Inheriting Inherit the Wind: Debating the Play as a Teaching Tool

Abstract

The 1960 film Inherit the Wind (ITW) speaks to so many of the tensions intrinsic to mid-twentieth century American life that, with superb acting, scripting, and stage direction, it quickly became a film classic. Based on a 1955 play that had set records as the longest running drama on Broadway, the movie featured renowned actors Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly. Its opening scene sets the tone. A delegation of small-town officials led by a stern-faced minister interrupts a likeable young high school science teacher in the midst of telling his students about the Darwinian theory of human evolution. His teaching violates the law, the teacher is told, and he is placed under arrest in full view of his wide-mouthed students. In the background, the voice of the great African-America soloist, a thenyouthful Leslie Uggams, softly sings “Give Me That Old Time Religion.” Cut to a stack of big-city newspapers reporting the story in shocked headlines, then back to the small, vaguely southern town, where the jailed teacher becomes a social outcast. Teaching Darwinism undermines the faith of students in the biblical account of human creation, townspeople are told by the scowling minister. His very name, Jeremiah Brown, evokes images of the fanaticism of the biblical Jeremiah and the abolitionist John Brown. His actions reinforce these images. “Do we curse the man who denies the Word?” Brown rhetorically asks the assembled townspeople at one point in the play. “Yes,” they reply in unison. “Do we cast out this sinner in our midst?” he adds, prompting a mightier affirmation from the crowd. “Do we call down hellfire on the man who has sinned against the word?” Brown shouts. The mob roars its assent. Although the teacher is named Bert Cates and the town called Hillsboro, viewers surely equate him with John Scopes and transpose the scene onto the historic events that transpired in Dayton, TN, during the summer of 1925. In ITW, the main characters (except Brown and Scopes’s fiance, who had no parallels in Dayton) are given soundalike pseudonyms for their real names. The script sets the time simply as “summer, not too long ago” and the place as “a small town.” Stage directions for the play begin, “It is important to the concept of the play that the town is always visible, looming there, as much on trial as the individual defendant.” Although the movie version begins with the dramatic schoolroom arrest, the play is limited to fewer sets. It opens with a jailed Scopes explaining why he had been arrested. “You know why I did it,” he says. “I had the book in my hand, Hunter’s Civic Biology. I opened it up, and read to my sophomore science class Chapter 17, Evo Edu Outreach (2008) 1:150–157 DOI 10.1007/s12052-008-0039-6