Given that Inherit the Wind was first staged in 1955 and that the play was based on the landmark Scopes “Monkey trial” of 1925, it is tempting to say that the 56-year-old courtroom drama is dated. But as close to 50 per cent of Americans still say Darwin was wrong and Creationists who take the bible literally are right, little appears to have changed in the Bible Belt’s view of the world.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote Inherit the Wind in the McCarthy era, during the U.S. witch hunt to root out any vestiges of communism (real or imagined), thereby adding further texture to a drama that puts the right to think on trial.

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Where is the line between obeying orders and following one’s conscience?

Should loyalty to “unit, corps, God, country” trump morality?

These are the underlying themes of Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 courtroom drama A Few Good Men. (The spark for the play — the attempt to cover up the death of an enlisted man resulting from illegal hazing delivered on orders from a superior — is apparently based on a case that Sorkin’s  lawyer  sister encountered in the JAG Corps.)

Interesting as this script is, it stops short of condemning blindly following orders, despite passing references to the Nuremberg defence of “just following orders” and the My Lai massacre.

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After many years of Ray Cooney farces, it appears the mantle of farce writing has fallen on to the shoulders of son Michael.

The younger Cooney has certainly learned the conventions of farce: confused situations, often rooted in a key lie, slamming doors, mistaken identities, semi-naked, dead or near-dead bodies, stereotypes and, if possible, satirical attacks on government institutions.

The recipe is in evidence in Cash on Delivery, but that does not make it a good play. And despite the fact that the Kanata Theatre production, which opened this week, is clearly the result of hard work and good intentions, it just isn’t very funny.

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Jackie Richardson (Gloria), Laara Sadiq (Carmen).Photo Bruce Zinger

The powerful opening is arresting. The curtain rises slowly to reveal a dozen pairs of legs belonging to a group of prostitutes and transvestites. All clad in red — underlining that this is a red light district — the stylized chorus is a visual bombshell.

Following the form of ancient Greek drama, violent acts will take place off stage, but there is little doubt from the beginning that Carmen, now a country and western star, is taking a risk in returning to her roots. There will undoubtedly be violence when she dares not only to come back but also to sing about these people (rather than the cowboy songs for which she has become known.)

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Greg Kramer is mesmerizing. John Koensgen’s direction, together with Martin Conboy’s lighting and James Richardson’s sound, and, of course, Brian K. Stewart’s script make this world premiere of The Player’s Advice to Shakespeare all that a theatrical experience should be.

The presentation is suitably simple, with the focus firmly on Kramer, the Player, explaining how an actor in Will Shakespeare’s company happens to be in the Tower of London, waiting to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

The Player, once content as an actor in London, is moved to join the Midland Revolt of 1607 — the peasants’ reaction to the gentry enclosing common land to pasture their sheep. (The Enclosure movement was at its height during the 18^th and early 19^th centuries in Britain, but it had its roots in the earlier uprisings.)

Playwright Stewart is to be congratulated on the historical accuracy of the script, even if Advice occasionally becomes a generalized attack on the moneyed classes, then and now.

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A note in the program explaining that The Shadow Cutter is a fictionalized rendering of magician Dai Vernon’s life and that it is not authorized by his estate or biographers red flags the contents before the show begins.

But the suggestion of real-life drama or intrigue is never realized in this story of obsession. Episodic in nature, this world premiere, as directed and with dramaturgy by Brian Quirt, captures a few interesting moments and encounters — too few — but they do not build into a memorable drama.

The sketchy style of the script leaves a shadowy impression of an unappealing man who patched together a living by cutting out silhouettes, while chasing a pipedream of conquering an elusive card trick — the centre cut — and allowing his marriage and parenting responsibilities to collapse around him. So, while it becomes clear why the estate and biographers have dissociated themselves from The Shadow Cutter, the play does not provide a convincing picture of a whole man. Rather than a warts-and-all portrait, it seems to be little but warts.

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