Twelve Angry Women - play review

The local community theater for which we have had season tickets for several years now are presenting the play "Twelve Angry Women", a complete "rip-off" if you will of the play "Twelve Angry Men". The latter play was made into a movie in 1957 starring Henry Fonda in the pivotal role.

The plot is simple and straightforward - the 12 angry women constitute a jury which has been listening to 6 days of testimony and explanation of a murder in which a young man is accused of killing his father with a knife. As the play opens they are just receiving the judges instructions about needing to be unanimous if they vote guilty and about voting "not guilty" if they have a reasonable doubt about the young man's guilt.

It sounds like everyone feels it's an open and shut case so a show of hands vote is called. Everyone expects a unanimous verdict and it is, almost. There is, to everyone else's chagrin, one lone hold-out. She is accused of stupidity, being a liberal or bleeding heart, or just a plain troublemaker. She tried to make her point but no one is listening. Finally in frustration she says that they should vote again and if she is still alone, she'll capitulate. The vote, secret written this time is 10-2.

So it goes throughout the whole play with the count slowly and sometimes uncertainly moving to not guilty. Along the way we see how "reasonable doubt" can be adapted by different people in different circumstances. We also see how tempers can flare with hot and uncomfortable conditions under stress. We also naturally see how 1 person can make the difference between "not guilt" and the death chamber, although that wasn't emphasized. During this election time I thought it had an additional message that the more certain we are of our position, the more we should be listening to the other side to see if they might have some of the truth as well.

The Chautauqua players did as good a job as they have ever done, to the point where most of the audience began thinking they were watching a real jury.

Highly recommended.