Asolo Rep stages a courtroom classic with ‘Inherit the Wind’

Asolo Repertory Theatre audiences have gotten to know the work of director Peter Rothstein in recent seasons through three imaginatively staged musicals – “Sweeney Todd,” “Ragtime” and “Man of La Mancha.” With the opening of “Inherit the Wind,” the classic Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, patrons will get to see his debut production as the theater’s producing artist director and his first in Sarasota with a drama.

Those who know Rothstein’s affection for musicals and opera shouldn’t be surprised that music will be involved in the production.

“I couldn’t help myself. They open the gate to it,” Rothstein said with a laugh about the playwrights. “It’s not a musical, but we are including music, more than in the original production, because this is such a rich musical world, Tennessee of the 1920s. It’s all sacred music.”

Adding to the original hymns “felt like an opportunity to broaden the voices in the play a little bit. There are some new composers drawing on traditions of Southern Black churches,” he said. “It allowed us to kind of embrace Black traditions and white traditions.”

Jenny Kim-Godfrey, a singer and instrumentalist, serves as music director (as she did on last season’s “Man of La Mancha”) with her husband, guitarist Jonathan Godfrey, as music supervisor.

Actor Mark Benninghofen, who plays prominent attorney Henry Drummond (based on the real-life Clarence Darrow), said the music “does a wonderful job of unifying this town, which is another character in the play. It sets immediately the idea that this town thinks as one, worships as one. It’s clear that an outlier in that moment would be in trouble.”

He is playing that outlier as Drummond, a champion of the underdog, defends school teacher Bertram Cates, who is accused of violating a Tennessee law by teaching human evolution and the writings of Charles Darwin. Andrew Long plays his opponent, conservative attorney Matthew Harrison Brady (the stage version of William Jennings Bryant). In contrast to Drummond, Long said Brady “is welcomed to town like the second coming. He’s playing to his base. It’s almost as if he comes in on their shoulders,” the actor said.

Staging a trial

The real trial in 1925 drew national attention and coverage from prominent reporters like H.L. Menken, represented in the play by Sasha Andreev as E.K. Hornbeck. (Andreev played Tata in Rothstein’s production of “Ragtime.”)

In reality, the case was staged and promoted by the small town of Dayton, Tennessee to raise publicity for the community and its merchants.

“A couple of the merchants got together and plotted this whole thing,” Benninghofen said. “A couple of people came expecting big drama and left because they thought the verdict was already determined.”

Lawrence and Lee used the Scopes trial as a way to deal with their concerns about the years-long communist witch hunts and trials that were led in Washington, D.C.,. in the 1940s and 1950s by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Arthur Miller did something similar with his 1953 play “The Crucible” using the Salem witch trials as a period metaphor.

As the new production opens in a nation increasingly divided by religious/conservative, secular/liberal lines, Rothstein said he doesn’t want audiences to expect “progressive propaganda. It’s a very nuanced conversation. All the characters are empathetic and just when we think we know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, the playwrights find a way to create total empathy.”

Benninghofen added that “the audience will find their argument spoken to during the evening. As soon as you know where you’re heading, there will be an action in one camp that will make you think differently. Drummond says, if you use your mind and think and don’t just follow dogma, you might find yourself thinking and we might be able to have a conversation.”

Contrasting styles

But it is clear from the outset that Brady is the hero to the local residents. “He’s their champion, for at least a few moments in the play,” Long said. “It’s been my battle to find as many moments in the play when I speak to people who have faith and respond in a human way.”

Long said his approach to the role is aided by things said by other characters before Brady arrives on the scene. “I feel the weight of some of that, the size of his voices, the way he’s shaking the tent posts when he speaks.”

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Benninghofen said Drummond is seen as a devil when he first appears. “I love Drummond’s logic and how he uses one’s own close-mindedness against them. He gets caught up in his torment to win the case and it crushes him that he has been turned into an almost cartoon version of himself, so misunderstood. While he’s brilliant with logic, he’s a real humanitarian.”

The cast includes longtime Asolo Rep actor David Breitbarth, returning for the first time since “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2020. Breitbarth also appeared in the company’s 2002 production. Curtis Bannister makes his Asolo Rep debut as fiery Rev. Jeremiah Brown and Sally Wingert, who played Mrs. Lovett in Rothstein’s “Sweeney Todd,” returns as Mrs. Brady. Mikhail Roberts, an FSU/Asolo Conservatory student, plays Cates, and fellow student Brielle Rivera Headrington plays his love interest, Rachel, the daughter of Rev. Brown.

Rothstein said he is being “faithful to the play but in a fresh way, with new designs, infusion of music and a multi-cultural cast. I feel like the play could have been written yesterday but we’re watching through the lens of wisdom to reflect on a time.”

‘Inherit the Wind’

By Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. Directed by Peter Rothstein. Runs Jan. 17-Feb. 24 in Mertz Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $35-$95. 941-351-8000; asolorep.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Scopes Monkey Trial revisited in Asolo Rep’s ‘Inherit the Wind’