Exonerated, The

From interviews with over 40 people who'd been exonerated from death row, the authors interweave the words of a presumably representative six. In a front row of chairs, those words in their hands, sit five who'll tell and act the stories. One representative of the accused, intellectual Delbert, effects transitions moving from a stool on one side of the row to another on the other side. (LeRoy Mitchell, Jr. philosophizes as the African American who was never in the state where and when the murder he was accused of took place.) It's clear that being black makes men overwhelmingly vulnerable to injustice. Only 18, religious David (full-of-soul Nate Jacobs) was deprived of his legal rights. After a week in isolation, the disoriented black youth signed a rigged confession. As a horse trainer to whom a sleazy white woman spoke, Robert also didn't stand a chance with Southern racists. "Evidence" against him for her rape and murder was strands of long red hair. Gregory Mikell's Robert is definitely not a towhead but a spunky realist. Would police arrest a white man who'd threatened the victim when an uppity "nigger" could be accused?

What doomed bartender Kerry was the presumption he was homosexual. Stephen Hope horrifies as Kerry recounting being blamed for the death of a woman obviously threatened by a professor. Then his being sent to death row in turn sent his brother into alcoholism and death in a tavern fight. Labeled in prison, Kerry over the course of 22 years was raped and permanently carved with sexist epithets. Probably because he looked "hip," Gary got arrested for killing his parents. David Sitler invests him with confused wonder. Although it was Gary who'd reported his parents missing, police concentrated on interrogating him. After 12 hours they tricked him into a confession. (He was one of the first to be helped by the now-famous Northwestern University investigative journalists in training.) Anne O'Sullivan centers the exonerated as Sunny, the only woman represented. A slight, vegetarian yoga instructor, she was abducted with her partner and kids by a robber-murderer. He implicated the couple as part of a plea bargain. Sunny's partner didn't escape the electric chair either. Rather, he died after 13 minutes of agony when it malfunctioned. No wonder tears come to O'Sullivan so readily.

In the back row of chairs is the dynamic supporting cast. Sometimes choretic, often as characters (friends, lawyers, family, judges, police etc.), Steve Mountain, Robert Mowry, Beth Duda, and Donei Hall inject a great deal of drama into what is at its core readers theater. Not that the readings themselves lack drama - far from it. Possibly the stories might have been more effective presented directly, without some of the interweaving. My theater-going partner feels a play with one major character, a mix of the six characters, would be less diffuse and more effective; but I maintain that would be a much different "play." Since the authors have many more interviews and stories to draw from, possibilities are many, however. As for the present production, director Kate Alexander recognized that the material is what fascinates audiences. Getting that over seems to have her purpose. It's a noble one, obviously achieved.