A Scene from To Kill a Mocking Bird

Tom Robinson rushed around wildly, aimlessly, desperately. His eyes darted in all directions, with unsteady stare and panicky glimpses. He moved quickly here, turned, and made a few steps there. He swirled, ran in one direction, and then another, so he moved all over the stage, furtively, hurriedly, followed closely by a dozen other actors. The light was dimmed, but the audience saw all their ghostly bodies, and Tom Robinson stood out because he was defenseless, with nothing to protect his body from the others who were each holding a stool with the hands. They looked like bar stools, reaching above the waist if they were placed on the floor. They were metallic, and loud clanging sound of one bar stool occasionally hitting another would cover the background music which was unnerving and ominous.

Each actor moved to his body's order. They were not dancing, and no-coordination of movement was necessary. They simply need to move with the same style and rhythm, and they did, lifting the stool over the head, swinging it to the left, or right, or up, or down. The stool moved along circular path, along imaginary arcs and chords. At one second, someone could be standing tall with the stool over the head, and another swinging the arm with fingers clenching the stool, and a third person bending at the waist with the stool over the shoulder, or stooping, or descending and ascending. They drifted and slided with big steps and small steps, sometimes rapidly and sometimes slowly. Not exactly graceful swinging and swaying and bending, but still, there was some fluidity in the movement. They might be going through the motion of swimming with force but without the water, or taiji, with the slowness and certainty but without the gentleness, or even fencing, but the motion a hundred times slower, with the sword replaced by the stool.

Each of the stool actor took their turn to fling the stool down, and at the exact moment when the stool hit the floor, a deafening bang rang out in the theatre. Not a clear sound, but do we ever describe the thundering noise made by the release of the bullet from a gun or rifle as a clear sound ? How many bullets were fired at Tom Robinson ? I couldn't remember. Was it seventeen ? Nineteen ? At each gunshot, Tom fell, and struggled to get up. Each raise was more painful and slower than the last. Finally, his face in agony, his frail body twisted out of shape, he staggered no more, and he had the last collapse.

The above was a scene from a play that I watched at the Drama Centre Theatre at the National Library Building in Singapore. It is based on Harper Lee’s novel, adapted for stage by Christopher Sergel, and performed by the Toy Factory.