As
full disclosure, I must note that "Inherit the Wind" is one of my favorite
plays. I leaf through my own well-thumbed hardcover copy of the play to locate
resonant speeches, and regularly view the 1960 movie version throughout any year.
This was my first opportunity to view this American classic on stage, in its
original context, and the structure, the speeches, the theatricality of the
piece is splendid. Northlight Theatre's streamlined and modernistic vision supports and does
not overwhelm the power of the words we have driven out to the Chicago suburbs
to hear, and the themes we have come to see explored. We in the audience are
fellow townspeople or members of the jury or visitors in the courtroom,
depending on the particular setting. And we watch as if from an historical
distance the quaint country people with their quaint country ways, until we
realize that the play's arguments about the role of religion in public life,
and the role of righteous belief in tailoring educational curricula to fit one
vision of what is right and true is just as relevant in 21st century America as
it was at the beginning of the 20th century in a small town in Tennessee. This
play is for the ages. Most aspects of this lovely production are lasting too.
In
a "summer, not too long ago" in "a small town" (as proxy
for the Tennessee town that host the actual Scopes trial in summer 1925 upon
which this play is based), a young school teacher Bertram Cates (Levi
Holloway) dares
to teach Darwin's theory of evolution to his class of high school students. As
this is in violation of state law specifically prohibiting the teaching of this
theory, Cates is prosecuted for this violation. The earnestly religious town
leaders and townspeople support the law and turn on their own neighbor
initially - is it fear of change or simply mob rule that encourages this
behavior? The case becomes a national referendum rather than a local response
to a unique and questionable state law when national figures descend on the town.
Matthew Harrison Brady (Tony Mockus), evangelical and national political leader, arrives to
prosecute, and Henry Drummond (Scott Jaeck), defender of the oppressed, human rights, and
the separation of church from politics and education, arrives to defend young
Cates. Rather than a local corrective to a miscreant teacher, the case becomes
a test of the right of a legislative body to determine the nature of a school
curriculum. Also in town to observe and comment is E. K. Hornbeck (Joe
Dempsey), a
reporter from Baltimore, who has arrived along with scores of other national
press representatives to relay the news of this small town's behavior to the
rest of the world.
Cates's
story as portrayed in this play is one of an earnest young teacher, struggling
to educate young minds. This professional mission is balanced, as it always
must be, by the rest of human civilization: the young teacher's community
(Hillsboro, Tennessee), the state legal structure in which that community
exists, and the young woman Rachel (Erica Elam) Cates loves, and daughter of
the religious leader of the community. Cates's struggle to accommodate his
philosophical stance about his professional position with this love for Rachel
is a touching dimension of the story. This is not as successfully resonant in
this production as other performances, yet the performances are sweet.
There
are several proxies for the audience member in this play and in this
production. First there are the good townspeople (represented by ensemble members)
who attend a revival meeting, populate the courtroom, and are members of the
jury in the course of the show play another role -- a sort of mob that
righteously cheers their hero at one point and turns on him at another. The
modern audience member can also tag along with the character Hornbeck, the
cynical reporter. At one point he describes his role: "I'm not a reporter,
I'm a critic. .. I'm here on a press pass and I don't intend on missing any
part of the show." We see his commentary through his words and also
through director Jessica Thebus's placement of him on the stage: lurking at the edges,
hanging from the outsized ladders that define the edges of the set. Hornbeck is
the role of the cynical chorus, outsider, with no invested interest in the
outcome but doubting the intentions of everyone.
Brady
becomes our tragic hero, whose humanity is revealed in tender sequences with
Rachel and with Rachel's dad. Yet his tragic flaw is his blindness to the
possibilities of a secular human society. He is sensitive to the effects of
imposing rigid religious interpretations and retributions on individually
identified people (i.e. Rachel, a religious young woman), but he is not
sensitive to the effects of religious imperialism and encroachment on the
legislative process on a young man like Bertram Cates. The performance by
Mockus is evocative but not overwhelming in this role.
Jaeck
as Drummond, on the other hand, builds through quietude a grand performance.
"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind", from
Proverbs, is initially quoted by Brady to Rachel's dad Reverend Jeremiah Brown
at a point when Brown's rhetoric makes a righteous statement yet clearly
verbally condemns his own child Rachel. Used at this moment, the quotation
illustrates that the rigid Brady has room for human kindness, and will tempers
his rhetorical wrath to the needs of his human audience. Later in the play, the
quotation is started by Hornbeck, and completed by the purported agnostic
Drummond, setting up the final integrative speeches and stages actions of the
play.
The
glorious modernist set by Brian Sidney Bembridge creates multiple playing areas
and surprising images as metaphors. Where are the multi-purpose oversized
ladders leading to - heaven or some other constructed location? How do we
interpret the row of doll houses lining the back of the stage - as the local
townspeople watching the action of the play or as commentary on the content of
the play itself? The joy is in the multiple possible interpretations of the set
design choices. As a delightful bonus, characters crawl upon these structures
in different ways at different times of the action, suggesting the media and
literal hangers-on who watched the action of the court case as if a radio play,
a serial, a docu-drama, a soap opera.
This
is a story of people finding their limits in language, in action, in
philosophy, in politics. This is a story of the choice between whether to live
in the world of human interactions, or to live in a world of
superhuman/extraterrestrial/spiritual expectations and activities. This is a
story of valuing the human sphere as much as the spiritual sphere, and
respecting the difference. The core of the play comes near the end of the
second act, when Brady asks of his interrogator Drummond, "Is it possible
that something is holy to the celebrated agnostic?" Drummond replies
forcefully yet calmly, deliberately, providing the concrete examples that bring
tears to a humanist's eyes. "Yes! The individual human mind. In a child's power
to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your
shouted 'Amens!', 'Holy, Holies!' and 'Hosannahs!'. An idea is a greater
monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is more a miracle
than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of the waters!" If the
resonance between the events dramatized in this play and today's political
climate remain opaque to the theatre-goer, excellent materials included in the
playbill and in lobby displays by dramaturg Rosie Forrest will fill in the
gaps. A marvelous revival of a classic American plan.