'Inherit the Wind' review: still fresh

As directed by Michael Disher for Southampton's Center Stage, the issues of the 1924 trial seem fresh nearly nine decades later -- in part due to the resurgence of religious fundamentalism and its effect on state law in Middle America. But a cast led by Daniel Becker as Henry Drummond, Alan Stewart as Matthew Harrison Brady, Jack Seabury as E.K. Hornbeck and Vincent Carbone as Bertram Cates makes the conflict palpable.

The stars of the 1924 "Monkey" trial -- so called because Charles Darwin theorized that humans evolved from apes -- are renamed in the play and the 1960 film starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. John Scopes, the high school biology teacher charged with violating Tennessee's law against teaching evolution, is Cates. H.L. Mencken, the Baltimore Sun journalist who covered the trial, is Hornbeck of the Herald. William Jennings Bryan, three-time-loser presidential nominee who added bluster to the prosecution team, is Brady. Renowned liberal-causes attorney Clarence Darrow is Drummond. Even the town, Dayton, Tenn., is renamed Hillsboro.

The play follows the trial transcript, although peripheral characters are invented or consolidated. Dramatic license is taken with a climactic scene.

Carbone presents a nervously meek defendant, understandable given the town's virulence against him, led by Doug Walter as the fire-and-brimstone Rev. Brown. Cates' affection for the reverend's daughter (a confused Amanda Stein) deepens their dilemma. As the journalist, Seabury serves as glib narrator. Stewart's Brady is windy (guess who the title refers to?) with rectitude, while a fist-pounding Stewart allows humanity to creep into Drummond's moral suasion.

Disher's set, exposed to Daniel Schappert's sound-and-light fury, frames the courtroom with the glare of a world watching, sound-and-light fury by Daniel Schappert.