Inherit the Wind

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Pure and simple, The Modern Muse Theatre Company’s production of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit The Wind at the Bug Theatre should not be missed by anyone old enough to experience theatre.

Reverend Jeremiah Brown (Paul Page) calls down fire and brimstone on his daughter, Rachel Brown (Kelly Burke) in Modern Muse Theatre Company’s production of Inherit the Wind.

Why?

• Because of the content of the play along with its rhyme and reason to have been written in the first place;


• Because of the intricate set design by James Holly with its air of simplicity, practicality matched only to its ethereal thought provoking detail;


• Because of its stunning creative direction by Stephen J. Lavezza;


• Because of its jaw dropping awesome talented cast that individually stands out melding into an intricate maze of unity.

Overheard after Saturday’s opening night production, someone asked, “But where does Scopes come into this? It’s based on the Scopes Monkey Trail. Who is Scopes?”

2005 celebrates the 80th year of the famous trial in Dayton, Tennessee when John Scopes was accused of breaking the Butler Act passed earlier that year restricting the teaching of evolution in state-funded schools. He had the intellectual audacity to quote from Charles Darwin’s “Origins of Species.” The trial became an international sensation with two famous lawyers William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Nearly 200 reporters descended on the small Tennessee town including H. L. Mencken of The Baltimore Evening Sun, which helped forge Scopes’ defense.

Lawrence and Lee wrote their play in 1950, not finding its way to Broadway until 1955. A 1960 movie directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March is readily available in video stores, and the play is frequently performed around the country. The play and the movie differ greatly in points of view and emphasis.

Originally, the playwrights weren’t interested in coming down on one side or the other of creationism or evolution. They used the famed Monkey Trail to go after, in their eyes, a much bigger problem. The 1950s brought the McCarthy era, and a confined approach to the right of the individual to think freely. Thirty years had gone by since the trial. And it was a perfect platform to explore the growing anxiety and anti-intellectual attitude permeating the country.

They took great liberties with historical documentation. Names were changed: Clarence Darrow becomes Henry Drummond, awesomely performed by William Denis. William Jennings Bryan becomes Matthew Harrison Brady, with a jaw dropping performance by Louis Schaefer. John Scopes becomes Bertram Cates captured with confidence, defiance, questioning, and doubtfulness by Josh Hartwell.

E. K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald represents the famed reporter, Mencken, and is masterfully portrayed with an air of curiosity, observation, and playful arrogant cynicism by Matt Sheahan.

Paul Page wears the ministerial collar tightly secured around his neck as the Reverend Jeremiah Brown who controls the fictional town of Hillsboro with choking hell, fire and brimstone taunting power. Page is priceless wearing the cloak of righteous moral indignity snug around his neck strangling the entire town.

Well, not all the town. Howard, a young student, wanting desperately to flirt with life and ideas, grabs attention through the expertise of Max Posner. Even when the entire cast fills the stage, Posner keeps Howard alive with unabashed little boy antics in sharp definition.

Quiet confusion peaks trough the circus atmosphere created in this small town, with Rachel Brown, magnificently portrayed by Kelly Burke. The daughter of Reverend Brown, a teacher in the school system, and Cates’ fiancé, Burke molds her with silken threads in obedient trepidation to her overbearing father. Rachel, a fictitious character inserted into the historical files, becomes the voice of the playwrights and the point of the play.

In the beginning she begs Cates to recant his statements. The wall of discontent is laid brick by brick between them. After the trial she leaves her father’s unhappy, pious household, taking a stand on her own for the first time in her life. In reflection, she says to Drummond, ”You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think, so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know. A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born … Bad or good, it doesn’t make any difference. The ideas have to come out like children.”

The right to think, the right to be right and the right to be wrong permeate the essence of this play. A quick glance at our political and sociological landscape tells us the value of Inherit the Wind is probably more pertinent today than when it was first written.

Patty Mintz Figel grabs Brady’s wife, Sara by the overprotective, nitpicking, hovering horns of ownership. Figel owns Sara, who owns Brady with a mothering clutch.

Denise Perry-Olson wears the coat of righteous indignation as Mrs. Krebs. She wears the coat with hilarious moral authority, She knows what’s right, and it is she.

Jim Zieger wears the legal robe of the Judge with realistic judge-like mannerisms and political vulnerability side by side.

That’s one of the obvious points in this production. Each actor owns their character, allowing each one to stand out in the crowd. No small feat for any production.

The juxtaposition of animation in the courtroom to the jury wearing masks smacks as a brilliant concept of cross current ideas being played out by Drummond and Brady. The stage belongs to Denis and Schaefer with their opposing concepts, commanding lawyer-type demeanor, paunchy stance, and tripping up arrogance, while the courtroom observers maintain individual nuances of squirms, wiggles, and honest overt reactions allowing them to stand out. No one actor becomes a face in the crowd, a body on stage. They are as intricate to the main body as an index finger to a hand.

Lavezza’s stage direction is a visual feast of choreographic wonderment. Planting actors in the audience representing potential witnesses for Drummond who are rejected by Brady for their scientific background engages the audience to be part of rather than merely spectators of something that happened “once upon a time ago.” When he calls upon Zoologist, Dr. Keller to explain evolution, Brady deems zoology irrelevant. Desperate for witnesses, Drummond requests Brady take the stand, hammering him with Biblical literalism. When Brady collapses from a heart attack, Hornbeck’s incessant ridicule prompts Drummond to reprimand him insisting Brady was a once great man who had ceased to move forward.

There are profound touching moments. In the middle of the trial Brady addresses Drummond, “We use to be old friends. What happened?” Thoughtfully, Drummond responds, “You moved away by standing still.”

Dressed in body suits, the play opens with three actors symbolically portraying Adam, Eve, Satan a nd the seductive Tree of Knowledge. It carries a punch as tightly woven as the last few second with Drummond weighing the Bible and The Origin of Species slamming them together.

Inherit The Wind marks the inauguration of the professional Modern Muse Theatre Company, into the Denver theatre world. Inherit The Wind is also presented in association with Global Arts Ltd. a non-profit organization promoting positive change by “illuminating ideas, provoking thought, and stimulating discussion.” Inherit The Wind does everything promised and then some. Let it tease and stretch the imagination to compare the movie, the play, and the historical facts. Let the mind play with ideas, and be glad the mind can play, even if it has to ask “Where does Scopes come in?” Whatever, however, do not miss this knockout show.