INHERIT THE WIND

While we were at Father Ryan, the tradition of producing a Senior Class Play was revived, largely through the efforts and leadership of (then) Father Ed Johnston.

After staging TWELVE ANGRY MEN (1967)and TEN LITTLE INDIANS(1968) in the preceeding two years, our class performed INHERIT THE WIND.
It's a 1955 play written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. It is somewhat loosely based on the infamous Scopes "Monkey" Trial held in Dayton, Tennessee back in 1925.

As you'll recall, John Scopes was a school teacher accused and ultimately convicted of violating Tennessee state law by teaching the theory of evolution in his classes rather than the theory of creation based on the Bible.

The trial was a national sensation, bringing noted and controversial defense attorney Clarence Darrow to Dayton to defend Scopes, while the prosecution was aided by three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan.

The names are changed in the play, but the many issues raised by the case are pretty much the same: intellectual freedom versus almost mindlessly clinging to tradition . Here are the two major characters of the play in their climactic scene as portrayed in our Father Ryan production by Phil Bennett (Mathew Harrison Brady/Darrow) and Mike Schoen (Henry Drummond/Bryan)....

Over the years, INHERIT THE WIND has been revived numerous times both on and off-Broadway. It is also been made into a motion picture on four occasions, including an all-star cast in 1960 that featured Spencer Tracy and Fredric March in the two leading roles as well as Gene Kelly as the Reporter Hornbeck (based on the real-life journalist H.L. Mencken who covered the trial) along with Harry Morgan as the Judge in the case and Dick York who portrayed the Bertram Cates/John Scopes character.

Unfortunately, no audio or video tape record survives of our senior class play. But here's how Spencer Tracy and Fredric March played the climatic scene as depicted in the photo above....

Not bad acting I'd say.

But I remember Mike Schoen and Phil Bennet were awfully good as well when we performed this play on the floor of the old Father Ryan Gym.

INHERIT THE WIND clearly was based on history, but its message speaks to more than just the hysteria of that day over the battle between evolution and creationism. According to Wikipedia, the intent of the writers back in the 1950s "was to criticize the then current state of McCarthyism or anti-Communist investigations of the House Committe on Un-American Activities and Senator Joseph McCarthy." Said one of the play's authors, Jerome Lawrence," We used the teaching of evolution as a parable, a metaphor for any kind of mind control. It's not about science versus religion. It's about the right to think."