THEATER REVIEW : Clearer Than Real Life : PCPA Theaterfest’s revival of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ has what Simpson trial lacks--moral clarity.

As a black defendant stands trial for a violent assault on a white woman, the atmosphere grows thick with scandal, sex and racial tension.

How topical.

Yet, if anything, comparisons between PCPA Theaterfest’s revival of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the real-life Simpson trial are most striking for the differences that illuminate something sadly lacking in our legal system.

Call it moral clarity.

In Christopher Sergel’s stage adaptation of the Harper Lee novel, good and evil, right and wrong, tolerance and prejudice are easy enough to distinguish.

Good may not always triumph, but there’s no mistaking its presence in every fiber of attorney Atticus Finch (Jonathan Gillard Daly) as he tries to defend a clearly innocent field hand (August Gabriel) from the accusation of rape and battery that could mean a death sentence.

Daly’s remarkable performance infuses such believable aggrieved human dignity and moral conscience into “Mockingbird” that beside it the Simpson trial becomes a mockery--an ethical swamp mired in strategic legal sparring and maneuvering to spin, filter and at times even suppress the truth.

Not that the legal profession hasn’t always fallen short of Atticus Finch’s moral stature, but nowadays we seem to have lost sight of it even as an ideal.

Which is why “Mockingbird,” for all its sometimes contrived and preachy excess, remains a play with a message worth repeating--that justice demands that people act on their higher impulses.

Daly manages to put this lofty principle across in personal terms. “Before I can live with others I’ve got to live with myself,” Finch tells his children when his acceptance of the case outrages his peers in their small Depression-era Southern town.

The children (Alexandra Currie and Patrick Crawford) handle the mature themes in this turning point in their growing up with notable skill. As the accused Tom, August Gabriel evokes a sympathetic mix of fear and courage that makes his tragedy deeply affecting.

It takes an exposition-heavy first act, however, to get to the emotional fireworks. Sergel’s script relies on hackneyed devices like assembling the townsfolk on stage for endless recitation of their histories, where less effort to cram in a novel’s worth of context would better serve.

Obviously heartfelt and sincere, Brad Carroll’s staging has a tendency toward over-earnestness that sometimes needs reining in.

But when the production hits its stride in the trial scene, it’s as riveting as anything on TV.

Details

* WHAT: “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

* WHEN: Through March 12, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m.; matinees at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

* WHERE: Allan Hancock College Marian Theatre, 800 S. College in Santa Maria.

* HOW MUCH: $12-$18.

* FYI: For reservations or further information, call (800) 549-PCPA.