1776
Music and Lyrics by Sherman Edwards
Book by Peter Stone
Directed by Ronan Marra
Musical Director, Andra Velis Simon
At the Chopin Theatre in Chicago
A review of the performance on Jan. 26, 2008
With an unlikely subject for musical comedy, 1776 tells the story of the debates and negotiations that took place in the Continental Congress in the sweltering summer of 1776, leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Woven into the story are the personal struggles of the men involved, the alliances they formed, the antagonisms they nurtured, and the way in which their individual personalities affected the course of events that historic summer. Signal Ensemble made a good choice in this play for the year of a presidential election.
In brief, the story focuses on the proponents of American independence, who are John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, the last of whom is cajoled into writing the declaration, a document that must clearly and persuasively set forth the reasons for the colonies' separation from Great Britain. The opponents of independence comprise two coteries of men: the first, led by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, are those who fear jeopardizing their wealth by rebelling against the Crown, and the second, represented by Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, are those who refuse to consider independence if it abolishes the institution of slavery.
One can imagine those men wearing heavy velvet coats, shirts tight at the collar, sealed in a room with closed windows on a hot and humid summer day, with simmering quarrels and nagging personal problems: tempers must have been on a hair-trigger. The resulting combustibility is only intensified by the decision of Congress itself that the vote for independence must be unanimous to pass. Unanimity, they'd concluded, would show unity against England while preventing fighting among the colonies themselves.
Although it contains exaggeration and fabrication, 1776 is otherwise remarkably accurate historically, or so the history books imply. In some parts of the story, in fact, the characters speak the very words of the historical figures themselves.
The central character in this play is John Adams. Portrayed by Philip Winston, he was suitably domineering and obstreperous, fully worthy of being called "obnoxious and disliked". His tender side, however, came through clearly in the gentle exchanges he shared with his wife, Abigail, in moments that served to pull him back from the edge of insufferability. His explosions of temper, however, proved to be too frequent and too loud. Being obnoxious and disliked doesn't require constant bellowing; an occasional quiet word, after all, can be just as rude as a brassy one.
Nevertheless, Winston was in tune with his character, as were most of his colleagues with theirs. In addition to the arrogance, he showed us Adams' loneliness and self-doubt without any bathos, letting those two states of mind briefly stall the Founding Father's bulldozer of a personality. Furthermore, Winston timed his pauses to good effect, and his facial expressions, from a raised eyebrow to a piercing glare, betrayed Adams' thoughts so skillfully that they kept reminding me of Rowan Atkinson at his Blackadder finest.
As Abigail Adams, Anne Sheridan Smith was fetching, and though her time on stage was comparatively short, she left a very positive impression. Smith gave Abigail a reassuring warmth amid the distress, while showing her character's sense of uxorial duty without compromising either her playfulness or her individuality. Smith's peaceful bearing on stage contrasted sharply with the irascibility that Winston brought out in her husband; this contradistinction, in fact, helped put John's character in strong relief against the rest of Congress.
I must mention Smith's lovely singing voice. Her vibrato had a pleasing width and speed and her tone was clean and bright. She sang her lines so confidently, gracefully, and sweetly, that I had no choice but to smile. Brava, Ms. Smith.
Vincent Lonergan's Benjamin Franklin was the man of many traits that one could easily imagine the historical figure to have been: loud, polite, vulgar, abrupt, delicate, amiable, confrontational, wise, and so on. In short, Franklin could adapt his posture to any situation. Though Lonergan made Franklin a likeable fellow, he also chose to make him just a little too scrappy, a little too coarse, to convince me of his office as an elder statesman -- or as an internationalist, as John Dickinson calls him early in the play.
But Lonergan's feistiness worked well otherwise. In scolding several of his colleagues in Congress, the most conspicuous being Adams and Dickinson, Lonergan always gave the impression that his Franklin had no fear whatsoever, like the noble turkey that he proposed for the symbol of their new nation. One wonders what the effect would have been on his relationship with the others, had Lonergan adopted a more diplomatic manner in the role.
Tim Howard played Thomas Jefferson, the author of the document in question. Howard's challenge in this role was not at all trivial, given that he had to portray a man who waxed eloquently about human rights while he himself owned slaves, a man indignant at having been coerced to write the Declaration while being sympathetic to independence, and a man of flesh, blood, and hormones, who was horny for his wife. And all of these while being the most taciturn member of Congress.
Given the few lines Jefferson has in this play, his frequent presence on stage requires a command of nonverbal expression. Though Howard was effective with anger, his character was generally phlegmatic. Jefferson's single most important moment in the play lies at the very heart of the conflict that runs throughout the second act; it's the moment when he responds to Edward Rutledge's accusation of hypocrisy, i.e., that Jefferson's objection to the slave trade is hollow in light of his being a "practitioner" himself. At this pivotal moment, Howard gave his response perfunctorily, as he did many of his lines. Howard's deadpan delivery of this line did preserve Jefferson's dignity before his colleagues, in the face of an embarrassing and undeniable truth about himself, but the moment might have been more meaningful had we seen Jefferson, a man known for his pride and equanimity, acknowledge that truth with at least a modicum of nervousness or awkwardness.
