50. (714) 646-5887.