Those who believe that “Inherit the Wind,” the intense courtroom drama chosen by Bristol Riverside Theatre to end its current season, is a historically accurate retelling of the story of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 have never read the authors’ preface.
Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee state clearly that although their play bears numerous similarities to that notorious trail of a small-town biology teacher who dared to defy his state’s mandate not to teach Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in its publicly funded schools, it is not an attempt to represent fact.
In later interviews, they explained that the play was their reaction to the then-current McCarthy Senate hearings, which had become unstoppable media circuses that destroyed numerous lives and careers with McCarthy’s demands for searching out and blacklisting Communists.
Many of the play’s characters bear striking similarities to those involved in what happened when John Thomas Scopes violated the Butler Act in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. It should not be assumed, however, that prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady, a three-time presidential candidate, and defense attorney Henry Drummond are really William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, the lawyers in the actual case.
Michael McCarty, who plays Brady in the Bristol production opposite the Drummond of Keith Baker, isn’t so sure Lawrence and Lee were being totally honest.
“They used lines from the actual court transcripts, although they did some juggling and rearranging with those,” McCarty says. “They used the words but put them in the mouths of others if it suited the dramatic situations better.
“The man I play did die, but it was five days afterwards and not the night of the verdict, but putting those two events closer together made them more dramatic and perhaps created a bit of sympathy for Brady,” McCarty adds.
“The young teacher, here called Bert Cates, didn’t have a girlfriend who was a minister’s daughter, but that detail makes him a more likeable character as a put-upon romantic and therefore more interesting to an audience,” says McCarty.
In his long and varied theatrical career, McCarty once directed an experimental play written by Lawrence and Lee, and now he has thought of all sorts of questions about his current role that he might have asked had he anticipated that he would someday play Brady.
“Both lawyers are such rich, fascinating characters who had been friends years before, but who look like enemies in the play,” McCarty says. “They respected each other’s opinions and abilities. Brady had the disadvantage of not having practiced law in 30 years, although he did have the advantage of having public opinion, represented by the many townspeople attending, on his side.
“I also have the feeling that Drummond and Brady’s wife might start up something after his death, and that could give another wrinkle to the plot,” McCarty adds.
“What they present in both sides of the argument is still relevant today in issues about personal rights and freedoms and should give all of us plenty to think about,” McCarty says. “Perhaps that’s why the play is still being done so often more than a half century after it premiered on Broadway. It’s not really about just one particular court case.”
Director Susan Atkinson believes that, since the results of the trial will affect the entire Hillsboro community and how it deals with future important issues, her own community could be represented within this production.
This huge cast brings in almost three dozen local people, ranging in ages upwards from 8, and many are appearing on stage for the first time.
That’s where associate director Kathryn Moroney comes in. She’s become the townspeople’s shepherd and guide, and she has found that experience stimulating.
“I was bowled over by their commitment and enthusiasm, even if it was for only a single line that someone gets to say,” Moroney says. “I was a bit startled too. After all, when any stage production is being readied, everybody involved knows what that takes, what’s going on and what’s needed to be done. That’s because of experience, but that’s not our situation here. Most them are new to all this.
“All these community people need such obvious things as costumes, but there are also things which are not so obvious.
“We have several hymns which are sung during the play, but we deliberately did not include singing in our auditions. How would it look for a random crowd of ordinary citizens to sound like a professional choir? That just wouldn’t happen in a small town, so we don’t want it to happen here,” says Moroney.
She answered many interesting and often challenging questions because each local participant was enacting a person, an individual. Would this woman carry a handbag? Did people bring their lunches to court? Did ladies sit differently in 1925?
“My favorite question was about the term “green room.’ Why do people in the theater call it that if it isn’t even green?
“That answer took a bit of pondering,” Moroney says.
“Inherit the Wind”
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, through June 9
Where: Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, Pa.
Admission: $30 and up, with student, group and military discounts available; (215) 785-0100 or brtstage.org