Arena Stage’s Inherit the Wind Blows in Too Many Directions
Ryan Guzzo Purcell’s production of Inherit the Wind spreads its action across the Fichandler, sometimes at the expense of focus.
Arena Stage’s deep-set, in-the-round Fichandler auditorium would seem a colosseum well-suited for a dramatic courtroom duel grounded in sturdy, in-your-face debate.
On the other hand, that beautiful bucket is a lot of space to fill, vertically, laterally, and in every other direction that reaches 680 seats. Left untamed, the Fichandler can swallow up performers or a production, and, all too easily, the sounds they make. That seems close to the case with Ryan Guzzo Purcell’s diffuse new staging of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s enduring drama Inherit the Wind.
Purcell, founding artistic director of Seattle-based theatrical ensemble The Feast, attacks the cavernous space from every corner, everywhere, all at once. The entire floor of the Fichandler fills in as Hillsboro, the podunk town where our story takes place, rendered as a vast, dusty, desert prairie by set designer Tanya Orellana.
Ensemble members dash in with wooden railings and chairs as needed for set accents suggesting the county jail, courthouse, and such. Trouble has blown into town in the form of schoolteacher Bert Cates (Noah Plomgren), who taught his sophomore Science students Darwin’s On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, the evolution of man.
For that heresy, technically against the law in Hillsboro, Cates stands trial in a case that threatens to tear the town apart, based on the real-life Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925.
William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, the opposing legal heavyweights who argued that landmark trial, are interpreted in the play as Bible-touting, three-time presidential candidate Matthew Harrison Brady and famed firebrand attorney Henry Drummond. Portrayed respectively by stage vets Dakin Matthews and Billy Eugene Jones, Brady and Drummond emerge as the two most centering forces in a production prone to feeling scattered.
With action sprawling to each corner, and game ensemble members like Holly Twyford and Todd Scofield rotating in and out as various characters, the energy onstage can feel too dispersed. Dialogue and text drift off into the expanse.
The atmosphere is only further dissipated by the antics of newspaper writer E.K. Hornbeck (Alyssa Keegan), dispatched by the director to roam loudly among the theater audience, a self-interested observer of the events in Hillsboro.
But the case, the text, the points being made are all brought sharply into focus via Matthews’ assured Brady, a courtly gladiator leaning on his faith and moral righteousness. Likewise, Jones’ swaggering Drummond presents a powerful defense not only of his client Cates, and his scientific arguments, but of the principle of free thought, especially in a land where unorthodox free speech is punishable by law.
Brady versus Drummond proves to be the show’s high point, with the elder statesman claiming to defend “the living truth of the Holy Scriptures” against “the blasphemies of science.” From the hills of this very District to the sunburned prairies of Hillsboro, that debate rages on evermore in this country, wherever the wind blows.
Inherit the Wind (★★★☆☆) runs through April 5 at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $73 to $118, with discount options available. Call 202-488-3300, or visit arenastage.org.
More from Metro Weekly:
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.