March 20, 2025: ScopesStudying: Three Plays

[100 yearsago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ButlerAct, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. Sothis week I’ll AmericanStudy that law and the famoustrial it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks oneducators.]

How threestage adaptations of the trial reflect the fraught relationship between art andhistory.

1)     Inheritthe Wind (1955): Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s play, which hasbeen itself adaptedinto multiple films for both screen and TV, is in many ways the mostwell-known representation of the Scopes trial. Which is quite ironic, since intheir “Playwrights’Note” before the text Lawrence and Lee explicitly argue that the play “isnot history,” that “it is not 1925,” and that “the stage directions set thetime as ‘Not long ago.’ It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow.” Tomy mind both the play and the 1960 film adaptation are profoundly focused oncontexts and questions from theage of McCarthy, making Inherit very much a counterpart to TheCrucible (1953) and far more interesting as a 1950s text than a portrayalof the 1920s.

2)     Inherit the Truth (1987):As that article traces at length, Daytonplaywright’s Gale Johnson’s 1980s play was overtly and entirely intended asa rebuttal to Inherit the Wind, but not so much in terms of historical inaccuraciesabout the trial per se. Instead, Johnson believed that the prior play had badlymisrepresented both William Jennings Bryan and the town of Dayton, and sought tocorrect those errors with a play that is hugely laudatory toward both the manand the community (or at least its conservative Christians). I haven’t readJohnson’s play so I can’t speak to its specifics, and in any case it’s importantto note that her goals are no more (or less) problematic than those of anyplaywright. But I’d say her use of the word “Truth” in her title is deeply problematic,and indeed extends Bryan’s embrace of mythic patriotism about which I wrote inyesterday’s post.

3)     The GreatTennessee Monkey Trial (1993): Whatever its flaws, though, Johnson’splay seems to have had at least one important positive effect: it helpedencourage playwright PeterGoodchild to write a play based far more explicitly on the trial’stranscripts and histories than either of the Inherits had been. Inawarding Goodchild’s play its Earphones Award, Audiofile magazine noted that, “Because thereare no recordings of the actual trial, this production is certainly the nextbest thing.” I hear that, and using transcripts is definitely a way to guaranteea significant degree of historical accuracy. But at the same time, any actorwho performs Goodchild’s roles is an actor who’s performing, not (for example)Bryan or Darrow themselves. So the relationship of art and history remains atleast a bit complicated here, if certainly distinct than with either of thoseprior stage adaptations.

LastScopes context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?