Calpurnia
By Audrey Dwyer
Calpurnia is a satirical comedy, which features Julie Gordon, a young Jamaican-Canadian writer who is in the middle stages of adapting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird into a screenplay from the perspective of Calpurnia, the Finch family servant. Julie, a writer and budding activist, suffers from writer’s block as her father, brother and brother’s white girlfriend celebrate her brother’s success as a law graduate. He’s taken on a difficult case and is making the papers.
Julie’s father asks her to keep a secret: He has invited a high profile lawyer over for dinner to help move her brother’s career forward. In an argument, her brother informs her that she has no right to write about an African-American maid because she isn’t Black enough. He accuses her of appropriating a culture she doesn’t belong to. Julie decides to “do the work”. Calpurnia ends with her realizing that in order to make change, she needs to check her values and how she shares her talents because change can only begin from within.
