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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Inherit the Wind — Monkey Shines in "Heavenly" Hillsboro
By Harry Haun
13 Apr 2007
The fundamental things apply in Inherit the Wind, which blew back to Broadway April 12 and is now in a holding pattern over the Lyceum: Simply place two first-class stars together
on opposite sides of the courtroom, throw them a timeless (if not downright topical) issue to address, then move out of the way and watch the sparks fly from all the head-butting.
In this second-Wind Broadway-revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's 1955 war-horse courtroomer, John Barrymore is in one corner and James Tyrone is in the other — or is that Cyrano de Bergerac on the left and Willy Loman on the right? What it is, of course, is two titan thespians chunking their Tonys at each other as opposing attorneys — Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy — locked in a state of suspender animation, popping and pulling at points of law, giving new meaning to the word
mouthpiece as they gracefully graze their way through an illuminating night of theatre.
At stake here is the sanctity of An Idea, this being a lightly fictionalized account of the
Scopes "Monkey" trial of 1925 in which Tennessee fundamentalists took to court a high-school teacher (John Scopes, called here Bert Cates) for contaminating teenagers
with Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Plummer is the big liberal lawyer from back East who rises loftily to Scopes' defense, Henry Drummond (read: Clarence Darrow).
Upholding the literal word of the Bible, preaching to the converted, is Dennehy as Matthew Harrison Brady (otherwise known as William Jennings Bryan), a pompous
Bible-thumper and three-time Presidential also-ran who revels in the palm leaves of the
locals. Cynically on the sidelines, calling the play-by-play for the Baltimore Sun, is H.L. Mencken (a.k.a. E.K. Hornbeck), played here by a third Tony winner, Denis O'Hare.
Casting director Jay Binder has splashed about in the deep end of the local casting pool and reeled into some excellent character actors to populate Hillsboro — just to name a few in this cast of 34: Terry Beaver of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Lanny Flaherty of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Beth Fowler of The Boy From Oz, Maggie Lacey of the last
Our Town, Jay Patterson of K-2, Charlotte Maier of Dinner at Eight, Henry Stram of
Titanic, Pippa Pearthree of The Miss Firecracker Contest, among many.
Typical of the overqualified citizenry who's happy to ride this Wind out is Bill Buell, last seen in The History Boys and here seen as the rube in overalls who's tapped for jury duty.
"We have to get our brains together for the second act to just sit there in the courtroom," Buell admitted, "but the first act is a great journey, and I have just enough to do to feel
like I have something going on." And, he conceded, it's not The Chinese Water-Torture
Test to watch Plummer and Dennehy going at each other a good half-hour — a great
half-hour — when Drummond puts Brady on the stand as a Bible expert and wears him out.
"The main goal is Christopher — to watch him," Buell said. "I've learned from him. When
you get to be, after a while, a certain age — who can you still learn from anymore? And
I've finally found someone again. I study him every night, the way he has cobbled together that role. I can't wait to have another big role myself. He is playing the age that
he in fact is. Backstage, he's this dapper roue, but he makes himself look the age he is."
At 77, Plummer is a robust, charismatic figure of a man and moved to his own drummer
at the after-party held at the Bryant Park Grill. He is a generous and thoughtful actor in a one-on-one interview situation, but it was plain he had no patience with the chaotic hoopla that followed the play. Masking his vague annoyance at the scene, he raced
through the paparazzi gauntlet of TV cameras, sound bites and pesky reporters in a sprint.
It's hard to be insistent with a performer who had just given so profoundly at the office. "I
have a good time every night," he said in passing (quickly). Did he have a favorite scene
in the play, something he looked forward to every night? "Ah, no. They're all good."
The brilliance of the character gives off a good-guy glow — it won a Tony for the originator, Paul Muni, and Oscar and Tony nominations for Spencer Tracy and George C. Scott — so perhaps to deflect the white-knight card he has been dealt, Plummer plays the
role in what looks like a state of perpetual discomfort (a la Gary Cooper, who had back pain during the filming of "High Noon" and got an Oscar for it). "It's those damn chairs," offered Plummer offhandedly. "If you had sat in one, you'd have a back problem, too."
Jordan Lage, who plays the token prosecuting attorney very much lost in Brady's
shadow, seconded Buell's motion that this production was a valuable experience for a
working actor. "It's a thrill because of Plummer and Dennehy," he agreed. "It's great fun
to be on stage with those two legends. Both of them are just awesome in this show."
And that goes for the new kid on the Broadway block, Benjamin Walker, who is making
his Main Stem debut as the forgotten man — on trial, Bert Cates. "It was a dream job to
work with those guys," he said, "truly fantastic." (Walker was the original lead in Spring
Awakening — Melchior — when the musical was workshopped for a one-performance bow at
Lincoln Center a few years ago, and outgrew the role by the time it was Broadway-ready.)
Dennehy, who had hair a month ago when he did My Fair Lady's dustman Alfred P. Doolittle for six performances at Avery Fisher Hall, made the bald sacrifice and sported a baseball cap at the party. Physically he resembles his predecessors in the part (Ed Begley and Charles Durning on Broadway, and Fredric March in the movie), but he makes the character far more likable and accessible than the other Bradys. "Well, why not?" he shot back. "Why shouldn't he be likable? He's a Christian. He really believes. For example,
he's the only person on stage who forgives the reverend for bigotry. He's willing to
forgive anybody, including Drummond. He believes in his mission. His faith is only
shaken at the end when Drummond's logic finally pierces through and does him in."
By lightening Brady's fanaticism and making him seem a rather friendly Everyman of the
people, Dennehy gives the impression of being impossible to topple. But Doug Hughes, in an inspired bit of direction, takes the wind of his sails with the flick of a light switch.
"That was my idea — I did that," the director had no trouble admitting. "I had a very good
time of this. It was a lot of work, but I had a wonderful time directing this play. I'd been
thinking about it for quite a while. [Producer] Bill Haber and I talked about it over a year ago. I think the play does seem well worth reviving right now. It plays into a persistent issue in America. There's always going to be a conflict where deep religious belief is more important than the notion of rational thinking in America, progress, the advance of
science — these things that are enshrined American values. They're continually in conflict.
"We were very confident about reviving it," he admitted, "and we've been truly heartened
by the way it has been received — really, from the first night we've performed it. While we
were still working and refining the play, audiences have been incredibly encouraging." Continued...
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