“Time To Kill” a Gripping Drama at Elmwood Playhouse, Nyack

BY GEORGE J. DACRE

A black man kills two white men who raped and beat his 10-year-old daughter and goes on trial in a Mississippi courtroom before Judge Omar Noose. Carl Lee Hailey, played by Sheldon Roberts, claims he did what he had to do and his attorney Jake Tyler Brigance, played by Damon Fischetti, please Hailey not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

John Grisham’s best selling novel turned into a play by Rupert Holmes is well performed by the Elmwood Playhouse actors with an authentic court room setting. The nuances of this trial and the court battle by Brigance and prosecutor Rufus Buckley (Eric Fisler) include humor, racism dialogue, moral courage, ethics and law. The two self-confessed white rapists are gunned down outside a courtroom by Hailey using an automatic weapon and Hailey is immediately taken into custody.

This production presents all the legal arguments possible in such a case and one wonders how justice will play out for Hailey and the two rapists he killed. It is intriguing, well-directed by Joe Albert Lima, assisted by Candy Pittari and produced by Kandi Rosenbaum.

I rate “A Time To Kill” Three Out Of Four Stars. Playin weekends through April 9 at Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack