The setting for Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s play Inherit the Wind, is a small conservative Tennessee town during the first half of the 20th century. When a local school teacher, Bertram Cates, is arrested for teaching Darwin’s evolutionary theory in contravention of state law, the pious Southern community becomes the unlikely locus of a national debate on freedom of thought.

The 1955 play loosely follows the true story of the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925. Two senior iconic political figures arrive in Tennessee to argue the case, and the national press corps descends upon the town to cover the “trial of the century.” Religious conviction certainly guided societal norms. But in a world of new inventions and discoveries, how could schools shut the book on science? Was the state of human knowledge so complete that government could close men’s minds to new ideas?

This tale of challenge to and defense of intellectual freedom was of particular interest to the playwriting team of Lawrence and Lee, who wrote Inherit the Wind during the 1950s, when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigation of communist sympathizers in the United States was in high gear. McCarthy’s targets were purged from their employment in government, business and the arts and pressured to reveal friends and family members whose thoughts, associations and activities were suspect. Thus, Inherit the Wind was born a parable of the need for tolerance of individual liberty.

The core of the play is the brinksmanship and argument of two distinguished old men, three-time presidential candidate and prosecution counsel, Mathew Brady, and crafty defense lawyer, Henry Drummond, played by veteran actors David Francis and Sean McCann, respectively. Brady, played by Francis with quiet fervour and a touch of resignation, relies on faith for answers and for the criminal conviction he seeks. McCann’s Drummond, on the other hand, is a keen strategist whose command of the lively and artful rhetoric is a highlight of the show. He turns each line into a tactical barb, challenging orthodoxy, inviting understanding, and defending freedom. Drummond hammers away at Brady’s certainty in the literal reading of scripture. Brady’s beliefs hold firm but seem inadequate to the questions asked as though he cannot grasp the post-cubist world of multiple perspectives.

These two men have a history and their relationship is a complex admixture of competition, conflicting values, and regret over lost friendship. When Brady asks why they have become distant, Drummond counters, “All motion is relative. Perhaps it is you that has moved away by standing still.”

Unlike the legal teams, however, the people of Hillsboro, Tennessee, are not seeking the political spotlight. The teacher on trial, Cates, played by Karl Graboshas, and his romantic interest, Rachel, played by Tamara Brown, are caught up in a storm beyond their understanding. Cates has a reserved dignity as the catalyst and unlikely hero of the story. Rachel, the local every(wo)man, doesn’t want to make waves or see her man get hurt. Yet Brown makes the most of her character’s dilemma, navigating a web of societal expectations on the way to finding her own truth. Rachel’s conversations with Cates and others sparkle with vulnerability and feeling, punctuating the play’s sometimes too-even register. Directed by Greg Kramer, with a set by Elli Bunton and costumes by Susana Vera, Inherit the Wind is the opening play of the Segal Centre’s 2009-2010 season.

Today we may be tempted to take freedom of thought for granted, and it has, no doubt, become a sacred institution in much of the West. Lawrence and Lee wisely caution that the forces that inhibit freedom may change their place and time, and that defenders of liberty must be willing to put up a spirited defense.

Inherit the Wind is playing at The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts through November 8. For more information and ticket details, go to the Segal Centre site.

Tagged as: Darwin, evolution, Joseph McCarthy, Scopes Monkey Trial