Remember, Inherit the Wind

I was twelve when I saw it. That was the year my parents allowed me  take the subway from the Bronx to Manhattan; go to Saturday matinees with friends, and return to the Bronx without any parental supervision. I think that was a milestone for me---I could not believe that the ticket taker would let my friend and I into the theater without an adult, but we gave him the tickets, he gave us the stubs,  and in we were.
Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee was a play about the Scopes trial. Names were changed, otherwise it was accurate.  It starred Paul Muni as Henry Drummond, the character modeled after Clarence Darrow. Muni was a legend among Jewish theater goers, the idea of seeing him in person was overpowering. Ed Begley played Matthew Harrison Brady, the character modeled after Williams Jennings Bryan, who had run for President three times and lost. E. K. Hornbeck, a character modeled after H.L. Menken, a smart alec reporter was played by Tony Randall, already familiar to me from his television work.  The production, directed by Herman Shumlin was performed on a two tiered set---the back tier being the main street of the town, and the lower space, the court room.  The cast must have consisted of about 40 to 45 people, many of them playing townspeople, on the streets of Hillsboro (the name of the town) or courtroom spectators. The whole production had a kind of epic sweep to it--in the town scenes, people were constantly in motion. I bought into all of it.
   There was a revival of the play in 2007 starring Christopher Plummer in Muni's role, and I remember finding its conflict rather shallow and simplistic. It wasn't helped by the production which seemed very superficial. But as a twelve year old, watching, Muni, Begley, etc, I was totally enthralled. As I said earlier, the production's look was authentic, the flow of people as they moved through the stage, incredibly natural, and of course, "good" (Drummond defending Bertram Cates, the character modeled after John Scopes) defeated "bad" (the sheer stubborness of Brady and his followers). Muni was cool and sharp as a tack, but the more I play that afternoon back in my head, the more I consider Ed Begley's performance as Brady, the key to the play's success.In act I, Brady has much more stage time then Drummond, and Begley's portrayal, full of himself, yet sincere, a powerful speaker whose charisma reassured the townspeople, a man of strength and confidence,  solidified Act I, and gave Drummond and his followers something really to fight against.
   Act II was mostly the trial itself, and that is where Drummond triumphed and Brady fell. Much laughter in the audience, every time Drummond's questions flustered Brady and exposed a literal belief in the text of the bible in explaining the creation of the world. Tony Randall's part, E.K. Horrnbeck had no lines in Act II, yet there was Randall in the center of the stage, laughing hysterically every time Drummond shot Brady down. Very enjoyable if you saw what Brady was fighting for as backward,. Yet in the final scene of the act, all have left the courtroom but the totally humiliated Brady and his wife: "They are laughing at us, mother" Brady cries out to her---a man with great pride totally beaten down.
  Act III ties it all up. Brady is giving a final speech when he collapses and is carried off. Drummond, about to leave, hears that Brady has died. Hornbeck, who saw Brady as nothing but a deluded showman, makes a joke about his passing.  Drummond is outraged: "There was much greatness in
this man", and again, from Begley's performance, you really believed that. The play ends with
Drummond alone on stage, about to leave for the train station, holding Darwin in one hand and the
Bible in the other.  All I know was that I was enthralled.
  And so I returned to the Bronx and to my seventh grade dreams (whatever they were). The next
play that I would see on my own was The Lark, Lillian Hellman's adaptation of the play by Jean Anouih about Joan of Arc, which starred Julie Harris. More about that some other time.