Trial and Legal plays
20th and 21st century:
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moises Kaufman
The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
The
The Investigation by Peter Weiss (based on transcripts from the
trials)
The Prophet of Bishop Hill by David Rush:
Yoroboshi (The Blind Young Man) by Yukio Mishima
Tiger of
The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan
The Affair by Ronald Millar, adapted from a novel by C. P. Snow
Conduct Unbecoming by Barry England
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? by Eric Bentley
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
The Measures Taken by Bertolt Brecht
The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht
Counselor-at-Law by Elmer Rice
Romance by David Mamet
The Trial of the
To Kill a Mockingbird by Christopher Segal
Voir Dire by Joe Sutton
A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin
Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
Trifles by Susan Glaspell
Rimers of Eldritch by Lanford Wilson
Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
Wilhelm Reich in Hell by Robert Anton Wilson
Self Defense, or the death of some salesmen, by Carson Kreitzer
Heroin(e) Keep Us Quiet by
The Devil & Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet & Douglas Stuart Moore
The History of the Devil by Clive Barker
The
In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Heiner Kipphardt
Cherry Docs by David Gow
Sleep Deprivation Chamber by Adrienne Kennedy
In Times of War by David Alan Moore
Inquest by Geralyn Horton
I Dream Before I Take the Stand by Arlene Hutton
Deadly Game, James Yaffe's adaptation of a Friedrich Duerrenmatt novella
The Trial, Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Kafka
The Lark by Jean Anouilh
A Dream Play by August Strindberg
Liliom by Molnar
2 (the trial of Hermann Goering) by Romulus Linney
Woman Without a Name by
Childe Byron by
A Lession Before Dying adapted by Romulus Linney from Ernest Gaines’ novel
Execution of Justice by Emily Mann
Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie
Maria Kizito by Erik Ehn
A Grand Army Man by David Belasco, Pauline Phillips and Marion Short
On Trial by Elmer Rice
Lightnin’ by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon
Caponsacchi by Arthur Goodrich and Rose A. Palmer
The Trial of Mary Dugan by Bayard Veiller
Judgment Day by Elmer Rice
The Night of January 16 by Ayn Rand
Pick-up Girl by Elsa Shelley
Darkness at Noon by Sidney Kingsley
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Time Limit! by Henry Denker and Ralph Berkey
The Ponder Heart by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov
The
A Case of Libel by Henry Denker
Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin
Nuts by Tom Topor (also a Barbara Streisand film)
There's an interesting Teatro Escambray play from the late 1970s called EL JUICIO (THE TRIAL) that tells the story of a peasant named Leandro Perez Gonzalez who joined the counter-revolutionary bands operating in the Escambray, was captured and tried by a revolutionary court, and subsequently underwent rehabilitation. In EL JUICIO the judges for the trial are chosen from the audience before the play begins, and any judge or audience member can stop the trial at will throughout to ask questions. At the end the entire audience is asked to decide why this man who has been presented as neither good nor bad has become a class enemy. Adam Versenyi
South London's Tricycle Theatre, whose play Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom' toured here last year, have made a specialty out of "tribunal theatre": dramatizing the events behind public
The Fall issue of TDR (The Drama Review) is devoted to documentary theatre and the two shows mentioned above are discussed, along with several others involving courtroom trials. -CE
Pre-20th century:
The Farce of the Worthy Master Pierre Pathelin
Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega
The Eumenides by Aeschylus
The Broker of Bogata by Robert Montgomery Bird
Solon Shingle or The People’s Lawyer by Joseph Stevens Jones
Peter Styvesant by Bronson Howard and Brander Matthews
The Cowboy and The Lady by
Almost all of Shakespeare has to do with law and trials. Bernard Beckerman has written about this: Shakespeare often concludes his drama with a trial of some sort as a resolving force. This is especially evident in LEAR, MERCHANT, and MEASURE FOR MEASURE, but in many others as well:
KING LEAR: the false trial on the heath and the legal trial by combat of Edgar/Edmund
THE MERCHANT OF
MEASURE FOR MEASURE: focuses on law and misrule, concludes with essentially a trial and justice meted out
HENRY IV, PTS. 1 & 2: two justices figure heavily (the Chief Justice, as opposed to Falstaff as a lord of misrule, and Justice Shallow in part two as an image of the provincial justice and lawyer as middle-class)
HENRY V: There's a famous trial scene at the beginning when Henry forgives a man who had drunkenly ranted, but sentences to death three conspirators. Daniel Venning
Anonymous: ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM (the concluding trial scene is a masterpiece of the misplacement of justice, as the justice openly acknowledges that he's sentencing an innocent man to death - along with lots of guilty people. This was based on a real English Renaissance case of domestic murder. Daniel Venning