"A YOUNG, OLD HEART" SYNOPSIS

"A Young, Old Heart," and is a two-character, one-act play which depicts a fictitious, but plausible, conversation between Clarence Darrow and William O. Douglas.  Darrow was one of America's greatest trial attorneys and defender of labor, civil rights, and other then unpopular causes.  Among Darrow's famous cases were the "Scopes Monkey Trial," in which he defended a teacher accused of teaching evolution, the Leopold-Loeb murder case, involving the thrill-killing of a Chicago boy by two rich, brilliant young men, and the defense of early labor leaders.  Douglas was a young Wall Street lawyer at the time of the play, but would later teach at Columbia and Yale, serve as chair of the SEC, and become the second-youngest person ever appointed to the Supreme Court, where he served as one of the Court's most liberal members from 1939 until 1975, the longest tenure of any justice.

The play is set primarily on a train en route from Chicago to New York in 1925.  Douglas is unhappy in his job on Wall Street, but, because of his impoverished childhood and fear of once again being poor, is in a quandary about leaving his well-paying job and seeking something more fulfilling.  Darrow is trying to retire, after spending his adult life in court in exhausting, high-profile cases.  He is on his way to New York, where colleagues will attempt to persuade him to defend a black Detroit doctor accused of murder, in one of the most significant early civil rights cases.

During the conversation, which takes place in the dining car in the evening and the following morning, the characters explore the issues of justice, determinism, and the purpose of one's life. Darrow seeks to influence Douglas to see the law as an institution which should serve the public good, and Douglas pushes Darrow toward a decision to culminate his career by defending the Detroit doctor.  We see Darrow reflecting on his career and questioning its efficacy, and Douglas striving to satisfy his ambition while battling his own insecurity.  The prologue and epilogue, which show Douglas as a Supreme Court justice fifteen years later, ends with Douglas' recitation of a poem about Darrow by his former law partner, poet Edgar Lee Masters, which contains the play's title and sums up the paradoxes of the great lawyer's life.

DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTION HISTORY

"A Young, Old Heart" is a play still in development.  It has received a public reading in Eugene, OR, and is expected to be produced there in the near future.  It will be appropriate for theatres seeking one-act plays, schools, universities, or legal organizations.