Stageloft scores with ‘Inherit the Wind’By Paul Kolas Telegram and Gazette Reviewer STURBRIDGE— Stageloft Repertory Theater’s lively and timely production of “Inherit the Wind” on Saturday night, much like George Clooney’s recent film of journalist Edward R. Murrow’s stand against Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt crusade in the 1950s, “Good Night, and Good Luck,” proves that American history can be both entertaining and edifying. In fact, “Inherit the Wind” was written in 1951 as a rebuttal to McCarthy’s repressive agenda, before it premiered on Broadway in 1955. Based on the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 1925 in Dayton, Tenn., it details the efforts of the Tennessee Legislature to prosecute a 24-year-old Dayton High School math teacher, sports coach and substitute science teacher, John Scopes, for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in violation of state law (the 1925 Butler Act). Scopes became a “test case” for the American Civil Liberties Union by teaching theories that in conflict with the Biblical interpretation of the divine creation of man. The resulting trial became the media circus of the day, with three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan acting as prosecutor and famous Chicago lawyer Clarence Darrow arguing for the defense. Covering the trial for the Baltimore Evening Sun was famed writer/reporter H. L. Mencken, whose vitriolic eloquence is evident in such phrases as “I may be rancid butter, but I’m on your side of the bread.” In Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s version of the trial and its participants and spectators, names have been fictionalized: Matthew Harrison Brady for William Jennings Bryan, Henry Drummond for Clarence Darrow, E.K. Hornbeck for H.L. Mencken, and Bertram Cates for John Scopes. Even Mencken’s newspaper has been renamed the Baltimore Herald, and Dayton, Tenn., is the quaint town of Hillsboro. No doubt there were some legalities involved with this creative license, as well as protective reflex against the paranoid political climate of the time. Whatever the reasons, “Inherit the Wind” feels as resonant today as it must have 50 years ago. Its underlying message of allowing one the right to think free of fear, reprisal and repercussion strikes a contemporary nerve with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, and proposed wire-tapping in tow. And the play’s central drama, to keep scientific theory of evolution out of the classroom and maintain the notion of creationism as inviolate, seems naively ironic at a time when fundamentalists are trying to bring religion back to public schools. If there is cause to be critical of “Inherit the Wind,” it would be that all the sympathy cards are seemingly stacked heavily in favor of Drummond and Hornbeck, a thematic deck appearing to be a smug, liberal, intellectually superior smear against the backward thinking, old-time religion embracing beliefs of Brady and his followers. Such an assumption is surely buttressed by the surgical way Drummond rattles Brady on the witness stand, asking him how old he thinks a rock is that he’s holding in his hand. Brady retorts, “I am more interested in the ‘Rock of Ages’ than I am in the age of rocks.” When Drummond taunts him with his purported expertise on the Bible with “The Gospel According to Brady! God speaks to Brady and Brady tells the world! Brady, Brady, Brady, Almighty!” Brady lashes back with stammering fury to the court crowd, “All of you know what I stand for — what I believe! I believe in the truth of the Book of Genesis! Exodus! Leviticus! Numbers! Deuteronomy! Joshua! Judges! Ruth! First Samuel! Second Samuel! First Kings! Second Kings! Isaiah! Jeremiah! Lamentations! Ezekiel!” It would be tempting to dismiss this scene, played with blistering intensity by Doug Ingalls as Drummond, and Joe Arsenault as Brady, as blatantly one-sided, but so rich is the alchemy between these two fine actors that we both feel the bruise of Brady’s wounded pride and comprehend the wily, desperate tactics Drummond needs to employ to state his case to a judge who won’t allow a whiff of scientific testimony in his courtroom. Late in the play, when Hornbeck unexpectedly offends Drummond with his cynical litany about Brady after an unfortunate turn of events, Drummond chastises him with “he was a great man!” Suddenly the deck doesn’t seem so stacked, and Drummond reveals himself to be not just a resourceful, cunning lawyer, but a deeply thoughtful, ethical and caring man. Ingalls is an actor of magnanimous intelligence, and he seems to know exactly what gesture and vocal inflection to use at any given time. What is especially noteworthy about his portrayal of Drummond is that he walks gracefully up to the door of condescension without entering the room. Drummond is too stately a man to ridicule people for their strident religious beliefs and Ingalls plays him precisely that way. Arsenault expertly manages to make us challenge our attitude about Brady as the drama unravels. As haughty and high-minded as Brady may be, Arsenault inspires a feeling that wavers somewhere between admiration and pity for a man who is so firm in his beliefs that he will shut out anything that threatens that foundation. Robin Gabrielli is right on target as Hornbeck, so self-absorbed in his own caustic prose and disdain for true feeling, that he’s his own best critic when he says, “I do hateful things for which people love me, and I do lovable things for which they hate me. I’m admired for my detestability.” Gabrielli projects those observations effortlessly. Erik Evan Johnsen, as Cates, is mostly a cipher for the battle being waged over him, but he has one startling burst of a scene. Stacie Beland, as his fictitiously written girlfriend, Rachel Brown, has a warm and assured presence. Cedric Flower is scarily effective as her father, the Rev. Brown. Richie Dussault is convincingly authoritative as the judge and Kit
Randall amusingly obsequious as the town mayor. Ellen Cornely, Todd
Darling, Sam d’Entremont, Cecil d’Entremont, Robert C. Latino and
Phil Spiva, among others, provide able support to director Edward
Cornely’s smart and vividly enacted production.
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