![]() With the characters played as types, mere simulacra of historical figures who direct arguments out to – and often deliberately rev up – the audience, you have to figure something about the original material is going to get short shrift, and so it does: the simple, suspenseful pleasure of discovering how independence was won against all obstacles. Similarly, the Courier’s (Salome Smith) battlefield ballad “Momma, Look Sharp” is acted out by the ensemble in black shrouds, bringing out the universality of war’s scourges. Against that optimism, Southern delegate Edward Rutledge (Sara Porkalob) leads the coruscating indictment of the Triangle Trade, “Molasses to Rum,” in a full-stage evocation of a slave auction through group chorale and dance. Davis) and Franklin (Patrena Murray) sing about “The Egg” of a new nation ripe for hatching, projected behind them is a collage of images of American activism from abolition to women’s suffrage to ACT-UP. Thus, as Adams (Lucas-Perry), Jefferson (Elizabeth A. ![]() By setting aside verisimilitude, the production is freed up to contextualize the Continental Congress’s machinations through their consequences over the ensuing 200 years. Critics of “1776” have always argued that its efforts at realism are silly anyhow, with all the warbling and prancing going on. ![]() Beyond offering prodigious talents some juicy roles traditionally closed to them (and inviting contemplation of other opportunities a boys’-club theater has jealously kept to itself), it instantly alienates us from any illusion that these characters are The Real Thing. This wide-open casting policy, to which “Hamilton” cracked open the door, is no stunt. In slow motion and eerily front-lit, they don 18th century outerwear, pull up their stockings and shed sneakers for buckled shoes. Before you can say “Sit Down, John,” an entire company of multiracial, multiethnic performers identifying as female, trans and non-binary is revealed. She looks up skeptically at the historical fellows, then at us, and embarks on John Adams’ opening speech about Congress defined as “three or more useless men,” to knowing laughter. Against a front cloth projection of John Trumbull’s famous July 4 painting – which ended Peter Hunt’s original production – in saunters Crystal Lucas-Perry in white top and black slacks, impressive black braids down her back. Never are we allowed to forget that the founders were self-interested fathers, heedless of women as thinking citizens and ready to consign people of color to history’s ashbin.Ī point of view is established right away, in Brechtian strokes. Page go all-in on a political perspective, infusing librettist Peter Stone’s story of the Continental Congress with 20/20 hindsight. The production’s pre-Broadway tryout at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., holds this truth to be self-evident: that the Declaration of Independence’s promises of freedom and justice were mere words, compromised and betrayed from the very moment of ratification.ĭirector Diane Paulus is no stranger to re-envisioning musical classics, having given new life to “Hair” and brought out the lessons in a circus-themed “Pippin.” Now she and choreographer/co-director Jeffrey L. Half a century later, a radical makeover brings critique front and center, while treating those ideals as a chimera rather than a promise fulfilled. When the Tony-winning musical “ 1776” debuted on Broadway in 1969, it celebrated America’s ideals on the eve of its Bicentennial.
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