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Courtroom Drama, Ayn Rand, and Your Local Theatre

© Jon Blackstock

To keep this article from being argumentative or esoteric, I am going to limit my comments on a recent production of Ayn Rand's Night of January Sixteen to an analysis of the play rather than a review of the production. While I would like to explain reason the company did a great job and would like to dispel snobby notions of what is and is not legitimate theatre, as the production I saw was a high school group, I will not argue either case. (I come not to praise this man Caesar, but to bury him.)

Instead, I divide this article into three parts. First, we have the genre of courtroom drama and its importance in modern society. Second, I want to make you mad enough to argue with me about the philosophy of Ayn Rand and its presentation in the text of this play. Finally, for those of us who are building or helping advance theatre programs of our own, I want to relate some notes I have on a well-built program, well-built meaning that it serves its audience as we should be hoping to do.

Part 1-Why Courtroom Drama?

Ironically, the opposition I hold for Ayn Rand's philosophy is also fountainhead for why I like to see staged courtroom dramas. Certainly our society is fascinated with court proceedings, recently debating the trials of former athletic heroes and present political leaders, and the beauty of both trials is that neither contained any resemblance to what we call objective justice. I find it difficult to argue that such objectivity was even attempted by any of the lawyers involved. Another spooky beauty of these cases is that, even when we believe we know what really happened, we're not sure what to do about the accused.

Many popular cases are different in that we never really know what happened, and if you deal with people in any conflict long enough, you realize that, if absolute truth exists, it will stay from you as the East from the West. The nature of court cases is that you argue your case before twelve people who are chosen because they are experts neither about this case nor about legality at all. While such selections seek an objective decision, we know that the outcome always falls to popular vote rather than forensic fluency or absolute knowledge. Of course, if we had the former, we would not need juries and courtroom drama would not capture our attention.