May 2 Vallejo/Vacaville Arts and Entertainment Source: Classic tense courtroom drama comes to Winters Theatre Company

You think the American populace is angry about, well, everything?

So are the actors in the latest offering from the Winters Theatre Company.

The theatrical troupe will stage “12 Angry Jurors,” directed by Rodney Orosco, on two May weekends at the Winters Opera House in downtown Winters.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. May 10 and 11 and 2 p.m. May 12; and 7:30 p.m. May 17 and 18 and 2 p.m. May 19 at the historic opera house, 13 Main St.

In Orosco’s version, the fast-paced, no-intermission production is based on the 1954 teleplay, “12 Angry Men,’ by Reginald Rose.

But Orosco sets the story in 1969 America, a time of social and political upheaval much like our own today. A jury of 12 men and women are locked in a room to decide the fate of a teenager accused of killing his father.

Before they reach a unanimous decision, however, they confront their own biases, prejudices and insecurities, which serves as the fodder for jurors’ tension, anguish, and, ultimately, clarity about the longstanding tenets of our criminal justice system.

Rose’s teleplay later became a 1957 black-and-white movie starring Henry Fonda as the man who was reluctant to rush to a guilty verdict against a teenager charged with the fatal stabbing of his father.

If Orosco’s version is true to the script, that person is juror No. 8, the only juror to originally vote not guilty and repeatedly questions the evidence in the case, urging other jurors to take their role seriously, showing a commitment to justice and morality and getting annoyed with two jurors playing a game and ignoring their important civic duty.

Part of the deliberation room’s tension stems from Juror No. 7, who assumes that deliberations will be swift, that other jurors have come to the same guilty verdict he — or she, perhaps, in Orosco’s version — has determined. Juror No. 7 wants a quick decision in order to make curtain time at a Broadway play.

Juror No. 9 begins to side with Juror No. 8, but Juror No. 10 is a bigot and sees the defendant as a symbol of a marginalized ethnic group set apart from “civilized” society. Eventually but reluctantly, Juror No. 4 sides with Juror No. 8.

Juror No. 5 also later decides to vote not guilty when presented with reasonable suspicion of innocence. And Juror No. 3, the most reluctant hold-out, finally, after deep personal angst, sees the wisdom offered by Juror No. 8, that there is reasonable doubt for each of the pieces of evidence used in the trial.

At each step along the way, the tension rises and falls, with the belief, in the end, that the prosecution has not presented a case of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

For tickets, visit www.winterstheatre.org, telephone (530) 795-4014 or email winterstheatre@gmail.com.