In the role of Edward Rutledge, Jeremy Trager gave an arresting performance. Though his interpretation was indeed extreme, it was uncommonly insightful, and of all the portrayals of Rutledge I've seen over the years, most of which were conventional two-dimensional caricatures, his was easily the most interesting. Not only did he have the expected aristocratic hauteur with an empty politeness -- all the way from his strut to his sneer -- but amidst all that imperiousness he evinced a believable hesitancy, an insecurity, in every assertion of his social superiority. This third dimension of Rutledge's personality is altogether logical for a pompous but inexperienced Southern patrician who was only in his twenties, and Trager brought this out in the form of a brilliantly subtle tentativeness in voice, face, and gesture.
In the second act, Congress debates various changes to Jefferson's Declaration, most of them trivial. Eventually, however, attention comes around to an issue so important that it threatens to bury the motion for independence; in one particular clause of the document, Jefferson has condemned the slave trade. In the ensuing argument, the Northern colonies agree with Jefferson, whereas Rutledge, who believes himself to speak for the entire South, takes exception to the clause and chastises his Northern brethren in Congress for their willingness to profit from slavery even while they denounce it. In what is perhaps the most dramatic and uncomfortable few minutes of the play, he delivers a very dark character-defining song, "Molasses to Rum to Slaves", to remind the New England delegates of the "triangle trade" in which their colonies participate, and to punctuate his stubborn refusal to vote in favor of Jefferson's Declaration if the "offending" clause is not removed.
This disturbing song requires a powerful singing voice capable of intimidation, sarcasm, and mockery. For greatest effect, the voice must slide between pitches, swell and recede on the same pitch, and shift smoothly between straight tone and vibrato. Together with his exceptional acting ability, Trager's rich, resonant singing voice met and exceeded the artistic and technical demands of this musical monster. As the song intensifies, Rutledge slips into a savage hallucination in which he acts out a slave auction in tasteless burlesque, becoming so revolting that a colleague in the chamber interrupts him with a plea to stop -- "in the name of God", of course. At this point, Trager gave us a masterful glimpse at Rutledge's third dimension, which I mentioned above, as his character was jolted back into reality. He threw a brief look of humiliation while struggling to regain his composure, and, without uttering a word, Trager thereby exposed Rutledge's self-realization that "I've gone too far; now I have to save face."
Rutledge's denunciation of Northern hyprocrisy is as relevant today as it would have been 232 years ago. In pointing out the pitfalls of self-righteousness, his musical diatribe suddenly changes the tone of the proceedings in Congress, dashes hopes that had been building, and symbolizes the regional tensions that would grow over the next 84 years to explode in a war that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Jon Steinhagen played John Dickinson, who represented Pennsylvania and stridently opposed independence. Though he achieved an appropriate smugness in the role, Steinhagen's performance was inconsistent: sometimes smooth, when his lines sounded natural, and at other times rough, when he seemed unprepared to go on stage.
In the role of Martha Jefferson, Lindsay Naas was sultry but genteel. It was fun to watch her blithely tease Adams and Franklin outside the room she was sharing with her husband, inasmuch as other actresses choose to interpret this role blandly. In the song "He Plays the Violin", Naas squeezed the double entendre to the last drop of metaphor.
Eric Lindahl, as the courier who brings dispatches from General Washington in the battlefield, deserves special mention for his singing of the mournful ballad "Momma, Look Sharp". It was no less true in 1776 than it is in 2008 that soldiers and civilians suffer while politicians bicker.
1776 is a smart play, with a literate, witty script. Edwards' song lyrics are clever in several ways: they elaborate the characters, advance the story, and succeed in rhyming within a highly restrictive context. In "But, Mr. Adams", for example, he gives us "Pennsylvania, extemporanea, mania" and "etiquette, predicate, Connecticut". With a distinctly American sound, furthermore, the music fits the lyrics and purpose of each song. A good example is "Molasses to Rum", discussed above, which is in 3/4 time, both to mirror the "triangle trade" that Rutledge is praising and to create a sense of rocking like a slaveship at sea. Another is "The Lees of Old Virginia", which, by paying its respects to "Old Macdonald", tells us that the Lees are everywhere, like the animals on a farm. "But, Mr. Adams" relies on staccato to create a sense of business-like urgency in the selection of an author for the Declaration and in putting him to work straightaway. And "Momma, Look Sharp" is modal to give it simplicity for its message about the ugly reality of war.
Unfortunately, I can't close this review without asking, at least rhetorically, why the orchestra played so badly. The instrumentalists were out of tune with each other, entrances were sloppy, and too many notes were wrong; they sounded like they were sightreading. I hope they apologized to the cast after the show.
The conversations this play can evoke today are just as meaningful as they were when it opened on Broadway in 1969. Personal hygiene, sartorial standards, and the internet aside, those men of the Continental Congress were, I daresay, the same as our leaders are today. Perhaps the plethora of presidential debates this election year should include a question or two about what happened in Philadelphia during that oppressive summer of 1776. I wonder: how many of the delegates from the 13 colonies can this year's presidential candidates name?