`Voir Dire' Earns A Favorable Verdict

----------------------------------------------------------------- Theater review

"Voir Dire" by Joe Sutton. Produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center. Tuesday-Sunday through March 12. 443-2222. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone who has ever been called up for jury duty will recognize the mingle of dread and anticipation the six jurors in "Voir Dire" feel about their task. And it's easy to identify with their relief and lingering anguish after they reach a final, agonized verdict.

Joe Sutton's gripping and unsettling drama, presented in a vigorously performed world premiere in Seattle Repertory Theatre's Stage 2 season, is a civics lesson, a detective story and a pained examination of our divided national psyche, all rolled into one. And except for a few minor offenses, it succeeds on all counts.

"Voir Dire" cleverly taps into the national obsession with courtroom maneuvering and crime solving, and with our everyday experiences with the justice system.

It dovetails neatly, at points, with the O.J. Simpson trial and the Marion Barry trials, among others.

But Sutton's script drills well beyond the surface of slick courtroom melodrama and the blow-by-blow sensationalism of tabloid television. It penetrates down into the bedrock layers of anger, distrust, and alienation that underlie the American social structure - and undermine, in obvious and subtle ways, our ability to execute justice, or even agree on what it is.

A highly charged case

Under Douglas Hughes' assured direction, the play begins deftly, with quick Polaroid-style snapshots of six diverse New Yorkers (five women, one man) undergoing "voir dire" - the process of being questioned in court for jury selection.

After answering the questions of heard-but-unseen lawyers, they are assigned to a drug trial. It involves a misdemeanor cocaine possession. But the defendant is a black school official whose case is much-publicized, so the jury is sequestered.

Cooping up people with divergent backgrounds and clashing personalities in close quarters for several days is a way to ensure dramatic conflict. And giving them a matter of principle to decide allows them to speak of weighty matters few of us address in normal conversation.

The interpersonal fireworks in "Voir Dire" begin the moment this group, confined to a drab hotbox of a jury room (expertly designed in a nifty sliding set by Andrew Wood Boughton, and smartly lit by Greg Sullivan), begin deliberations.

Angry, street-smart Gloria (Babo Harrison) and Michael (Tony Gillan), a cocky financial consultant, clash immediately in an open power struggle. Debra (Karen Kandel), an articulate black youth counselor, intervenes to plead for "civility."

A young, naive professional woman, Faith (Anne Marie Cummings), and a savvy older one, Isobel (Barbara Dirickson) retreat to the sidelines. And Teresa (Vanessa Aspillaga), a Latina housewife, remains virtually silent.

Differences come into play

Thanks to some terrific ensemble acting (Kandel and Gillan are especially fine), and Sutton's pitch-perfect dialogue and well-paced revelations, these people evolve with complexity. And for the most part, their shifting group dynamics around the jury table and in shared hotel rooms are very convincing.

In the torturous process of reaching consensus, raw nerves and differences become exposed and inflamed. And conflicting views of racism, economic inequity, police authority and New York life come into heated play.

"Can't we just stick to the facts of the case?" Michael asks at various junctures. And the frustrated Isobel wonders, "Don't we also live in the same country?"

This play's even-handed answer to that is a qualified "yes" verging on a "no": Justice is not indivisible from the society that makes it. And this society is fissured to the core.

Absorbing as it is, the play flirts with tedium in some convoluted discussions of evidence, and with overkill in some shouting matches. And the bland, stereotyped role of Teresa could be beefed up.

A more serious flaw is the pivotal conversion of one juror's viewpoint at an important juncture. Since the play's resolution hangs on this sudden change of heart, Sutton would do well to make it more credible.

But these are minor gripes about one of the Seattle Rep's best play premieres in some time. "Voir Dire" is an open-and-shut case of strong, thought-provoking drama.