Portal:History of science/Article/Week 17, 2006
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. It is frequently cited as being a fictionalized account of the Scopes Trial. The play first appeared on Broadway in January 1955.
The real-life opposing attorneys William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow are roughly portrayed as Matthew Harrison Brady and Henry Drummond respectively, while John Scopes is remade in the character Bertram Cates and journalist H.L. Mencken becomes E.K. Hornbeck. But despite the similarities, the play is not intended to be a historical documentary-drama, but a fictional social commentary on McCarthyism based loosely on an historical event. Although the play reflects on what has been claimed as one of the darkest events in American history, it has been hailed one of the great American plays of the 20th Century, with themes about religious tolerance, belief and freedom of thought that have considerable resonance to this day.
