In the Heat of the Night
This succinct stage adaptation of John Ball's 1965 novel about interracial strife in Alabama proves to be still timely and topical.
(© Derrick Belcham)
The setting is pretty tight as well. Getting maximum use out of a miniscule black box space, designer Maruti Evans has placed the audience, only two rows deep, on all four sides of what starts out -- pre-"curtain" -- as a voile-draped enclosure, within which a teenage girl (Scarlett Thiele) wearing only a white bra and denim cutoffs writhes in slo-mo pin-up poses.
Once the action starts in earnest, with the discovery of a corpse, the white sheets come down, revealing a taped-off space somewhat smaller than a boxing ring. Hanging dead center is a noose -- a potent reminder of the fate likely to befall a stranger in town who happens to be a color the locals don't care for.
Providing perfect counterpoint is Gregory Konow as Gillespie, the beer-bellied, balding police chief -- a banally evil good ole boy who comes to accord Tibbs a grudging respect. As his deputies, Nick Paglino and Sam Whitten are equally skilled and thoroughly convincing in their roles. Ryan O'Callaghan is terrific as a sequential pair of young bigots (even if the cast-economizing transition from one role to the next is confusing). His characters' hatred and suspicion go so deep, they make him tremble with rage; you get a visceral sense of the toxicity that intolerance breeds.