West Coast delivers with ‘Mockingbird’

Potent theatricality distinguishes “To Kill a Mockingbird” at West Coast Ensemble. Director Claudia Jaffee and a unified company invest Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a Depression-era Alabama rape trial with sharp invention and emotional truth.

Eight-year-old Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, recounts the narrative as an adult. Christopher Sergel’s dramatization uses two actors in the role, a child (Jillian Clare) and Ferrell Marshall, who doubles as acerbic Miss Maudie.

Set in the fictional hamlet of Maycomb, circa 1935, “Mockingbird” follows Scout, her brother Jem (Cullen Kirkland) and visiting child-of-divorce Dill (Adam Dlugolecki) as they encounter the book’s symbolic characters.

One is unseen recluse Boo Radley (John O’Brien), who ignites youthful imaginations. The more sobering figure is black Tom Robinson (Christopher Guyton), accused of molesting white Mayella Ewell (Corrina Lyons). Tom’s defender (and “Mockingbird’s” hero) is the Finch children’s widowed father, Atticus (John Marzilli).

Jaffee’s assured direction honors the property’s heart-rending power and child’s-eye humor. Will Pellegrini’s bas-relief set, Lisa D. Katz’s lighting, Zale Morris’ costumes and David Mark Peterson’s sound are atmospheric and indivisible.

So is the selfless ensemble. Marzilli’s taciturn Atticus, more implosive than in Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning portrayal, is enormously moving. The kids are redoubtable, Guyton and Lyons are indelible, and Marshall’s exceptional technique sustains the shifting focus.

Supporting standouts include Crystal Jackson’s Calpurnia, Wayne Camp’s Heck Tate, Mary McBride’s Miss Stephanie, Bob Wilson’s Reverend Sykes, David Kaufman’s prosecutor and Dalene Young’s Mrs. Dubose.

The group finesse transcends Sergel’s serviceable but unsubtle adaptation, which overstates the meaning of events while they occur. The show-and-tell techniques are most taxing on James Sharpe’s loathsome Bob Ewell, whose vengeance is telegraphed.

Even so, at the reviewed performance, Lee’s ever-relevant apotheosis destroyed me, as it has since seventh grade. I doubt that I’m alone in so moist a response to this wholehearted realization of an American classic.

*

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Where: West Coast Ensemble, 522 N. La Brea Ave., L.A.

When: Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.

Ends: Nov. 9

Price: $20-$22

Info: (323) 525-0022

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes