By: Janet Preus
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| Norah Long (Abigail Adams) and Michael Thomas Holmes (John Adams) in 1776 - Photo by T. Charles Erickson |
The Guthrie Theater’s summer offering of 1776, just in time for the Fourth of July, suggests a stirring patriotic move, but hold on just a minute. Were our founding forefathers that cantankerous? Lazy? Arrogant? Uncooperative? Egotistical? Well, what do you know? Besides standing up to the world’s super power of its day and birthing a new nation, they were real people, too. Upon this dramatic foundation, a show was built—the Guthrie’s re-staging of this 1969 Tony Award-winner is both classy and engaging.
1776 shouldn’t succeed—if one ascribes to the usual conventions of a Broadway Musical—but it does. Its premise is just intriguing enough and its collection of characters is varied and fascinating enough for us to accept its shortcomings.
The show’s creator, Sherman Edwards, also wrote the music and lyrics and had the good sense to know when the characters ought not to sing. Satisfyingly long dialogue scenes are punctuated by somewhat oddball music, and sometimes clever, sometimes jagged lyrics. The challenge in this musical rendition of the events leading up to July 4, 1776, is to not undermine the dignity of the play’s subject while exposing the players in this historical turning point for the foible-ridden humans that they were.
The idea behind so many songs was so interesting, but with little of the familiar AABA structure, or a memorable musical motif, one had to work a bit to warm up to them. Martha Jefferson’s “He Plays the Violin,” for example, was so obtuse that my fairly-sophisticated college-age daughter didn’t get the sexual metaphor, never mind its elaborate set-up.
Although one might not leave the theater humming the show’s melodies, a few transcended the head-scratcher category: The show’s opener, “Sit Down, John” sets up the antagonistic relationship the Continental Congress had with John Adams and now forces the lead character to do something about it. His journey from ineffective bully to a statesman of truly historic proportions drives the plot and nurtures the audience’s sympathy for him—a necessary thing given that his constant hollering wears on more than just the characters in the play. Michael Thomas Holmes’s rendering of the impossible Mr. Adams had our hearts, however.
It’s hard for Peter Michael Goetz to appear on a Guthrie stage without a bit of that “neighbor kid doing a play in the backyard” feel. He’s just so familiar. He was also the perfect choice for pithy and naughty Benjamin Franklin, a character drawn more like the brilliant sidekick in a cop movie than the usual bumbling comic foil.
Thomas Jefferson, played with brooding reticence by Tyson Forbes, rounds out the triumvirate for the cause of independence. Their musical romp with Richard Henry Lee (Richard White) “The Lees of Old Virginia,” was silly, to be sure, but with White’s ever-so-careful over-the-top rendering of Lee’s pomposity it was impossible not to laugh.
The high point, musically, was the provocative “Molasses to Rum,” performed magnificently by Bradley Greenwald as South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge. This song not only foreshadows The Civil War, in a larger sense it dramatizes the conundrum of hypocrisy and economics that still plagues our government. It was the best number in the show because it absolutely delivered what it intended.
Blessed few numbers were choreographed, or should I say “danced”—Choreographer James Sewell’s sense of humor and exquisite timing provided just enough to remind us we were watching musical theater here.
Mostly this is an ensemble show, necessitated by the action of the plot, which requires everyone’s direct participation; each vote “yea” or “nay” was an opportunity to reveal more of the individual frailties—and political power—behind the frock coats and bowed hair. Truly fine acting all around.
The soldier courier, played by Brian Skellenger, singing of the real war far beyond the congress’s chambers in Philadelphia, must be mentioned. In a few notes, he connected us with our own war, and reminded us that this conflict—or any other—is not funny. “Mama Look Sharp” was startling and beautiful.
Mostly the show was an odd duck in the musical world, but I liked its lack of cliché, its intelligent wrestling with history and the Guthrie Theater’s almost flawless delivery. If you’re in the kitchen right now, taking a vote, yea or nay, and need just one vote to turn the tide, I vote yea. Courteously.
Location Info:
Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: 1776
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