Bryan's life was a fascinating blend of politics and religious faith.
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When asked how he could reconcile a life in politics with religion, Bryan said,
“Governments are man-made and therefore can be improved upon.”
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Playwright Gerald Uelmen’s elegant script marries good storytelling with a literary style befitting the great orator. Drawn
widely from his speeches, letters, eulogies, poetry and choice anecdotes, we learn not only about the man, but much about
history.
This play reveals a much more complex Bryan than the bumbling and geriatric reactionary conveyed in the fictional play
and Hollywood film “Inherit the Wind”. In real life he was neither.
Ever ebullient, this confident crusader looks back on a remarkable career and provides a perspective on a man who was
both much loved and much reviled for his beliefs.
His life was a fascinating blend of politics and his religious faith. He was the Presidential candidate for the Democratic
Party three times during his life, Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and was the spokesman for the Fundamentalist
movement until the day he died.
The “Prairie Avenger” “The Great Commoner” from Nebraska aroused a divided party with his famous “Cross of Gold”
speech, a passionate protest for the common man against the moneyed interests, and became, at 36, the youngest
candidate in the history of the Democratic party.
Like his one-time friend, Clarence Darrow, Bryan was a defender of the common man, an opponent of the death penalty
and an advocate of peace - an extreme pacifist. Both men believed that the way to be measured is by loving your fellow
man. Bryan was a dynamo who never lost his faith in the “struggling masses” and urged government to make all the
people thrive, not just the well-to-do.
Called "The Silver-Tongued Orator," William Jennings Bryan is considered to be one of the world's greatest orators. This
play contains highlights of Bryan’s career - from the “Cross of Gold” speech, which helped change the face of modern
politics, the eulogies he gave for friends and to his work in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Bryan was familiar with Darwin's works, and he was not against teaching evolution -- if it were presented as a theory, and if
other major options, such as Creationism, were taught. His target was not the science of Darwinism, but the “Social
Darwinists”, a thinly veiled movement for racial purity.
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"Anderson gives a riveting performance of a man of principle who made great personal sacrifices for his country."
... The Trinity Journal, CA
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“Don’t miss the opportunity to see this unique piece of theater.” ... The Daily Record, Omaha NB
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American Legends Theatre Works
530.243.9945
americanlegends@sbcglobal.net
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