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David Troughton and Kevin Spacey face-to-face in Inherit the Wind |
Titans clash in courtroom
INHERIT THE WIND
The Old Vic
IT'S HARD to imagine a finer example of perfectly timed theatre.
Just as the debate over religion and free-speech hots up, Trevor Nunn and Kevin Spacey pop up with a supremely apposite production of Inherit the Wind.
On the surface it is the story of the infamous 1925 Monkey-Scopes trial in which a hapless schoolteacher was prosecuted in Tennessee for breaking a controversial law banning the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Underneath, it is a showdown between the forces of reaction and progress at a critical moment in American history – a nation divided by prohibition, rapid industrialisation, and bitter memories of the Civil War; the defence funded by the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union; the whole weight of America’s Bible-belt behind the prosecution.
The trial was also a clash between two old friends-turned-rivals, the legendary leftwing courtroom bruiser Clarence Darrow and the fading fundamentalist orator William Jennings Bryan. The trial’s bitter-sweet outcome left a deep scar on an ageing Darrow.
Written as America was in the grip of Senator McCarthy’s attacks on free-speech, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s brilliant play has never been properly staged over here. In America it’s been a theatre classic but the benchmark is Stanley Kramer’s epic 1960 film.
Spacey’s always had a soft-spot for Darrow. So he’s perfectly at home as Henry Drummond, the lawyer stalking the courtroom alone against religion, reaction and arthritis, just as Darrow had. David Troughton plays a fine Matthew Harrison Brady, based on Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate, who sinks every ounce into defending his faith against the onslaught of progress. The play doesn’t always hit the heights of Kramer’s film but finds an emotional rhythm of its own and hits a crescendo when, faced by Drummond’s withering interrogation, Brady’s old certainties visibly drain away.
Supreme amongst the journalists recording the whole thing was the coruscating columnist HL Mencken. EK Hornbeck is the play’s cruel version, deftly played by Mark Dexter.
Nunn’s production cleverly situates the citizen jury in the front row of the stalls. But the battling counsels more often than not appeal over their heads to the audience, roping it into the action just as Darrow and Bryan once directed their words beyond the seething, sweating Tennessee courtroom.
If the idea was to reach a new audience it was well intentioned – and perfectly timed.
Not just because it’s Darwin’s 200th anniversary but because a so-called religious clash of civilisations was used to start two wars, because free-speech is under attack, and because schools teaching creationism are expanding with taxpayers cash.
Until December 20
0844 209 1805 |
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