This intensely researched script, pieced together by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen from public records and personal interviews, is as much a crusade as a drama. A bunch of A-list talent has mobilized behind the cause since this reading stage production opened in October, including Richard Dreyfuss, Jill Clayburgh, Elliott Gould, Judy Collins, Lynn Redgrave, Mia Farrow, Mary Steenburgen and Debra Winger.
Blank and Jensen interviewed a staggering total of 60 people who were exonerated of capital crimes after serving between two and 22 years on death row. Six of those interviews form the core of the script, which builds to a sweeping indictment of the American criminal justice system. Sunny Jacobs, poignantly read by Amanda Plummer when we went, was ratted on by the actual murderers. Gary Gauger, read by Jeff Goldblum, was railroaded for the death of his parents on the basis of a "hypothetical" confession interrogators tricked him into. Others, like African-American horse groomer Robert Earl Hayes, were convicted on no solid evidence at all. A powerful, sobering dose of reality.
