A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail, through my publisher, inviting me to see the opening afternoon performance of a new off-broadway show called "All Too Human: An Evening With Clarence Darrow." So this afternoon I went to see it, and since they gave me a free ticket I feel compelled to write about it. They probably want me to write about it on Anonymous Lawyer, since that gets a lot more readers... and I might use this as an excuse to write about Clarence Darrow on there... but any way I do it as Anonymous Lawyer seems unlikely to actually drive anyone to see the show.
The invitation to this show being an exception, I'm a tiny bit jealous of bloggers like The Amateur Gourmet, who got a free $320 white truffle dinner last week at Alain Ducasse because of his blog. Eh, actually The Amateur Gourmet sort of deserves it, because his blog gets 5,000 readers a day and that's all because he's good at what he does, because there's no real gimmick there. But a lot of book blogs have 30 readers a day and get a ton of free books. Wait, let me take this paragraph back a little bit. It would be awesome to receive lots of free stuff because of my blog, and I would probably write about all of it, but I'm doing okay, I don't really need lots of free stuff, and the people giving away free stuff to bloggers should probably stop for a minute and figure out whether the money they're spending on giving stuff away to bloggers is actually providing any benefit at all to them. If I was paying out of my own pocket for the advance copies of my book that my publisher sent to bloggers, I would have had a higher threshold for who would have gotten them. Then again, the cost of sending free books to bloggers is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the costs related to publishing a book, so why not send to everyone they can think of?
Okay, that was an unnecessary digression. Where was I? Oh, yes, Clarence Darrow. The play is a one man show, performed by lawyer Henry Miller. Miller is the senior member of a small law firm with a very unattractive web site. Mr. Miller: If you are reading this, I'm sorry for making fun of your web site but it is very bad. The good news is that some very easy changes could make it better. The gray background, and the white text on top of it, makes it very hard to read. Just make it a white background and black text and it will be easier to read, and it won't look like it was designed by a college freshman taking a 100-level class in web programming. Also, the scrolling bar on top, about Vioxx cases, is making my eyes hurt. Just put it in a different color at the top of the page. It doesn't need to scroll like that. Really.
Okay, besides his terrible web page, Henry Miller is a pretty appealing actor. He'd have to be, to carry a 90-minute show all by himself. Honestly, the show is about as good as I can imagine a one-man show about Clarence Darrow could be. From the moment he stepped on stage, I bought Miller as Clarence Darrow. It becomes easy to forget he's just a lawyer with an unattractive web page playing a part. He's very good. And the script is clear and easy to follow. I didn't know much about Clarence Darrow -- just what I learned when I read Inherit The Wind in junior high school -- but now I feel like I know an awful lot. Miller goes through Darrow's life, focusing on a series of interesting cases he took part in. Lots of interesting stuff about the Pullman strike, and Leopold & Loeb, and the Scopes Monkey Trial. There were some moments where Miller recited portions of Darrow's actual courtroom speeches where I found my attention wandering, and once I knew we were getting toward the end of the show I found myself ready for him to wrap up, but for the most part, I was pretty into it. I probably wouldn't pick a one-man show about Clarence Darrow as the show I'd most like to see, given a choice of some other subjects, but, like I said, I can't imagine it being done much better than this.
But to some degree, it felt a bit unsatisfying. Miller spends a lot of his script trying to get into the head of Clarence Darrow and present how Darrow felt about the world, from the perspective of a trial lawyer from a century ago. As Darrow, Miller gave advice, talked about the legal system... but I found myself wishing that instead of hearing Miller's interpretation of Darrow's thoughts, I could hear Miller's actual, genuine thoughts about the world. As a trial lawyer for the past 40 years, former president of the New York State Bar Association -- and clearly a pretty gifted actor and playwright -- I wondered what *he* thought about the world, instead of Darrow. I have a hunch he's written this monologue too, but I'd be interested in seeing what he could come up with if he was presenting his authentic thoughts about the law and his experiences, instead of the thoughts of someone he's only able to guess from the historical materials available.
So, yeah, if you're into Clarence Darrow, or want to learn more about him, this show is totally worth seeing, and I was surprised how good a performer Miller is, for a 75-year-old lawyer. I'm curious how he's been able to keep his creative impulses alive as a practicing attorney, although I expect some of it has to do with the kind of law he practices.
More information about the show here.
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