The exposed brick walls of the Parish Courthouse storeroom in rural Louisiana, where most of the action of A Lesson Before Dying takes place, seem ready to implode. Under the torn-mesh ceiling in a makeshift meeting room, 1948, clash Emma Glenn (spirited Gloria Bailey), her godson Jefferson who's going to be executed, and Grant Wiggins, his former teacher. Neither an exemplary Negro nor a smart one, Jefferson is innocent of the murder a white jury has pinned on him. His lawyer having made him out to be not a responsible young human but rather "a hog," the condemned is determined to play that part. Emma is equally set on his not being dragged off squealing to the electric chair. She wants him to uphold his own honor and that of his race by facing death with manly courage and giving it significance. When she talks Grant into teaching him how, she's sending a black man who's anxious about his feelings of self, work, place, and purpose, to help another who's antipathetic to all, including himself.
L. Trey Wilson recalls the looks and intensity of a young Jose Ferrer. His Grant is filled with ambiguity about why and how he should or can teach his school charges or Jefferson, and he needs egging on by his lover Lanette, another teacher. Newly divorced, she's not interested in another husband who won't share her sense of mission. Despite Vivian Baptiste's strongly expressed sentiments as Lanette, her role seems to be chiefly to bolster Grant and reflect the changes in Jefferson as Grant, she, and various townspeople - most notably, Grant's students - do the same for the prisoner. It is she who suggests bringing Jefferson a radio, the first thrust toward bringing him solace from the community.
In addition to said transistor radio (which probably wouldn't have been available for a sawbuck in 1948), the production uses slides that are hard to see against the bricks. Projections atop the slateboard behind the desk denoting Grant's classroom are clearer, more effective, and ironically, fewer and more atmospheric than informative. There's little subtlety in the play's construction. Each of the black men has a woman urging him to be a hero (one who does for others to make their lives better). There's a bad, but not overwhelmingly so, white sheriff (cocky Chris Curran) who's obviously averse to anything but routine law and order.
One of the most artistic scenes, full of suspense, has him talking to Jefferson's visitors while brandishing a pocket knife, then poking some food they've brought. To balance the sheriff is his good deputy, Quinn. Because he knows for a fact that Jeff is innocent, he acts sympathetically to him, Grant, and the women throughout. (Paul Bonin does his best to win audience sympathy too, but why didn't his character try to influence the jury? The actor can't rise above the authors' stretched-beyond-belief portrayal.)
What would a lesson about dying be without the inclusion of religion? Here it's represented by Emma, who came to be Jefferson's surrogate mother through baptism and is strong in her faith, and by the Reverend Moses Ambrose. He's anxious to get Jefferson to pray, that is, "talk to God before meeting him." As a preacher (played with customary bravado by Nate Jacobs) who boasts of his only knowledge coming from faith, of the Bible being the only book he has read, Reverend Moses wants Jefferson to accept his death and God peacefully. Yet he all but declares war on the agnostic Grant.
As the play progresses, so does Jefferson's humanity. Antonio D. Charity makes his changes gradual but differing by posture (turned away to admitting others), tone of voice (oinking to near oratorical), facial expression (grimacing to smiling, even through tears). At Grant's request, he writes his feelings in a notebook, giving him the last word. Previously, Jefferson had said Grant worked hard to make him, despite facing an unjust death, feel good. Except for dragging on the electric chair, the novelist, playwright, and director have done the same for their audiences.
