The authors were wise to insist that the program for Inherit the Wind, specify Place and Time as "A small town...not long ago." The play still represents places in America that are parochial and resist change, where, unfortunately (just so you know where I stand), "the right to think is very much on trial." Here, being free to think means being able to teach scientific theory, even if it seems to or does contradict long, stanchly-held beliefs. Here, science is represented by Darwin's theory of evolution, in opposition to religious belief in a Biblical account of creation as literal truth that cannot be questioned or denied.
Loosely based on the Scopes trial of 1925 but topically inspired by McCarthyism, Inherit the Wind, if one-sided regarding theories of creation, presents a powerful polemic. The drama endures because it skewers unjust law and legal proceedings, along with fanaticism, while dramatically it pits two colorful characters against each other.
Flowery-of-speech John Sterling Arnold couldn't sweat better, especially in the heat of argument, than as Harrison Brady, the self-satisfied fundamentalist prosecutor of science teacher Bertram Cates (clean-cut Scott Bowman). Face etched from experience and care, all-in-brown Bradford Wallace is hunched defense attorney Harrison Brady. Cheering him on from the sidelines is Baltimore journalist-critic E. K. Hornbeck, played on one loud, cynical note by Patrick James Clarke. Between the two (scripted) blusterers, Wallace wisely underplays. Except for sweet Jennifer Plants, Cates' fellow teacher who loves him but fears her fundamentalist preacher-father (stern Patrick Eagan), townspeople (including Douglas Jones' Judge) seem in the main fanatic. Or silly or ignorant. Director Millman does little to unstack the deck the authors have dealt.
He has said he loves the clash between the principals, and indeed, that may be why everything else unfolds like melodrama rather than epic theater. Does Brady have to be such a pig (and not just by overeating) as well as momma's boy? (With his wife yet!) And down center in a quasi-pieta! Then there's the crowded set (Millman wanted it cramped) on two levels, with a section of Main Street across the upstage, where both a picnic and a sermon unbelievably take place. The courtroom is below, stretching beyond the proscenium arch. Sides are stuffed with either jury or witnesses who can't be seen from house right or left. Everything's on, all the time. Phony is the effect, like overhead and carried signs, all seemingly created by the same person. Happily, costumes convey period and place more authentically.
Music from an organ grinder (with monkey, natch) helps create atmosphere, though as irony, it's overstatement.
