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Kevin Kwong

Hong Kong Federation of  Drama Societies

City Hall Theatre

Reviewed: May 28

Few Hong Kong actors   have the onstage presence and charisma  of Chung King-fai and Leung Tin.   No doubt, the two - who've   been acting for  more than three decades - were the main draw  of this Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies production.

Co-directed by another pair of old hands, Ko Tin-lung and May Fu, Inherit the Wind - a  classic written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee - is  a good choice for a local  adaptation.

Although the names of the characters were changed, the play is based on a  US court case in 1925 involving a school teacher named John Scopes and two leading lawyers, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.

The drama, which had its premiere on Broadway in the mid-1950s,  tells of a school teacher named Bertram Cates (Simon Lo Man-kit) who's put  on trial in Tennessee for violating a local law that forbids any preaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Representing the state is Matthew Harrison Brady (Leung, below left), a pious man who  believes Cates should be  jailed  for polluting young minds with teachings that  humans  are related to apes rather than God's creations. By contrast, the unconventional Henry Drummond (Chung, below right), who defends Cates, advocates   reason and open-mindedness.

It was a delight to see  Chung and Leung relishing their roles, delivering their one-liners with  perfect timing. Leung played his character without exaggeration (his  Brady is no fanatic), while Chung's Drummond was eccentric but witty.

As with any good courtroom drama, this production seemed  to  go much faster than its  three hours.   The only  let-down was that neither Ko nor Fu appear to know how to wrap up the play when Brady dies of a heart attack while   delivering his summation in a chaotic courtroom. All the drama was totally lost when the curtain came down.



Inherit the Wind