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Photograph courtesy of Gary Anderson

One-man Show: Gary Anderson portrays legendary American attorney Clarence Darrow in a one-man play coming to San Jose through the efforts of Patti Massey, a San Jose resident and attorney.

One-man show sheds light on human side

By Mary Gottschalk

Gary Anderson's portrayal of the title character in Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice is not the Darrow portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the 1960 film Inherit the Wind, nor the Darrow portrayed by Henry Fonda on tour in the 1970s.

"They ignored all the things that made Darrow human, the things that motivated him and the things that pained him the most," says Anderson, who will perform his own one-man show about the "most hated and celebrated lawyer in American history" on Oct. 14 in San Jose.

Darrow was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union and best known for defending John T. Scopes in the Scopes-Monkey Trial.

"I thought it would be great for audiences to know he screwed up phenomenally in his lifetime. He was knocked down again and again," Anderson says.

Writing Search for Justice took about 10 years, says the actor and playwright, who lives in Redding.

"After my three children were raised and grown and gone, I looked at the emptiness. I was feeling sick and tired of the sound of my own voice. I'd done a play many years ago based on a version of Clarence Darrow's life, but it didn't go far enough. It was a Disney version of Darrow," he says.

"That's how this play was born--through my own vision to talk about his foibles and flaws and his ego and not being the best father in the world and the other women in his life who were not his wives. He had great bouts of depression and emotional turmoil."

Darrow, Anderson says, was "at times deeply depressed and spiritually bankrupt. He was often on the verge of suicide between the years 1911-13. His last mistress, Mary Fields, talked him out of this drunken psychotic break by literally holding onto the gun all night and filling him with coffee and words of love and support."

Anderson then pauses and quips, "We'll give out medication during intermission to help the audience survive."

Although Darrow was born in 1857 and died in 1938, the issues he dealt with remain in the news today, including capitol punishment, immigrant issues, working conditions, unions and the right to representation.

"It's like Darrow never went away. We need him back," Anderson says.

"The death penalty is still being raised across the country, even though it has never proven to be a deterrent. There are conspiracy laws like the Patriot Act where people are locked up without any right to representation. There's intelligent design, the stealth form of creationism in a new way."

Anderson says he's often asked after a performance if he's "making up things Darrow never did."

He says no, it's all true.

Anderson then says many people don't know Darrow got us the eight-hour workday, the beginning of child labor laws and protection for immigrants. He fought against racism and racial profiling.

"Darrow defended conscientious objectors during WWI. Do it today and you're threatened with disbarment," Anderson says.

The most famous aspect of Darrow's life, and perhaps the most misunderstood, was his defense of John T. Scopes in what is commonly called the Scopes-Monkey Trial.

Anderson says he tries to clear up some of the myths surrounding that trial, which took place in 1925 after Scopes, a 24-year-old high school biology teacher, deliberately taught the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin to his class. This resulted in his being charged with violating a Tennessee state law, passed earlier that year, prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

William Jennings Bryan, a two-time presidential candidate, a fundamentalist and often called the silver-tongued orator, offered to help the prosecution.

Darrow offered to defend Scopes.

The trial was a major media event in Dayton, Tenn. It attracted international newspaper coverage, proceedings were broadcast live on radio and some of the most noted American journalists of the day, including H.L. Mencken, covered what they nicknamed "the monkey trial."

With more than 2,000 people trying to get into the courtroom, Judge John Raulston moved it outside, and the trial was conducted on an elevated platform.

Anderson says, "No one talks about the real things behind the Scopes trial."

It was, he says, an orchestrated event with "both sides wanting him to be found guilty. That's the only way to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. They would deal with the separation of church and state. A rural judge isn't going to uphold academic freedom; he has to run for re-election."

Anderson says Bryan and Darrow met for dinner each night to discuss what they were going to do the next day.

"The only surprise was Darrow turning so venomously on William Jennings Bryan, his friend of 30 years and the man he had campaigned for in two presidential elections," Anderson says.

The final day of the trial, Darrow called Bryan as an expert witness on the Bible for the defense.

"Bryan hadn't been in the courtroom for 30 years, and Darrow hadn't been out of it for longer than five days over that time. Darrow's skills were at their peak," Anderson says.

"He did it for the express purpose of ridicule. At the end of it, Bryan was shaken and said things he didn't mean to say."

The next day, July 21, 1925, the jury voted to convict Scopes. He was fined $100 and rehired by the school board.

On July 26, Bryan died in his sleep, after eating his usual heavy meal in spite of his diabetes and congestive heart problems.

Anderson says Darrow was left with "the everlasting regret of hounding Bryan during that hot and sticky cross-examination."

While films and history have identified Darrow with the Scopes trial, he was also a key player in many other significant 20th century trials.

In the 1924, Darrow defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, teenage sons of millionaires who killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks in an attempt at the perfect crime.

Darrow's 12-hour long plea to spare his young clients' lives has been called "the most eloquent attack on the death penalty ever delivered in an American courtroom."

The two were spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison. Over his career, Darrow never lost a death penalty case, saving 102 men from execution.

Darrow also represented a union organizer charged with conspiracy growing out of a strike in Oshkosh, Wis. At a trial in 1998 and in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as an arbitrator in the 1902 Pennsylvania anthracite coal strike.

In 1926, he successfully defended 11 blacks against a murder charge after a white man was killed when a white mob stormed the home of Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife, Gladys, to try and force them to move out of the neighborhood.

Anderson's portrayal of Clarence Darrow so impressed Patti Massey that after seeing it in February of this year, she approached him and asked if he would perform it in San Jose.

"I was so inspired and energized by the social justice message and sense of this. It made me proud to do the work I'm doing. It was so validating," she says.

Massey, a native of San Jose for more than 30 years, describes herself as a "late- in-life attorney."

After working as director of the nonprofit Parents Helping Parents, which helps families of children with disabilities, Massey decided to study law.

"A lot of my work involved helping families who had legal issues around their children's education needs. It became clear there were no attorneys to help these people in our county, so I decided the next thing I needed to do was go to law school to be one of those people helping these families when they needed legal support."

Massey now works in the Legal Advocates for Children and Youth division of the Law Foundation Silicon Valley.

Massey saw Anderson's portrayal of Darrow in Austin, Texas, when her husband was temporarily employed there.

"When I got back from seeing this performance, I talked about it to many young attorneys, and they didn't know who Darrow was. I felt like this was a larger-than-life person in the social justice movement in our country."

Massey made arrangements for Anderson's performances. The show is a benefit for social justice work by the First Unitarian Church and is co-sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

"It's important to understand that we have to keep working on these social justice issues. There are people who came before us and worked very hard on these issues," Massey says.

"We stand on their shoulders as we do our work and set a foundation for the next generation, for them to be vigilant about these same issues. Protecting our legal and civil rights requires constant care and attention."

Clarence Darrow on stage

Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice written and performed by Gary Anderson will be presented Oct. 14 at 2 and 7:30 p.m. in the First Unitarian Church of San Jose, 160 N. Third St. Advance tickets are $12 for students and $15 general. At the door, all tickets are $20. A wine and cheese reception with Anderson in character takes place from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. The $35 reception tickets, which include priority seating for the show, are limited to 50 participants. For advance tickets, send a check to FUCSJ-Darrow, 160 N. Third St., San Jose, CA 95112 and they will be waiting prior to the performances. For more information on the show and Anderson, visit www.clarencedarrowgaryanderson.com.