Inherit the Wind, a play written by Jerome Lawrence and
Robert Edwin Lee, was written according to the authors as a response to attacks
on intellectual freedom coming from Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s
infamous pursuit on communists during the early 1950’s. The “McCarthy hearings” refer to hearings
conducted when McCarthy headed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations in 1953 and 1954, when McCarthy sought to root out Communism in
America, especially in the State Department and armed forces. These hearings are often confused with the
activities of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that focused
during the same period (actually beginning in 1947) on the film and theater
communities, and were seen by many as a witch hunt, leading friends and
co-workers to turn each other in for suspected Communist leanings. McCarthy did not launch his attack on
Communism in 1950; the same year that Lawrence and Lee completed the script of
Inherit the Wind, thus the author’s contention that the play was a response to
McCarthyism is probably disingenuous. It
seems obvious that, if anything, the play is a response to the activities of
the HUAC and that McCarthy was simply a convenient focal point for all efforts
to suppress Communism in the United States.
Inherit the Wind is loosely based on the 1925 case of The
State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, AKA “the Scope’s trial” and “the
Monkey trial.” The play's preface says
that while the trial was its "genesis," it is "not
history.” Nevertheless, the popularity
of the plan caused many people to assume that it was an accurate portrayal of
the events of the trial, and the true facts of the case are often
forgotten. The play was not produced on
stage until 1955. For the preceding two
years, between 1952 and 1954, the authors could not find a buyer for the
script. Finally, in 1954, Margo Jones, a
producer from Dallas, agreed to produce the play at Theatre '55. The opening of
the play on January 10, 1955, drew rave reviews. On April 21, 1955, the play moved to
Broadway’s National Theatre, and featured Paul Muni, Ed Begley, and Tony
Randall in the principal roles. Reviews
were almost unanimously favorable. The
following appeared in April 25, 1955 edition of the Morning Telegraph
by Whitney Bolton
For what it has to say, and the explicit way in which it
says it, there is no more important play in New York that "Inherit the
Wind," a dramatic evaluation of the famed Scope trial of 30 years ago.
This is a play which, in the pleasant-tasting icing of excellent theater, gets
across to its audience the core of value beneath the icing: there is no more
holy concept than the right of a man to think.
This is important beyond description. In an era when this
one right along is taking a brutal beating, it is healthy and needful for
creative men and women to take their stand in defenses of such a right.
"Inherit the Wind" could have been much less a satisfying play and
still would be a statement heartily to be embraced and supported.
The Scopes trial seems long ago and dimly away now. It seems
ridiculous that an entire nation could have been aroused and flung into two
bitter camps because a very small potatoes of a public teacher chose to state
the theory of evolution in his classroom. That this teaching violated a statute
of Tennessee was then and curiously is now true. Some statutory benefits came
from the Scopes trial, but erasure of the law forbidding the teaching of
evolution was not one of them. Nor is that of importance. What is of importance
is that from that musty little town, whipped into fervor by the presence of
William Jennings Bryan on the side of orthodox interpretations of the Bible,
and Clarence Darrow, on the side of enlightenment and science, came a note of
hope; that men could think of themselves without censure or impoundment and
that the lost little soul of the trial, the accused, made it easier, even
though by only a fractional amount, for the next accused thinker to take his
stand for it.
This is the nub of what Darrow fought for. He had no great
interest in publicly humiliating Bryan; he had no real concern with fighting
the Bible orthodoxy. His own estimation of the case went far deeper than that
and into the realm of something he looked upon as holier than sacred writ; the
full, free, unmenaced and unbruised right of a human being to think.
This splendid theatrical presentation of the battle has been
powerfully arrived at by the precise writing of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E.
Lee, and it has received determined and affectionate direction from its
producer, Herman Shumlin. Mr. Shumlin is a man of thought as well as a man of
theater, and it is plain in his work with this play and the people in it that
is courageously alongside the late Darrow in the conviction of what makes
rights and what makes the struggle to retain them.
But nothing that the authors wrote and not enough of the
direction Mr. Shumlin provided would have had the thrust essential to the play
if a lesser actor than Paul Muni had occupied the principal role. His
interpretation of the role that is frankly Darrow is a wonder of performance, a
full-bodied and magnificent performance which stirs from the moment of silent,
shuffling, round-shouldered entry until the legally defeated and when his
convicted little client receives from Darrow the true import of what the trial
has meant in terms of freeing the minds of humanity for their noblest purpose,
thought. This is one of Mr. Muni's most colorful and brilliant performances in
a long career of such. It reaches horizons few actors ever see, much less
arrive at, and it has the stature of giantism.
Not discernibly less brilliant is Ed Begley in a role just
as frankly Bryan. Mr. Begley brings to it the needful sonorous note, the pious
humility of the professional religious layman who, spreading himself in an area
where only he is saint and all adversaries are labeled sinful, gloats over and
mocks his foe. When these two reach their moment of clinch in the play, the
work at the National Theatre becomes a thrilling event.
