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Photo by Don Kellogg

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Inherit the Wind

The Scopes Monkey Trial comes to Broadway with two legendary actors on opposite sides of the courtroom. Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plumber take on the legendary courtroom battle based on the trial of a young teacher (Scopes) who wanted to teach Darwin's theory of evolution in an extremely zealous and religious small town.

This staging seemed appropriate for today. The story was more about the ideas and highlights of the extreme views rather than the details of the original courtroom drama. Very relevant even today - - considering the fact that religious extremism surrounds us all over the world and at home even today!

Dennis O'Hare rounded out the stars in his portrayal of E.K Hornbeck, the journalist from Baltimore Maryland who's newspaper hired Henry Drummond to come defend the poor teacher against the slings and arrows of the religious zealot of the time, Matthew Harrison Brady.

What an incredible season on Broadway - after just seeing Angela Landsbury and Marion Seldes to then see Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy one-up each other on stage like the old pros they are! They just don't make 'em like they used to. Catch this one while you can. It was relevant 100 years ago, it's relevant today, and will probably be 100 years from now too.