Monkey Business Program

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

"We are now prepared as was no previous age for a Carnival in
the grand style, for laughter and a high-spirited revelry, for
transcendental flights of sublime nonsense and an Aristophaneslike
mockery of the universe. Perhaps this is where we shall yet
discover the realm of our invention that realm in which we also
can be original, say as parodists of world history and clowns of
God--perhaps, even if nothing else today has a future, our
laughter may yet have a future."
--Frederich Nietzsche

Murray Ross placed this quote on the first page of the first incarnation of his play Monkey Business. It has been used as an inspirational quide by the director, designers and actors of the current production of this playful, provocative and unconventional play.
The Scopes Trial was in reality a carnival, a media circus and a fervent two week religious revival. So it is a short leap from this event to the creation of a theatrical event that in the spirit of Nietzsche puts the Marx brothers at the Scopes Trial and offers "transcendental flights of sublime nonsense."

In July of 1925 the small town of Dayton, Tennessee was overflowing
with lawyers, politicians, vendors, street preachers, performers, and photographers and reporters from all over the world. The latter included the infamous Baltimore Sun reporter
H.L Mencken who christened the whole thing the Great Monkey Trial. The entire world watched as the past battled the future. Simple faith and long held values were challenged by the wicked ways of the jazz age. The trial was more than just the obvious
conflict of evolution vs. religion. Fundamentalism was challenged
by modernism. Two powerful lawyers came to Dayton to do battle. The Great Commoner, William Jennings Bryan was there to defend the Christians in a "duel to the death." Clarence Darrow, at the time America's most famous defense lawyer, weighed in on the side of science and man as the "learning
animal." The whole world watched and laughed.

Monkey Business is almost a new play. It was created and performed
once by a company (Theaterworks) in Colorado Springs 18 years ago. The members of the theatre department here at Wake have long felt that it is a good thing to periodically give the students an opportunity to engage in the process of new play development. I chose to direct Monkey Business because I knew the primary playwright would come play with us and that another contributing playwright lived close by so we would be able to continue the process of developing this play and the students would be given the opportunity to get their own hands in at shaping a piece of theatre. It is disconcerting to a student actor to hear from the director, "I don't know what you
would do there. Figure something out and we'll look at it" but all
32 students on stage tonight have taken that challenge with aplomb and contributed great heart and imagination to this production.
I love the spirit of this play. While it delivers no easy answers to the big questions posed during the "Trial of the Century," it does suggest we human beings have to be rather careful about taking ourselves too seriously.