Antelope Valley Thespians Perform "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt"

With a second act that just sizzles with emotional intensity, the Antelope Valley Thespians presented a memorable performance in their Quartz Hill black box theatre space.

"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt", a two-act play concerning the nature of innocence, is the second production in the Antelope Valley Thespians' 2010 calendar. With a cast of three, the play is intimate, immediate (in the garage space that holds the performance), and often intense.

Courtney Marietta plays Ruth Ballard, an idealist who is accused of partaking in a bank robbery gone wrong.

Ballard shakily defends herself by clinging to a lack of evidence on the part of the prosecuting attorney, an old flame from law school, as it happens, who has gone on to become a successful and skilled attorney while she has pursued her ideals to radical ends, finding herself in jail as the play opens.

With zeal and with startling candor, Derric Neal plays the part of the prosecuting attorney, Kenneth Hayes.

Over the course of the play's two acts, Hayes and Ballard go back and forth over the details of the case. In a climactic moment, the emotional high point of the play, Hayes asks Ballard to tell him, once and for all, that she is innocent of the crime of which she stands accused.

Ballard parries. She suggests that Hayes is involved in a corrupt practice as a pubic prosecutor and so is as guilty or innocent as she. When he protests that he has not been accused, Ballard says that she accuses him.

This is the ethical heart of the play, the intellectual center - to pose it as a question, we might ask: What is the nature of innocence? Is a person innocent who has committed a crime yet not been accused? Or is that person implicitly guilty?

There are too many interesting and problematic issues surrounding the concept of innocence, criminality, and justice to bring into this brief discussion.

The play does a good job of raising a number of issues without steeping itself in polemics. At times, the facts of the crimes discussed in the narrative seem to form only a backdrop for a more pressing drama.

The great virtue of the play is, in fact, its choice of focusing on the emotional connection between the prosecutor and the defendant, the man and the woman, these estranged lovers who may find redemption in each other - but it's a long-shot.

Long-shot or no, the human takes center stage, so to speak, in this drama so that when the climax of the play arrives it has very little to do with the answer Ballard will give to the question of her innocence or guilt.

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This is a play about justice and innocence and the role that compassion plays in the system of law.

Directly broaching the complicated subject of virtuous crime, "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" indirectly raises questions as to how far an individual should extend his or her circle of compassion. Should the prosecutor allow his feelings for the defendant to interfere with his work as a prosecutor? Should he feel sorry for her? Should he love her?

The emotions of this conflict come through loud and clear. This is in spite of a script that refuses to illuminate the details of a crime that is ostensibly central to the narrative of the play. Where we expect to get resolution of fact we instead get a crescendo of dense feelings, raw and painfully conflicted, emoted beautifully by Mr. Derric Neal.

Neal's performance, especially in act two, is nuanced and impressive. The twisting and turning legally-oriented dialogue was a challenge for each of the two central actors, most notable in the first act.

Joe Gruca had a different take on his role.

Gruca plays the jail guard who is seen, mostly in the first act, as a willing participant in the harsh treatment of a prisoner who is presumed guilty.

Though his character is rude, Gruca brings an irony to the part that is refreshing and which feeds directly into the plays most urgent questions. He is a cog in the industry of the legal system. As such, he does not question the justice of the position this woman is in, accused but not convicted of a political crime turned to murder.

Instead of questioning and debating the moral and ethical nuances of Ballard's situation, Gruca's character gladly seeks to punish and to put down. Given the contrasting contest of intricate legal dialogue of the two main characters, when the guard goes for his gun the simple-mindedness of this gesture gets a laugh.

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There is much more to say about the play, its performance here by the Antelope Valley Thespians, and the questions it raises than can be addressed in this forum.

As an audience member, I was moved, honestly touched, by the performance. In my seat after the actors left the stage, I felt had encountered something - something real and thought-provoking.

This is not to say that the performance was without its flaws. It wasn't flawless. But it was admirable. It was real. And I was grateful to get to take part, as a member of the audience, in this live production of art, right in my neighborhood.