Then and now: Goodman’s ‘Inherit the Wind’ is both historical and contemporary

“Inherit the Wind” — 3.5 stars

The Goodman Theatre’s 2024-25 season is off to a smart and savvy start with a timely revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s “Inherit the Wind.” Director Henry Godinez’s incisive and inclusive production of this hit 1955 Broadway drama not only functions as an anniversary-anticipating historical relic, but also uncannily feels like a current reflection of culture-war battles being waged in the U.S. today.

“Inherit the Wind” is ostensibly a fictionalized courtroom drama inspired by the real-life 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Tennessee. That’s when substitute schoolteacher John Thomas Scopes was arrested and tried for teaching evolution contrary to a state law passed that year that outlawed the teaching of “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.”

Lawrence and Lee’s script also explored larger issues of faith versus freedom of speech as enmeshed within the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You can also see ongoing conflicts of North vs. South, rural vs. urban communities and so much more.

Director Godinez emphasizes the play’s timeliness with a diverse cast that gets right to the dramatic hearts of each character. Though some might grumble about “historical accuracy,” this inclusive theatricality is on trend (think “Hamilton”) and allows for contemporary audiences to trace many parallels of movers and shakers from our own time to those onstage folks back in the day.

For example, refashioning the bailiff and jailer Meeker to be hearing-impaired shows how extra-attentive this character must be in order to be so good-hearted (especially with Robert Schleifer’s solid performance). Or consider how fashionably attired actor Mi Kang (a credit to costume designer Jessica Pabst) and her knowing take on the cultural newspaper critic of E.K. Hornbeck can bring to mind today’s self-centered social media stars. You know, the kind who build up their own reputations by tearing others down.

But the main dramatic heart of “Inherit the Wind” comes with the lawyers for the prosecution and the defense. The Scopes trial famously pitted the failed presidential candidate William Jennings Bryant as the prosecuting attorney against the legendary Chicago lawyer Clarence Darrow on the side of the defense, such that Lawrence and Lee were obligated to create two titan-sized characters to dominate “Inherit the Wind.”

Chicago audiences certainly get that with Broadway vets Alexander Gemignani and Harry Lennix respectively embodying the Bryant- and Darrow-inspired characters of Matthew Harrison Brady and Henry Drummond.

Both Lennix and Gemignani skillfully throw their weight around the stage as they spar with sonorous voices that pit a high-flying tenor against a more grounded baritone. And Lennix and Gemignani both do the quip-filled script proud with great comic timing and powerful pathos.

There’s also great dramatic work from Tyler Meredith as schoolteacher Rachel Brown. She goes on a wide-ranging character journey as both a dutiful daughter to the Rev. Jeremiah Brown (a menacing Ryan Kitley) and a woman who also pines for Bertram Cates (a strong Christopher Llewyn Ramirez), the freethinking teacher on trial.

Even smaller roles throughout the ensemble are wonderfully cast. There’s plenty of showy moments to be shared and to shine all around.

The Goodman’s physical production is a handsome one to behold. Set designer Collette Pollard has created a simplified theatrical space, with an audience-connected walkway leading to an elevated circular platform that could symbolize a nationwide media spotlight on the trial.

Pollard also honors Lawrence and Lee’s stage directions suggesting a persistent small-town mentality with what looks like a slice of a capitol building dome with a three-dimensional architectural model as a mural that hovers overhead (lighting designer Jason Lynch also helps to define the play’s many moods both with the performers on stage and with this curved overhanging model town).

Though it regionally tried out in Dallas before conquering New York in the mid-1950s, “Inherit the Wind” also functions as a “Chicago play.” There are so many Windy City connections to be celebrated in the script from the Darrow-inspired hero to the intrepid WGN radio newsmen who invade the courtroom near the end.

But with so many current school battles over book bans and pushing the Bible back into classrooms in the U.S., audiences of today can’t fully dismiss “Inherit the Wind” as a play from a bygone era. Instead, the Goodman’s smart programming shows how its artistic leaders are very aware of how our country’s past is also very much our present, too.

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Location: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800, goodmantheatre.org/

Showtimes: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday (also Sunday, Sept. 29); 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Friday (also Wednesdays, Oct. 2 and 9); extended through Oct. 20

Running time: About two hours, 15 minutes with intermission

Parking: Area garages

Tickets: $25-$95

Rating: For ages 12 and older