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Wednesday November 18, 2009
Inherit the Wind
Rob did not pass on a ticket for this Old Vic production starring Kevin Spacey and David Troughton, and directed by Trevor Nunn. The 1955 play is based on the true story of the Scopes Monkey Trial - the play, again, made famous by a film, in which a school teacher is prosecuted for teaching of Darwin's theories of evolution. The great lawyer Clarence Darrrow acted for the defence; a hugely popular Democrat politician, William Jennings Bryan was prosecutor. The trial became a worldwide sensation.
I enjoyed the performances of all the actors. David Troughton was surprisingly (only in that he is English) convincing as a populist American politician. Spacey produced his one of his favoured character roles, though I did feel that his playing to the audience in the final moments of the play was not warranted. During the trial scenes we, the audience were in the position of the jury, so both legal teams were "playing" to us. When it was all over, the character was alone on stage and his mimed summary should have been expressed more privately without the awareness of an audience.
I had no particular deep knowledge about this trial prior to seeing the play, but was interested to read in the programme that the real-life trial was a "put up job". Scopes "agreed" to admit he had been teaching evolution (which he may not have done in fact as he was a sports teacher) to enable the American Civil Liberties Union to defend a test case. I also did not realise that the defense did not succeed in this trial, and that the overall point on the teaching of evolution was not finally decided until 1968.
Posted by Christina at 11:33 PM. Category: Art and Culture
