I really do feel for Chuck here. Even after you've been acquitted of all charges, you still have trouble going on with your life after you leave the court room. Obstacles come your way, and when you meet one of the jurors from your trial like Barry face to face, you just want to know why they acquitted you. Why they found you innocent. Even though you admitted to them that you committed the crime. At the end of the play though, they come together, this time both sitting in the jury.Bravo Philip!

A discussion of how the American judicial system functions at the nuts-and-bolts level could be dry as reading a lawbook, but Williams humanizes it by creating two flesh-and-blood characters. They come from very different generations and life experiences, but they've both had some trial exposure, one as a juryman, the other as a defendant. By the end, they each reach a fuller appreciation of the nuances of the "system" and of each other. Both learn something, and so does the reader. Great work!

Sometimes a person's problems don't vanish when they are acquitted -- in fact, as this play demonstrates, it is often quite the opposite. "Reasonable Doubt" by Philip Middleton Williams examines our legal system and its impacts from the perspective of two jurors-to-be. Guilty or innocent, being brought to court or into police custody has a tendency to disenfranchise and isolate individuals, and this play breaks things down without being didactic. An eye-opening drama.