NTC's 'Inherit the Wind,'' July 2006

Deep homo sapien panic

By Mark Langton

IJ Correspondent

Once again, the now-homeless Novato Theater Company (formerly the Novato Community Players) has risen above both adversity and expectations by pulling off an absolutely riveting production of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s “Inherit the Wind,” which had its opening Oct. 29 in their temporary venue at Unity of Marin in Hamilton Field.

Not since the last time Bay Area theater legend John Brebner sat in NTC’s visiting director’s chair and made A.R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room” the surprise hit of last year’s winter season, has this 81-year-old, comfortable old shoe of a company turned out anything of this caliber. In years past, the company’s offerings could be less like a night of theater and more like a night of Bingo. Brebner really should visit more often.

Coming at a time when the U.S. political climate has taken a sharp and unprecedented veer to the right, when religious fundamentalism appears to be on the rise both at home and abroad and Creationism (or, as it is called today, “intelligent design”) is once again being pushed as an alternative to Darwin, “timely” doesn’t even say it.

Ripped, as they say, from today’s headlines, the play is the fictionalized retelling of the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial" (as it was called in the newspapers of the day), in which Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theories to his high school biology students in violation of state law. The trial became a national cause celebre when The Baltimore Sun, represented by the great journalist (and dyed-in-the-wool atheist) H. L. Mencken, hired famed attorney Clarence Darrow to defend the young schoolteacher. On the other side of the fence, the attorney for the prosecution was the crusading demagogue and three-time Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan.

The Scopes character (played by Buzz Halsing, who is also credited as Assistant Director and Music Director) is named Cates in this story, and Halsing plays him with great energy – perhaps too great. When he makes his first entrance among the crowds of milling townsfolk picketing the courthouse, he looks every bit like the bandleader in “The Music Man,” about to break into song, "free-style" (“I’m the new O.G. /and that rhymes with “D”/ and that stands for DARWIN…!”)

One of the more interesting performances of the evening was by actor Phil Wharton as the Darrow character, Henry Drummond. From the moment Wharton lopes into view -- with his baggy suit, funny tics, hair incongruously long underneath his snap-brim fedora, he looked like a cross between Groucho Marx and a clean-shaven Abe Lincoln. We like him on sight, and suspect we have an character on our hands. We are not disappointed.

Another interesting take on a role is Joe Peer’s interpretation of E.K. Hornbeck, clearly meant to represent journalist and social satirist H.L. Mencken (sometimes called “The American Nietzsche”). His ongoing commentary and mutterings are pure Menckenisms; and, while he doesn’t appear to trip over himself to comfort the afflicted, he still never hesitates to afflict the comfortable.

Conspicuous by their presence in crowd scenes are assorted small-town types and characters related to the principals. There is the apoplectic fundamentalist minister, Rev. Brown, played with gusto by Steve North, who gives the Bryan character, Mathew Brady (played by Mark Jordan) a run for his money when it comes to hellfire and brimstone. Either actor could have played either role. There is the latter’s painfully conflicted daughter and Cates’ paramour, Rachel Brown, a nervous but tasteful vision in white who chews her lip a lot (the vision thanks to the costume designs of producer Brenda Weidner, et al.). She does a journeyman’s job with a thankless role.

The staging was inventive and, at times, almost choreographed like a square dance. It was just as old-fashioned, anyway: When the two principals begin, they stand at far stage left and far stage right, striking stiff profiles that bring to mind those old textbook drawings of the Lincoln-Douglass debates – very stylized and artfully done. Also, Brebner’s last-minute decision to make the audience the jury box was inspired. The resulting eye contact with both lawyers during their summations made them that much more persuasive, and us that much more engaged.

There is a nobility to this work, ennobled further by this dignified production. When the two men come to their final showdown and the barrier of dogma is breached, it is, finally, Darrow/Drummond’s words that lifts us up, again. It is not the ring of oratory but the ring of truth, not the logic, but the sheer poetry of his argument, that transforms this play into something larger. Who can not be stirred when Drummond/Darrow pleads with the court, with anyone who will listen, to open their minds? “Don’t you understand?” he shouts. “That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD through the glorious ages…when bigots burned the man who dared to bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”