Twelve Angry Men

Broadway doesn't always mean musicals. This is the perfect example. Tonight I attended a performance of Twelve Angry Men, the story of a jury dileberating on a death-penalty homicide case. Picture if you will... one scene, no music, no intermission, and an hour and a half of non-stop dialogue. It was quite an interesting show, and oddly capivating despite the fact that I'm much more interested in the musical theatre, which this definitely was not.

The jury foreman was played by George Wendt, who will probably forever be better known as Norm from Cheers. I think everyone in the theatre was collectively ready to yell "Norm!" as soon as he walked in the door of the jury room, but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) no one did.

The show had all the drama of a Law and Order episode, complete with emotional outbursts and characters you love to hate. The story alone, however, was pretty predictable once you got your bearings and figured out where it was headed. This would have made for a rather boring show, except for the outstanding acting. All twelve jurors were absolutely amazing, without any weak links whatsoever.

Ratings for this will be short and to the point, yet somewhat counterintuitive.

Cast - 5 stars. These are top-notch actors with a top-notch performance.
Script - 3 stars. A good story, but the strength is really in the character depth.
Overall - 2 stars. It was a good show, but I probably wouldn't go see it again, nor would I have sought it out had I not had season tickets. Ironically enough, the overall rating wasn't saved by the strong marks for cast and script.