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EVENTS 44 MOVIE REVIEWS 45 SIDE DISH 48 FACES & PLACES 49 PAWS & CLAWS 50
Arts&Entertainment
Inheriting the Right to be Wrong
FVCC opens 2016–2017 theater season with ‘dynamite story’
James Vale, center, playing Reverend Brown, performs during a dress rehearsal of Inherit the Wind at Flathead Valley Community College. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
HBY CLARE MENZEL OF THE BEACON
OWARD, A YOUNG MAN IN overalls, bent over, plucked a fake worm from manicured Astro-
Turf, and wiggled it in Melinda’s face. She shrieked, repulsed.
“What’re you scared of? You was a worm once,” Howard said.
“That’s sinful talk!” she exclaimed.
The two shared a few more words before Melinda ounced o , and Howard wandered in the other direction, asking the worm what it wanted to be when it
grew up.
The exchange, between two charac-
ters in the opening scene of “Inherit the Wind,” the Flathead Valley Community College Theatre’s rst show of the 2016– 2017 season, is a microcosm of the ideo- logical debate to unfold in the following 90 minutes: Creation or evolution? That’s the question the small town of Hillsboro, which one character calls the “buckle on the Bible belt,” must answer after school- teacher Bertram Cates is thrown in jail for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, a violation of state law.
His lawyer, Henry Drummond, comes from Chicago to defend Cates against Matthew Harrison Brady, a high-pow- ered advocate of the holy book who cap- tures the town’s favor immediately. At rst, Drummond endeavors to explain evolution to Hillsboro residents in hopes that the science will change their hearts, but he can’t penetrate their closed minds.
“The Bible satis es me; it is enough,” one character on the witness stand tells Drummond, played by Justin Allred in the FVCC production.
“It frightens me to imagine the state
of learning in this world if everyone had your driving curiosity,” Drummond responds sarcastically.
“An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral,” Drummond continues, nd- ing a powerful pivot in his defense.
More important than convincing Hill- sboro’s citizens of the truth of Darwin’s words, he realizes, is helping them under- stand that exercising their “power to think” (with which “God plague[d] us”) is far more crucial.
“You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might
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OCTOBER 5, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM