Michael Michetti is enjoying the challenge of reimagining a classic play. He’s helming the Pasadena Playhouse’s “fresh take” on Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind, opening today, Wednesday, Nov. 1 and running through Sunday, Dec. 3 (for details, see below).
The familiar courtroom drama is based on the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, where a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution. A populist thrice-defeated presidential candidate from Nebraska, based on William Jennings Bryan, Matthew Harrison Brady (John Douglas Thompson), comes to town to prosecute the young teacher. He’s opposed by famous trial lawyer, Henry Dummond (Alfred Molina), based on Clarence Darrow. A cynical newspaperman for the fictional Baltimore Herald, E.K. Hornbeck (Chris Perfetti), based on H.L. Menken, covering the trial, comments on the action.
Lawrence and Lee wrote the play as a response to the threat of the McCarthy era. The playwrights used the fight of creationism vs. evolution to make their case for intellectual freedom. For Michetti, the play’s themes of legislating morality, assaults on freedom of thought and speech, the refutation of science and banning books, “feel just as relevant today. It’s about how personal interest groups use the law to infringe on other people’s rights.”
Taking Another Look
This new look at a classic is the result of discussions a few months ago between Michetti and Danny Feldman, producing artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse. “A friend recommended it to him, and he re-read it recently and realized that it’s very timely and ripe for revisiting,” says Michetti.
Having directed three previous productions at the Playhouse (Uncle Vanya, King Charles III and A Life in the Theatre), Michetti was excited about “what the play has to say and how much it parallels today in America. It’s a beautifully constructed American classic and we discussed finding a new way into it.”
A Fresh Approach
In Michetti’s interpretation, “The cast members are essentially playing themselves as actors telling a story. The idea is very much like the first day of rehearsal,” Michetti adds. “A group of people are on stage on this night who all showed up to tell this story from nearly 100 years ago. There are no false illusions of being in another time.”
There’s virtually no set, and the microphone the radio announcer uses (this was the first trial broadcast nationally) is from prop storage.
The production also features “a large number” of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) actors who “never would have been cast in this show,” says Michetti.
The playwrights were specific about the show’s music and the hymns that set the atmosphere like Marching to Zion, Give Me That Old Time Religion and Go Tell It on the Mountain. “We’re using some hymns of that time, not named in the script like All Things Bright and Beautiful and Amazing Grace, largely as transition material,” says Michetti. Darryl Archibald’s a cappella, harmonious vocal arrangements reflect our way of using traditional text with a more modern viewpoint.”
E.K. Hornbeck’s dialogue in the play is all written in poetic style. “He believes he has a real sense of superiority,” says Michetti. “He’s dealing with uneducated, small-town rubes and language is his superpower. He uses it in a self-conscious way to elevate himself above these people. Chris is finding ways to use this old-fashioned syntax and vocabulary to his advantage.”
Pairing It Down
An initial part of the process was streamlining, Michetti says. The original production had 50 people, and a recent revival had 34. Michetti is working with a cast of 17.
In their request for performing rights, Michetti and Feldman proposed cutting many in the scenes leading up to Matthew Harrison Brady’s arrival. To create a circus and revival-life atmosphere, the original had photographers, a Ladies Aid Society picnic, hot dog and other vendors, even a hurdy gurdy man complete with monkey (a sly nod to the play’s theory of evolution references).
“We trimmed away some of the characters that didn’t appear again and in some scenes we may have two or three people shouting instead of three or four,” says Michetti. “We did add words to conflate some characters, but it’s all there. We want to look at Inherit the Wind as a new play reflecting this moment in time.”
For research, Michetti read reviews of the play and its production history. To help “fill in the blanks,” he studied trial details like the fact that Darrow gave the judge a copy of Darwin’s book after the trial. “I like having those tidbits in my back pocket. But I also had to let go of things that don’t support the way we’re approaching this.”
An Involving Solution
The work still has the demands of a courtroom drama with a full trial jury, spectators, a bailiff and witnesses. “With a cast of 17 and 12 in the jury, we came up with the idea of using some audience members as part of the jury and gallery as spectators,” says Michetti.
With courtroom seating available in the onstage gallery or in the jury box, “audience members will get to be part of the story,” says Michetti. Since it’s not an interactive play, attendees will not be asked to participate in the action. “They won’t be given any instructions. They’ll sit there with cast members, dressed basically in rehearsal clothes, blending among them and we’ll see what happens. I’ll be curious to see how they feel.”
The conceit also “plays into the idea that the Playhouse was founded with a sense of community,” adds Michetti. “And regional theatre is slipping away from that a little bit. Danny’s priority is to represent the community and have people from the community be part of something.”
Freeing It Up
For Michetti’s approach to Inherit the Wind a knowledge of the Scopes Trial isn’t required. “We’re trying to be true to the text, and not rely on what audiences necessarily know about the characters.”
When the play was first produced in 1955, it was only 35 years after the trial and Bryan and Darrow were still well-known figures. “Thirty years from now if we did a historical play set in 1988, people wouldn’t necessarily relate,” says Michetti. “So we want to be in this moment and use the circumstances of the script—a small town caught up in religious fervor—as a launching pad for a story that’s applicable the lives of people in 2023. We’re trying to free ourselves from the shadows of Bryan and Darrow.”
An Intriguing Relationship
The centerpiece of the play is the confrontation when Drummond finally gets Brady on the witness stand and it’s two renowned lawyers going head-to-head in a battle of wit and wisdom. “I love the circumstance of two people who had been friends who now find themselves on opposite sides of an issue and feel very strongly,” says Michetti. “And yet it comes between these two men who have history and respect for each other. That complicates things as the men draw some blood in this sport that comes with a cost. How far do you go for an idea for a higher good with someone you have love and respect for?”
Rehearsing with Molina and Douglas Thompson, Michetti found them to be “generous and nuanced in finding places where they go for the jugular and also knowing the quiet moments of the damage they’re doing to one another.”
A Key Lesson
One of the places the playwrights diverted from history is the character of Bertram Cates, the biology teacher. He was actually an eager defendant who agreed to the trial with his legal fees paid by the ACLU and Baltimore Sun. In the play, he’s reluctant and scared. “He’s someone doing the right thing even though he finds himself in the crosshairs of a law he believes is wrong,” says Michetti. “Abubakr Ali (Netflix’s Grendel) is playing the role as someone who goes through with something he feels is important.”
At one point in the play, Cates asks Drummond if he won or lost. “It’s a key moment,” says Michetti. “Drummond says you made it possible for the next guy. We need to stand on the shoulders of those who risk vilification or being sent to prison standing up for a cause.”
The Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Performances are 8 p.m., Tuesday-Friday; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday and 2 and 7 p.m., Sunday. No performance on Thursday, Nov. 23. For tickets and more information, call 626-356-7529 or visit PasadenaPlayhouse.org.
Steve Simmons is an accomplished writer and editor who writes about a wide array of topics including entertainment. His successful experience at The Beverly Hills Courier and other publications set the stage for his blog. Contact Steve at steve.simmons0211@gmail.com or 626-788-6734.
