By Tricia Olszewski
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, February 3, 2006; C01

The battle involving intelligent design has been getting some star power the past few months -- at least theatrically.

"The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial," starring Ed Asner, James Cromwell and Sharon Gless, played Tuesday and Wednesday at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. And although the work might wait until its final words to draw the direct connection between the current church-state debate and its subject, the 1925 Scopes trial, the message behind the production is never in doubt.

"Tennessee Monkey Trial" has been adapted by Peter Goodchild from transcripts of the Scopes case. Often referred to as the "Scopes Monkey Trial," this lawsuit against Dayton, Tenn., teacher John Scopes was the first to be broadcast on radio and also the first to be dubbed "the trial of the century." (Scopes had volunteered to be a defendant in the case, initiated by the ACLU to challenge the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in the state's public schools.)

Produced by L.A. Theatre Works, a group dedicated to the audio preservation of dramatic literature, "Tennessee Monkey Trial" is nearing the end of its 24-city tour -- which included York, Pa., close to what had become the hotbed of the intelligent-design debate: the Dover Area School District.

The district's decision to allow intelligent design to be taught along with evolution was eventually declared unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones, who said the school board's plan reflected "breathtaking inanity."

Clearly, then, this production has an agenda. And it seemed welcomed at Wednesday's performance, which was staged and recorded as a radio drama, with the audience encouraged to be vocal about the arguments the piece presented.

Asner, playing William Jennings Bryan -- the three-time presidential candidate, former secretary of state and religious speaker -- seemed to step a bit out of character as he took center stage first with an ebullient "Well, I'm here!" The actor lapped up the applause from an audience not accustomed to seeing stars of such wattage grace a local stage.

With Gless serving as Narrator, the re-created trial quickly got underway, with Bryan joining Tennessee Attorney General Tom Stewart (played by Rob Nagle) to argue for the prosecution, and celebrated attorney Clarence Darrow (James Cromwell), corporate attorney Arthur Garfield Hayes (Jon Matthews) and divorce attorney Dudley Field Malone (credited only as one of the ensemble) defending Scopes (Matthew Patrick Davis). Jerry Hardin played the presiding judge, John T. Raulston.

The ideas argued during the 1925 trial -- with a few one-liners apparently inserted by Goodchild -- are little different from the debate today. Asner's Bryan, whose goofy, yokelish smile waned slowly throughout the proceedings, might have been tripped up during his questioning by Darrow regarding the literalness of the Bible. But Bryan held fast to his opinion that the teaching of a godless creation of mankind was heresy.

Cromwell proved to be the night's most magnetic presence, certainly because of his assured, exacting performance but also because his character, with his sharp, often caustic interrogations, was the standout hero, at least among the largely pro-evolution crowd. Questioning why the Bible had been deemed the authoritative source on the world's beginnings instead of, say, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita or the teachings of Confucius, Darrow declared that the fight for creationism was a "brazen and bold attempt to destroy learning" and a "march backward to the 16th century."

Such speeches provoked roars of approval from the audience, and much of the performance was fascinating. At 2 hours 45 minutes, though, the show became wearying, and what should have been the highlight -- a standoff between Bryan and Darrow for most of the second act -- lost some of its power because of repetition.

Gless, however, reignited the audience's fire as she spoke of the trial's fresh relevance: "How much do we still live in the shadow of Dayton? Did [Bryan's] crusade die with him, or does it still continue?"