The Monkey Trial

In The Monkey Trial tg Stan provides its version of the trial. The young teacher’s crime was that he had taught evolution theory. As we remember, Charles Darwin’s evolution theory tells us that humans weren’t created by God, as the Bible says, but that we stem from the apes. To teach Darwinism was illegal in 1925, because all education material was to respect biblical history. The trial, which exists transcribed in its entirety, created powerful reactions.

In the version by tg Stan the trial is treated in an epic and documentary manner, and parts of the transcribed text are used as a foundation for the acting.

In the program text following the production, and most likely as an effect to show the current relevancy of the trial in 2007, two quotes from then President of the United States, George W. Bush, were included:

"I believe God did create the world. And I think we’re finding out more and more and more as to how it actually happened." George W. Bush, interview in U.S. News, December 6 1999

"After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism." George W. Bush, George Magazine, September 2000

Facts about the trial:

The Monkey Trial was referred to as the 'trial of the century'. The Scopes Trial (also known as the Monkey Trial) began July 10th 1925 in the small town of Dayton in Tennessee. This was no ordinary trial and that had to do with the paradoxical fact that the defence instituted the legal proceedings. The ACLU, a pressure group for civil liberties, was in fact looking for a publicity stunt to put the theme of academic freedom back on the agenda and it needed a front willing to admit that he had ignored the statutory ban on teaching the theory of evolution. In return the ACLU would bear the full costs of the trial. The small town of Dayton fell in with the idea because a controversial case would, it hoped, put it on the map and boost tourism. John Scopes, a local temporary biology teacher, was chosen as the guinea pig.

Things took an unexpected turn when none other than the religious fundamentalist and three times presidential candidate Williams Jennings Bryan offered to act as public prosecutor and the highly successful anti-clerical attorney Clarence Darrow took on the defence. Suddenly the trial became an emotional confrontation between the theory of evolution and the story of the Creation. But it was more than that. "It is not Scopes who is standing trial, but the whole of civilization", Darrow declared on the opening day. After a few days the case was causing such a commotion that the judge moved the trial outside onto the lawn for fear the courtroom floor would give way. The Monkey Trial was also the first court case in America to be broadcast live on the radio.

The first few days of the trial saw the removal of various witnesses who threatened to damage the defence morally. On July 17th Darrow made a countermove which, according to the New York Times, resulted in "the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history". He asked Bryan to come into the witness box and bombarded him with questions that tested the credibility of the Bible: "Was Jonah really inside the whale for three days? How could Noah’s ark accommodate all the animals in the world?" Bryan was forced to admit that the Bible was probably not a literal science.

In the end, Scopes was convicted. Bryan died six days later. Slanderers taunted that "God had wanted to hit Darrow, but just missed him".

De Morgan, Outer Hillier, January 14th 2004

The production was presented through the network for performing arts consisting of Black Box Teater (Oslo), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen) and Avant Garden (Trondheim).

Sources: tg STAN www.stan.be and BIT Teatergarasjen, autumn program 2007. 08.09.2010: www.bit-teatergarasjen.no/archive