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But the play appealed to all of Margo's instincts. She judged scripts intuitively ("I only know how to judge plays by goose flesh," she'd written to William Inge in 1947), ⁵ and she was determined to do this one. When she met the playwrights in New York, she greeted them with her favorite line from the play: "An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral." As she continued to quote their own words to them - "…and the advancement of man's knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters" - the authors realized that they had met a woman who shared their passion. As Jerome Lawrence said later, "Bob and I patted each other on the back, and said, 'here's our customer, this is quite a lady.'" ⁶ Margo, too, sensed that a momentous partnership had been made. "You have certainly given me life through this script," she wrote to Lawrence and Lee. ⁷

Margo's enthusiasm, however, did not guarantee that Inherit the Wind would be appreciated in Dallas. The playwrights had written their drama as a protest against McCarthyism and the political repressions of the Cold War, and the city had taken a sharp turn to the right. Dallasite Bruce Alger was elected to Congress in November 1954 on a wave of anti-Communist rhetoric. In March 1955 a women's group, the Political Affairs Luncheon Club, would lead a campaign against the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts for keeping the work of "pinko" artists in its collection. Over the next months, patriots would attack both the Museum and the Dallas Public Library for exhibiting work by known or suspected Communists such as Pablo Picasso, Louis Zorach, and Ben Shahn. Initially, the institutions gave ground to the protestors, and by the summer of 1955, Dallas would be drawing censure from the art world. ⁸

A second touchy issue was the play's treatment of fundamentalist religion. Lawrence and Lee had used the Scopes Trial in the same way that playwright Arthur Miller evoked the Salem Witchcraft Trials in his drama The Crucible - as a metaphor for community hysteria that tries to silence dissident beliefs.

Alan Woods, Director of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute at Ohio State University, points out that "it's richly ironic that the play is now getting productions in response to efforts to mandate Creationism or Intelligent Design in public education…. Jerry and Bob purposefully selected the debate over evolution because it was settled and no longer controversial." They believed, says Wood, that the real anti-McCarthy message "would be crystal clear to mid-1950s audiences." ⁹

With both the political message and the treatment of religion likely to upset local sensitivities, a production in Dallas seemed risky. Tad Adoue's warning that it would take guts to stage the play there was echoed by the authors' own agent, Harold Freedman. "Margo you don't want to do this play. Everybody will - will crucify you down there in the Bible belt," Freedman told her over the phone. ¹⁰ Margo replied, "I'm doing it, darling."

During the five years that we researched Margo's career, as co-producers of the documentary Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater, KERA's Rob Tranchin and I spoke with a number of people connected to Inherit the Wind and its Dallas staging. We interviewed Jerome Lawrence and Janet Waldo Lee, Robert E. Lee's widow. We also met with Louise Latham, a former leading lady with Margo's company, who originated the role of Rachel in the play, and Harriet Slaughter - now with the League of American Theaters and Producers - who'd been a child actor in the production. James Pringle, Margo's former stage designer, came to Dallas in 2000 to spend an afternoon showing us around the Magnolia Lounge in Fair Park, the site of her theater.

Today, the exterior of the Magnolia Lounge looks much as it did in Margo's time. Designed by the Swiss architect William Lescaze, the now landmarked International Style building was built by the Magnolia Oil Company as a restroom and information center for the 1936 Texas Centennial. The lobby, with its distinctive, curved glass brick wall, is also unchanged. But the space where Margo erected her arena theater is now a bare room. Pringle explained to us the intricacies of creating entrances, exits, sets and lighting for productions that ranged from Shakespeare and Ibsen to musicals - all on a small keystone-shaped stage with seats on all four sides at floor level and on risers. ¹¹

Pringle recalled that some in the cast had questioned Margo's wisdom in presenting Inherit the Wind in Dallas. Harriet Slaughter agreed that the production was considered risky in view of residual resentment in the community over the Scopes trial. ¹² But enthusiasm grew as the company got to work.

Margo herself had all the skills and experience required to mount a rousing production and to capture on stage the essence of a small Southern town. She had been born and raised in Livingston, northeast of Houston, where her father practiced law. Watching him make speeches in the courtroom, she wrote in her book, Theatre-in-the-Round, was like watching a play. ¹³ She knew about the role that fundamentalist religion played in the life of a small community: the Joneses were strict church goers, in particular Margo's mother, who clung hard to God. Margo, more than anyone else, including the playwrights, recognized how theatrically powerful the religious theme would be. ¹⁴

⁵ Margo Jones, letter to William Inge, August 7, 1947, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

⁶ Interview with Jerome Lawrence, November 17, 1999.

⁷ Margo Jones, letter to Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, November 10, 1954, Jones Family Archive.

⁸ For an account of the "Red Scare" at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, see Francine Carraro, Jerry Bywaters: A Life in Art (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 172-204.

⁹ Alan Woods, email to author, March 26, 2004.

¹⁰ Interview with Jerome Lawrence, November 17, 1999.

¹¹ The keystone stage was 18' long and 20' at its broad end, tapering to 13'10," according to a theater diagram provided by James Pringle.

¹² Interview with Harriet Slaughter, February 27, 2001.

¹³ Margo Jones, Theatre-in-the-Round (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), 20.

¹⁴ According to Janet Waldo Lee (interview, November 16, 1999), the authors did not realize that Inherit the Wind's religious theme would have such a strong impact on audiences.