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    The Failures of Unfailing Optimism: The Broadway Debut of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

    by DJ Cashmere Dec 27, 2018 6 minutes

    “I was guilty as soon as I was accused,” says Tom Robinson to Atticus Finch.

    “I get called an optimist a lot. What I don’t get called is stupid,” Atticus responds, trying to convince Tom to sign the “not guilty” plea that sits before him on a wooden table. He assures Tom that the trial “will happen in an American court of law.” Tom “should have faith in that institution.”

    It’s early in the first act of Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Gbenga Akinnagbe as Tom is squaring off against Jeff Daniels as Atticus. Akinnagbe, masterfully bottling up Tom’s bottomless anger and sadness, offers a sort of half-laugh at the privilege inherent in blindly trusting an American court in 1934 (or any other year).

    “I know these people,” Daniels continues. “Do we have ignorant citizens who are stuck in the old ways? Yes. Does that extend as far as sending an obviously innocent man to

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