In 1960, a film based on the play opened in Dayton,
Tennessee, the site of the actual Scopes trial, on July 21, the anniversary of
the verdict rendering in the actual case in 1925. The film was produced and directed by Stanley
Kramer and starred Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond, Frederick March as Matthew
Harrison Brady, and Gene Kelly as E. K. Hornbeck. Like the play, the film was both a critical
and financial success. Most of Kramer’s
films were noted for engaging the audience with political and social issues of
the time and included such “message movies” as High Noon (1952, as producer),
The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961),
Ship of Fools (1965) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).
Drummond v. Brady
To briefly summarize the play, Inherit the Wind is a
courtroom drama set in the imaginary town of Hillsboro in an unspecified State
at an unspecified time, "Not long ago" according to the stage
directions. “It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow” according to
The Playwrights' Note. A young school
teacher, Bertram Cates, is in jail for violating a State law prohibiting the
teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools. His principle in-town persecutor is Reverend
Jeremiah Brown, a fundamentalist Protestant Christian preacher of indeterminate
denomination who believes in Biblical literalism. He is widowed, and has a
daughter, Rachel who is romantically linked to Cates. The trial is something of a cause célèbre and
the local district attorney has recruited famed orator and three time Populist
presidential candidate to be the primary spokesperson for the Prosecution. For the Defense, the Baltimore-based
newspaper, the fictional Baltimore Herald has hired Henry Drummond, another
nationally known attorney who was once Brady's closest friend, and has
dispatched a glib and cynical reporter, E. K. Hornbeck to cover the trial.
The carnival atmosphere surrounding the trial is evident by
the sundry vendors hawking Bibles and hot dogs to the town people as they await
the arrival of Brady. The sarcastic
Hornbeck watching the scene remarks, “Ahhhh, Hillsboro- Heavenly Hillsboro. The
buckle on the BibleBelt.” The sentiment
of the crowd gathered by Reverend Brown to greet Brady is evident in the
posters they carry:
ARE YOU A MAN OR A MONKEY?/AMEND THE CONSTITUTION- PROHIBIT
DARWIN /SAVE OUR SCHOOLS FROM SIN/ MY ANCESTORS AIN’T APES!/WELCOME MATTHEW
HARRISON BRADY/ DOWN WITH DARWIN /BE A SWEET ANGEL, DON’T MONKEY WITH OUR
SCHOOLS!/DARWIN IS WRONG! /DOWN WITH EVOLUTION /SWEETHEART, COME UNTO THE LORD
Brady from the beginning is portrayed as a caricature of the
southern politician, large than life, both literally and figuratively. He sprinkles compliments on the townspeople
like sugared candy while chowing down on huge quantities of food. He can win people over with his affable
manner and he succeeds in gain the confidence of Rachel Brown, extracting
information from her about the defendant Bertram Cates.
Similarly, the Reverend Brown is performed as an intolerant
zealot, again a stock figure of the southern fundamentalist and religious
bigot. When he learns from Hornbeck that Henry Drummond will represent Cates in
court, his response is predictable:
“I saw Drummond once. In a courtroom in Ohio. A man was on
trial for a most brutal crime. Although he knew-and admitted- the man was
guilty, Drummond was perverting the evidence to cast the guilt away from the
accused and onto you and me and all of society…
You look into his face, and you wonder why God made such a man. And then
you know that God didn’t make him, that he is a creature of the Devil, perhaps
even the Devil himself!
The Reverend Brown
Quick to pass judgment on the state of another man’s soul,
he even alienates his daughter first by denouncing Cates and her relationship
with him as sinful, and then in a frenzy of zealotry by cursing both Cates and
Rachel to Hellfire. At a rally he leads
his flock:
BROWN: (Pointing a
finger toward the jail) Do we curse the man who denies the Word?
ALL: (Crescendo, each
answer mightier than the one before) Yes!
BROWN: Do we cast out this sinner in our midst?
ALL: Yes!
BROWN: Do we call down hellfire on the man who has
sinned against the Word?
ALL: (Roaring) Yes!
BROWN: (Deliberately shattering the rhythm, to go
into a frenzied prayer, hands clasped together and lifted heavenward) O Lord of
the Tempest and the Thunder! O Lord of Righteousness and Wrath! We pray that
Thou wilt make a sign unto us! Strike down this sinner, as Thou didst Thine
enemies of old, in the days of the Pharaohs!
Let him feel the terror of Thy sword! For all eternity, let his soul
writhe in anguish and damnation-
RACHEL: No! (She rushes to the platform). No, Father.
Don’t pray to destroy Bert!
BROWN: Lord, we call down the same curse on those
who ask grace for this sinner- though they be blood of my blood, and flesh of
my flesh!
This is even too much for Brady who interrupts to put an end
Brown’s hateful fanaticism.
"Heavenly" Hillsboro
The town itself also takes on the role of a character in
this drama. It is divided between the
devoted and the indifferent. The devout
are the narrow-minded, mean-spirited amen chorus who follow Brady into town
singing “If it’s good enough for Brady then it is good enough for me.” and join
Reverent Brown in condemning Cates to Hell and damnation. Later, they are burning Drummond in effigy
and singing about ”hang[ing] Bert Cates from a sour apple tree.” The indifferent are represented by the two
jurors with speaking roles: the illiterate Mr. Bannister who wants “that there
front seat in the jury box” because “everybody says this is going to be quite a
show,” and George Sillers who works at the feed store. Sillers stays “pretty busy down at the feed
store” and lets his “wife tend to the religion for both of us.” We are told in a stage direction that Cates
has a “smattering” of supporter but we neither see nor hear from them.
