1776 at the Peace Center
One might think that the political maneuvering behind the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence would make a poor subject for a musical. But 1776 composer/lyricist Sherman Edwards and book-writer Peter Stone took that risk back in 1969 and walked away with the Tony for Best Musical for their efforts. However, the fact that it wasn’t even nominated for its score or book highlights the biggest issue with the show: it never seems firmly grounded as either a play or a musical.
The 2022 reimagining of the original concept — currently on stage at the Peace Center — does nothing to solve that problem, but adds new layers to the work, some of which enhance the experience while others just miss the mark. The most pronounced change is that the entire cast of Founding Fathers is swapped out from the “old white men” of the original with racially diverse performers who identify as female, non-binary, and trans. This decision adds some welcome heft to numbers like “Molasses to Rum” (performed brilliantly by Kassandra Haddock as South Carolina Congressman Edward Rutledge), highlighting the failures of the Founders, even as they aimed so high.
On the other hand, in our post-Hamilton theater world, the meta-commentary made in the direction by Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus — such as in the opening, showing the actors donning their Colonial shoes and coats in front of the audience — feels superfluous. Stagings such as these are rendered even more extraneous as soon as the action starts and we immediately accept this wonderful and varied cast as the politicians they are portraying.
Although the proceedings start slow, the second song, “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve,” quickly establishes that the show is going to belong to Gisela Adisa’s John Adams. Delivering a performance of great bravura and attention to detail, her presence is commanding and backed up with their voice, acting, and physicality.
Also living up to their chances to shine are Tieisha Thomas as Abigail Adams, Oneika Phillips as John Hancock, Nancy Anderson as Thomas Jefferson, and Connor Lyon as Martha Jefferson, that latter of whom offers a fun take on why she’s keeping her husband Thomas distracted from writing with “He Plays the Violin.” Nevertheless, pointing out some of these strong performances does an injustice to the rest of the very talented cast, all of whom shine in one way or another.
The set design by Scott Pask remains sparse throughout the show, using curtains and projected backdrops to great effect. The curtains also wisely shrink the cavernous Peace Center stage down to help focus the action, but this choice is less effective in the Congress scenes that involve a lot of the cast on stage at one time, forcing theatergoers to guess where a voice is coming from before we can pinpoint that actor.
Elsewhere, projections are nicely employed during “The Egg,” a key song that Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams sing to describe the incubation of this great American experiment. At the song’s climax, the visuals rapidly flash scenes of highlights and lowlights of U.S. history in the almost 250 years since that experiment began, giving us a context as to how that experiment has both succeeded and failed.
Toward the end of 1776, several characters face the audience to again justify actions that, in 2023, seem like weaknesses. Once more, this decision serves up commentary that suggests that Page and Paulus don’t have enough faith in a fine idea that stands on its own.
All that said, theatrical experiments like this should continue to be produced, and they should happen with more evenly-constructed plays. Even with the aforementioned flaws, this is an experiment worth experiencing.
1776 runs through June 18 at the Peace Center. For details and tickets, visit peacecenter.org.
(Photo by Joan Marcus)
