Actor Richard Thomas talks ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Every night, during the curtain calls at show’s end, the cast of To Kill a Mockingbird is regaled with calls of “Good night, John-Boy” from the audience, mixed with whoops, hollers and thunderous applause.

They are intended for Richard Thomas, the actor in the central role of small-town Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in the straight-from-Broadway national tour of Harper Lee’s beloved novel about racial tensions in the South.

“The Waltons” (1972): Richard Thomas, as John-Boy, is in the center at back. Photo: CBS.

Thomas starred as John-Boy, the deep-thinking eldest son in a large, Depression-era Virginia family, on the groundbreaking TV series The Waltons (1972-81).

He won an Emmy for the role, and has returned to it in reunion shows and TV movies, and so he believes he understands what those calls are about. “You’re dealing with one icon playing another,” he laughs. “I don’t mean me, I don’t mean Richard Thomas – you’re dealing with John-Boy Walton in the role of Atticus Finch! I wouldn’t say John-Boy has the same literary cache, in that way, but he certainly is an iconic television character.”

The To Kill a Mockingbird tour arrives at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts April 11, and will remain (in Morsani Hall) for eight performances, through April 16.

“Unmissable and unforgettable,” raved Rolling Stone. “All rise for the miracle that is ‘Mockingbird’ on Broadway. A landmark production of an American classic.”

Lee’s novel was adapted by Academy Award and Emmy-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The Newsroom). Thomas, who heads a cast of 24, wants the audience to understand that Sorkin’s source material was the original novel, and not the 1962 film in which Gregory Peck – yet another icon – played Atticus so memorably.

The circle, however, remains unbroken, as Mary Badham – who, as a child actress, played Scout, Atticus’ precocious young daughter – is in the cast playing crotchety neighbor lady Mrs. DuBose.

St. Pete Catalyst: Atticus Finch is such a significant figure in American literature. Everyone has their own idea of how he looks and sounds – not to mention Gregory Peck! Therefore, was it daunting to take on this role?

Richard Thomas: He’s one of those characters, like Falstaff, who take on a life of their own. They become almost real people. And people treat Atticus Finch as if he was a historical character, this model lawyer and father and all that. That’s a wonderful thing for a literary artist to achieve. And Gregory Peck is wonderful in that movie.

But the essence of theater is to play roles that have been played by other people. I would never have played Hamlet if I’d worried about Ian McKellen. It freezes you if you do that. And I’m nothing like Greg Peck, either physically or vocally, or emotionally as an actor.

And also, it’s a very different era of acting than it was when he made that movie. A very different style of playing.

All those things are great. People should bring in whatever preconceptions they have, and hopefully what I’m doing with the role, and what the production does with the material.

Hopefully what’ll happen after the first few minutes, after ‘Oh my God, he’s a lot shorter,’ and ‘why are Scout, Dill and Jim being played by adults?,’ we’ll tell them the story, and they’ll be caught up in it and forget about that.

The thing about classics is, they can take some rough handling. Thematically, and in terms of changes that you make. The source material is always re-worked, in fiction and in drama. If a Shakespeare play is strong enough, it can handle all kinds of productions and interpretations. And as classics move their way through the generations, it’s important that they be interrogated and worked on and re-examined. Otherwise you have something that you just hang on a wall in a museum.

What did Aaron Sorkin do with his script that earlier stage adaptations didn’t do?

He said ‘What do we do with Atticus Finch? We take him off his pedestal. We interrogate all his unassailable virtues.’ His sense of decency, his modesty, his unwillingness to fight, so to speak, his belief in the essential goodness of everybody in this community. His understanding, in face, of what a community is.

Aaron has always said that Scout is the protagonist of the movie adaptation and the novel, but Atticus is the protagonist and hero of this play. Because he’s given the man a learning journey. This is a teachable Atticus that Aaron has written.

Aside from the fact that he’s created this wonderful human being, the great gift is a sense of humor. Aaron understands that if you’re going to tell a story that’s in large part tragic, you have to earn it with some humor. You know, if I’m doing a tragedy, the first thing I look for are the jokes. They’re very important. Well, I always look for them anyway.

He has infused the play with a great sense of humor, a very Southern sense of humor. Which is terrific, because it earns the shocks that are to come.

Isn’t there some inherent danger in making changes to Harper Lee’s prose, which so many people are in love with?

People who are in love with Harper Lee’s prose can read the book as many times as they want. And if you go to see a play by Aaron Sorkin, you want to hear Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue. It’s Aaron Sorkin telling the story; the arguments in the play, the dialectics in the play, are so beautifully executed. And the light and shade, and humor and seriousness, and emotion and intellect, are so beautifully balanced.

He has made changes, but all this was worked out with the [Harper Lee] estate. None of it, for one minute, reduces the style or the integrity of the source material. It’s very, very much in the spirit of the novel. And a lot of the people who actually adore the book and the movie love the changes, because it made them look at the story in a slightly different way.

Aaron says this material gets pushback from the left, from people who don’t want another white savior story, and it get pushback from the right, from people who don’t like the fact that it makes Jim Crow look bad.

He has really enriched the characters of Calpurnia and Tom Robinson, and this is really important. It’s every bit as important as what he’s done with Atticus.

All that humor/seriousness, emotion/intellect stuff reminds me of what Sorkin did so well on The West Wing. That’s Aaron Sorkin in a nutshell.

It is Aaron Sorkin! Rob Lowe used to sit down at readings of the next script – there’d be a big laugh, and then someone would say ‘Uh-oh, there’s trouble right around the corner! Something terrible’s gonna happen.’

So it is that beautiful combination. It’s a very warm play, and a very warm production. This company is absolutely great.

You’ve got Mary Badham in the cast. What’s that like?

We got Mary Badham, she’s the cherry on top. And she’s great in this part – she plays the horrible Mrs. DuBose, which is such a wonderful 180 from Scout. And she plays it with such wicked relish. It’s wonderful to have her with us.

Obviously a lot of people know you from television, and they might be surprised to learn that you have such a history in theater. Would you say it’s you’re preferred medium – ‘I’d rather be on the stage than do anything else’?

I’d rather be on the stage than do anything else. That’s the easy answer. I made my Broadway debut in 1958 in Sunrise at Campobello, in the same play where James Earl Jones made his Broadway debut. But shortly after that, I was doing a show on TV, the Hallmark Hall of Fame. I just started working in TV at that point. I was a child actor in theater and television really at the same time.

TV and I kind of grew up together, and I love being in front of the camera. But the theater is for me the first actor’s place, and I love it. For me. I’m at home when I’m in the theater.

When you were signed to do The Waltons, could you have imagined that 50-some years later, we’d still be here talking about John-Boy?

Not in a million years. None of us was thinking that far ahead in any way. If you did, it would be like … ridiculous, knowing the way our business works. We just were hoping to get a second season!

We didn’t know. I mean, we started in 34^th place thar year and ended in 1^st.

We were just hoping to survive as a show, because we weren’t like anything else. There was Laugh-In, and The Mod Squad, and all those lawyer shows and cop shows and comedy shows. They were all great shows, and what we were doing was a whole other ball game. Who knew?

We’re still very close. We stay in touch. We’re still like an extended family. And I have nothing but gratitude, first and foremost, and fond memories. I could not have been luckier.

To Kill a Mockingbird info and tickets here.