Christina Leary - 12 Angry Jurors

October 11th, 2017
Christina Leary - 12 Angry Jurors
Earlier tonight I went to a CNU Theatre production of the play 12 Angry Men, which was adapted into an alternative play called 12 Angry Jurors. One of my friends had a role in the play and I was eager to see it tonight. Last semester I went to two other CNU Productions Working and Stupid Fucking Bird as a class requirement. I really enjoyed Working, it was a musical and it had no one lead. I thought that idea was very interesting. However, it had nothing on Stupid Fucking Bird. I loved that play. Afterwards I wanted to do something amazing, I felt called to action, the action itself might have been unknown but I wanted to do something. So, I was really looking forward to seeing 12 Angry Jurors tonight. I was excited to get that feeling again. Sadly, I didn’t. The play didn't really move me and the ending bored me. It really let me down.
Maybe it is a matter of values (which makes this perfectly applicable to this class) but I didn't appreciate the play because it didn't move me. It evoked some emotion but, more important to me, it didn't invoke action! Afterwards I just felt like the play itself was a distraction from life. Art is sometimes seen to be leisure and leisure is important I believe but for something to call me to action, that holds a lot more value in my life. I was going to the play expecting to be moved, expecting to have a similar feeling at the end of it like I did at the end of Stupid Fucking Bird, but I didn’t.
I am wondering if it is because the play was not relational to me. Maybe if I had grown up in the inner city and directly experienced issues like the ones expressed in the play it would have carried a lot more meaning. However, maybe it moved someone else and maybe they saw it as a beautiful piece of art where I did not. And I am wondering, does the value of art depend on how we experience it? In Stupid Fucking Bird, I could relate to almost every single one of the characters in some way and it made me appreciate their brokenness because I saw myself in each of them and it truly moved me. Furthermore the play left me with a big question at the end as to if the main character killed himself or not. We got to decide, the play quite literally called us to action by making us pick the ending. But the play might have not had as much meaning to me three or four years ago. Does the influence or quality of art depend on our experiences prior to being exposed to it? Could I revisit it in five or ten years after living in a big city with similar problems and then the play could hold more meaning? Or what if I was actually alive during the time the play was originally written? This leads to a more overarching question of: is good art timeless?

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