CLARENCE DARROW IN HELL
This is precisely the idea that has gripped the damned in Clarence Darrow in Hell. The authors, Kenan Heise and his son Dan Heise, have adapted the “Inferno,” the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, but reversed Dante’s point of view on hell. In the “Inferno” Dante is given a tour of the underworld by the poet Virgil, who shows him how perfectly God’s punishments fit the sinners’ crimes. In the Heises’ play, Dante himself gives a similar tour to Clarence Darrow, the irascible “lawyer for the damned” as he was called–but unlike Dante, who approves of hell’s horrors, Darrow sees in them only injustice and cruelty.
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The play is being done by CHB Productions at the Talisman Theatre, a cramped storefront so dark and dreary that it’s a fitting backdrop for hell. But despite the primitive lighting, costumes, and props that director Michael J. Stewart has to work with, the production is surprisingly effective.
