"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart." -Proverbs 11:29

Daily Herald
By Barbara Vitello
Daily Herald Critic at Large
Posted Friday, October 13, 2006

In the 19th century, Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” ignited controversy. In the early 20th century, it sparked a furious evolution vs. creationism debate that culminated in the famous 1925 trial of John Scopes, who was arrested for teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee state law. The Scopes Monkey Trial pitted lawyer-statesman and devout Christian William Jennings Bryan against civil libertarian attorney Clarence Darrow.

In the 21st century, the science vs. faith battle still rages. It has shifted from creationism to intelligent design, but it unfolds the same way, in a courtroom in middle America. Eighty-one years after Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, 2006’s Kitzmiller vs. the Dover Area School District, in which parents challenged the Pennsylvania school board’s inclusion of Intelligent Design as part of the science curriculum, once again addressed evolution education.

If timing is everything Northlight Theatre’s top-notch revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s 1955 play “Inherit the Wind” comes at the right time. Inspired by the Scopes trial, but taking poetic license, it is neither history nor journalism, but pure theater. It’s about intellectual freedom, challenging the status quo and defending one’s convictions. And like Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” it’s a form of social criticism, a not-so veiled response to the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings of the 1950s.

Two statements bookend this droll, prophetic courtroom drama, which still resonate, today. “It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow,” says one character at the beginning of the play, referencing the timelessness of the faith-science debate. That sentiment is repeated late in the play by defense attorney Henry Drummond (Scott Jaeck, an exceptional actor with remarkable comic instincts).

For Drummond, the case is about defending the First Amendment and man’s ability to think freely. When he says “you don’t suppose this kind of thing is ever finished” it emerges as warning and a call to arms to guard fiercely those guarantees too often under attack.

And while the play suffers from problems endemic to many courtroom dramas (it’s talky and static in spots and some of the second act courtroom scenes drag) Northlight’s production is articulate and thought-provoking. It benefits from compassionate direction by Jessica Thebus(who shrewdly casts the audience as both jury and congregation) and fine work by Jaeck in the Darrow role, and Tony Mockus, gracious as Matthew Harrison Brady (the Bryan role).

Mockus resists making a caricature of Brady, a man who time has passed by. He reveals the man’s sincerity, his absolute faith and his compassion, making his eventually breakdown even more heartbreaking.

The cast also includes Levi Holloway as the overwhelmed but resolute Bertram Cates (stand-in for Scopes); Erica Elam as his conformist girlfriend, a minister’s daughter who finds it “safer not to think;” Francis Guinan in a brief but well-defined performance as her fire-and-brimstone father and slick comic turn from the versatile Joe Dempsey, thoroughly enjoying his role as the cynical, condescending reporter E. K. Hornbeck (based on H.L. Mencken, who covered the Scopes trial for the Baltimore Sun).

3 ½ stars out of 4