Last night, I had the pleasure of attending Middle Ground Theatre Company’s The Verdict at The New Theatre. For the opening night of its UK tour, the theatre filled the theatre to see how this interpretation of Barry Reed’s courtroom drama would come to life. The audience was of an older demographic – nostalgic of the 1982 film adaptation starring Paul Newman, no doubt.
The story follows outcast Boston lawyer Frank Galvin (Jason Merrells) as he takes on an alleged medical malpractice case to salvage his reputation as a bit of a maverick in the courtroom, defying the expectations of his clients and opposition alike.
Merrell set the scene long before the play began, dragging himself off the floor from a drunken stupor and lethargically going about his morning routine as an alcoholic lawyer separated from his wife and sleeping in his office. This told us all we needed to know about Galvin before the lights even dimmed and wasted no time in laying down the facts of the case to the audience.
Like many iterations of its kind, the entertainment of The Verdict lies in its exploration of morality and the machine-like nature of the law. Galvin’s client Deborah Doherty is a young mother left in a vegetative state after a botched anaesthesia during the delivery of her child. He spends a great deal of the first act deliberating whether he should take the case or settle for a $500,000 “bribe” to cover the hospital fees. It sounds dense, but even with little medical knowledge and even less understanding of the American legal system, The Verdict had me on the edge of the seat and angry at the corruption of law as the night progressed.
This was mostly down to Merrell’s delivery of Galvin’s redemption arc. From the get go, Galvin is a man at his wit’s end with life, a drink perpetually in his hand and stalked by a failed marriage, who’s motivated to get his act together by the prospect of winning Doherty’s case. With so much of the play being concerned with what the point of taking cases to court is, it was so important as an audience member to feel sympathy for Galvin’s tenacity to see justice for Doherty and her family. And I absolutely did, especially in the final scenes which saw Galvin pitted against the defendants (Jason Wilson and David Speck) and their lawyers (Vincent Pirillo and Nigel Barber) who oozed with a sour entitlement.┬á
Speaking of Doherty and her family, I was equally as enthralled by Sarah Shelton’s portrayal of Mrs McDaid, Doherty’s mother who has been left struggling to deal with the reality of the case whilst the bigshot lawyers battle it out in court. The Verdict is a great reminder of how technicalities of the justice system usually overshadow the fact that these are people’s lives being played with in the courtroom; a particular moment that stayed with me long after was Mrs McDaid’s desperate outburst to Galvin revealing the crippling debt she is facing to keep her daughter alive, which Sheridan portrayed heartbreakingly.
The verdict’s in on this one – it’s a hit for old and new fans of the courtroom thriller alike.