The trial rapidly transforms from focusing on Cates’
singular crime of teaching evolution in opposition to State law to an
indictment of the law itself and the mindset of the people who enacted and
supported it. Brady, Brown and the town
of Hillsboro see the trail as a defense of the law and by extension their faith
in the Bible as the literal and unambiguous word of God. In a comment to Hornbeck, Brady reveals that
which he fears:
I have been in many cities and I have seen the altars upon
which they sacrifice the futures of their children to the Gods of Science. And
what are their rewards? Confusion and self-destruction. New ways to kill each
other in wars. I tell you, going the way of scientists is the way of darkness.
And in the courtroom he expands on this after interviewing
one of Cates’ students:
I am sure that everyone on the jury, everyone within the
sound of this boy’s voice, is moved by his tragic confusion. He has been taught
that he wriggled up like an animal form the filth and the muck
below!(Continuing fervently, the spirit is upon him) I say that these
Bible-haters, these “Evil-utionists,” are brewers of poison. And the
legislature of this sovereign state has had the wisdom to demand that the
peddlers of poison- in bottles or in books- clearly label the products they
attempt to sell!(There is applause. HOWARD gulps. BRADY points at the boy.) I
tell you, if this law is not upheld, this boy will become one of a generation,
shorn of its faith by the teachings of Godless science! But if the full penalty
of the law is meted out to Bertram Cates, the faithful the whole world over,
who are watching us here, and listening to our every word, will call this
courtroom blessed.
Henry Drummond, in spite of the invectives hurled against
him by Brady, Brown and the people of Hillsboro, is in the courtroom not to
destroy their faith, but to demand the right to question it as he expresses in
this exchange:
DRUMMOND: I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard
(the boy from Cates’ class)- or Colonel Brady- or Charles Darwin—or anyone in
this courtroom- or you, sir- has the right to think!
JUDGE: Colonel
Drummond, the right to think is not on trial here.
DRUMMOND: (Energetically) With all respect to the bench, I
hold that the right to think is very much on trial! It is fearfully in danger
in the proceedings of this court!
BRADY (Rises) A man is on trial!
DRUMMOND: A thinking
man! And he is threatened with fine and imprisonment because he chooses to
speak about what he thinks.
It is Brady’s tactic to attack Cates, the man. He uses information learned from Rachel Brown
in confidence to attack Cates religious views.
Calling her to the stand, Brady twists her words and bullies her into
tears, and it is only Brady’s wife’s horrified outburst stuns Brady back to his
senses.
It is Drummond’s strategy not to defend Cates’ act, but to
attack the law:
I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially.
You can only destroy. You can only punish! And I warn you (Points first at
BRADY, then to various members of the audience and the JUDGE) that a wicked
law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches! Its upholders as well as its
defilers! Can’t you understand that if you take a law like evolution
and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it
a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a
crime to read about it? (Turns to the crowd in the gallery and begins
addressing them. The crowd has grown strangely quiet during all of this as they
listen. BRADY looks worriedly.)And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And
then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against
Protestant, and try foisting your own religion upon the mind of man! If you can
do one, you can do the other! Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy
and needs feeding.(Strides slowly back to the JUDGE’S bench)And soon, Your
Honor, with banners flying and drums beating we’ll be marching backward. . .
.BACKWARD-to the glorious ages of that sixteenth century when bigots burned the
man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!
But in the end, when Drummond’s attempts at an argument of
ideas fail, Drummond too resorts to a personal attack against Brady and his
fundamentalist beliefs. Having all of his attempts to show the rationality of
Darwinian theory, Drummond calls Brady to the witness stand in the capacity of
an expert witness on the Bible.
Drummond’s goal is to demonstrate through that the Bible is not to be
taken literally Brady’s pride leads him to answer Drummond’s challenge. Brady’s
responses to Drummond’s mocking questions reveal him to be closed-minded and
utterly unable to respond to questions about Biblical incidents that contradict
natural law. He is shown to be more unthinking and unquestioning than faithful
and he is finally goaded into admitting that the “days´ of creation need not
have been twenty-four hour days at all” and that the scientists might just be
right in dating the age of the Earth at many millions of years instead of the
6,000 year old Earth accepted by Biblical literalists. Drummond succeeds in undermining the
credibility of Brady and his beliefs by making him appear ridiculous, the one
thing Brady cannot bear.
The trial ends in Cates being found guilty but this is a
hollow victory for Brady who has been marginalized by his testimony. When, at the trials conclusion, he attempts
to recapture the spotlight with a victory speech, he is utterly ignored, even
by his former followers. Mid-speech, he
falls over and dies. The play concludes with Drummond eulogizing his fallen
friend and adversary:
A giant once lived in that body. But Matt Brady got lost. Because he was
looking for God too high up and too far away.
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