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.

A Touch of the Poet

Gabriel Byrne and his cast members gave us an outstanding evening of theater at Studio 54. A classic straight play with a talented supporting cast aptly directed by Doug Hughs brilliantly entertained us for the entire 2 hours and 40 minutes. (Kudos cousin Cindy!)

The story is set in colonial Boston - July 1828 - and focuses on the Maloy family, lead with great pride by Gabriel Byrne (MAJOR Cornelious Maloy). It becomes aparant that he used to be a gentleman of great stature living on an estate in Ireland in days gone by. However, since his transplantation to America - we learn that he seems to have slipped a few notches down to the status of inn-keeper. What keeps him going is the memory of his days in the army - fighting in Spain for England. Seemingly unaware that he is not a "real" gentleman any longer - he fights his family and his inner self as they all struggle with what love and honor really means to each of them.

Irish Family and Booze - all classic O'Neill - but not at all one of his trademark durges - The play, however, does close with a familiar note of "in the end, nobody really wins".