Review Theatre: Inherit the Wind | The Old Vic | Kevin Spacey | Trevor Nunn

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The Review - THEATRE by MICHAEL MANN
Published: 15 October 2009

Wind blows Spacey back to US

INHERIT THE WIND
The Old Vic

IT’S HARD to imagine a finer example of perfectly timed theatre. As the debate over religion and free-speech hots up, Trevor Nunn and Kevin Spacey pop up with a supremely apposite production of Inherit the Wind.
On the surface it is the story of the infamous 1925 Monkey-Scopes trial in which a hapless teacher was prosecuted in Tennessee for breaking a law banning the teaching of Darwin’s theories.
Underneath, it is a showdown between the forces of reaction and progress, with the defence funded by the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union and the whole weight of America’s Bible-belt behind the prosecution.
The trial was also a clash between two old friends-turned-rivals, legendary left-wing courtroom bruiser Clarence Darrow and fading orator William Jennings Bryan.
Written as America was in the grip of McCarthy’s attacks on free-speech, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s play has never been properly staged over here.
In America it’s a classic but the benchmark is Stanley Kramer’s epic 1960 film.
Spacey’s always had a soft-spot for Darrow. So he’s perfectly at home as Henry Drummond, the lawyer stalking the courtroom alone against religion, reaction and arthritis, just as Darrow had.
David Troughton plays a fine Matthew Harrison Brady, who sinks every ounce into defending his faith – though when faced by Drummond’s interrogation, Brady’s old certainties visibly drain away. Nunn’s production situates the citizen jury in the front row of the stalls. But the counsels often appeal over their heads, roping the audience into the action just as Darrow and Bryan once directed their words beyond the seething courtroom.
Until December 20
0844 209 1805

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