EVAN ZIMMERMAN FOR MURPHYMADE
Will Blum, far right, plays John Adams in The Paper Mill Playhouse’s production of “1776,” which runs through May 2.
I missed the musical “1776” when it premiered on Broadway, in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I was alive, but I was just a kid, and not going to a lot of Broadway shows. And somehow I missed the popular 1972 movie version.
Thanks to the current version of it that is being presented by The Paper Mill Playhouse — just in time for the 250th birthday of the country, this year! — I have finally caught up with it. And I’m glad I did.
Book writer Peter Stone and composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards managed to build a lot of drama into their story about the congressional maneuvering leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and pack plenty of humor into something that may seem humor-less in history books. And Edwards — who was raised in Newark and lived in Parsippany for many years before his 1981 death — contributes a bunch of clever and catchy songs. The Paper Mill Playhouse production — directed by the theater’s producing artistic director, Mark S. Hoebee — is a straightforward one. But it brings the play’s colorful cast of characters to vivid life on a handsome set (designed by Kevin Rupnik) that takes advantage of the large dimensions of the theater’s stage to represent the sweltering, fly-ridden interior of The Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.
EVAN ZIMMERMAN FOR MURPHYMADE
From left, Will Blum, John Treacy Egan and Michael Burrell as John Adams, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in “1776.”
The three main characters are Will Blum as Massachusetts’ John Adams, who is so focused on independence for America that he annoys everyone else; John Treacy Egan as the canny, pragmatic Ben Franklin, representing Pennsylvania; and Michael Burrell as Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson, a talented writer who is reluctant to take on the task of penning the Declaration — and, after he does so, seethes as the other congressional delegates bicker over every word.
Other memorable performances are turned in by Edward Watts as haughty Pennsylvanian John Dickinson, who leads the anti-Declaration side, arguing for continued obedience to Great Britain’s King George III; Jonathan Young as South Carolinian Edward Rutledge, who fights, nastily, to delete a passage from the Declaration that condemns slavery; Elena Shaddow as Adams’ devoted wife Abigail, who stays in Massachusetts but is seen writing letters to him, and in his imagination; and Liz Leclerc as Jefferson’s glamorous wife Martha, who visits him in Philadelphia and dances with Adams and Franklin during the song, “He Plays the Violin.”
Virtually everyone in the cast of 26 has at least one great moment. Bryant Martin plays the good-natured but buffoonish Richard Henry Lee (one of Virginia’s representatives), who doesn’t realize Adams and Franklin are mocking and manipulating him in the high-spirited number, “The Lees of Old Virginia.” Praise Oranika, who plays the courier charged with bringing battlefield dispatches to Congress from Gen. George Washington, gets to sing the rousing first act-closing song, “Momma Look Sharp,” which evokes the horrors of the war Washington is fighting. James Moye, as Massachusetts’ John Hancock, gets to say the Congress president’s famous line, about his large signature on the Declaration: He did it that way “so fat George in London can read it without his glasses!”
EVAN ZIMMERMAN FOR MURPHYMADE
Edward Watts, left, and James Moye as John Dickinson and John Hancock in “1776.”
Did the real John Hancock say that? Probably not. But no one should approach this musical assuming that this is the way anything really was, back in Philadelphia, 250 years ago. Rather, it is an attempt to represent the forces at play during the founding of our country: the clash of strong-willed people, of different personal sensibilities and talented in different ways (think of it as “The Avengers” for political junkies); and, perhaps most of all, the monumental difficulties of the congressional process.
There is a long wait in the show’s first act — about a half hour — between the show’s fourth and fifth songs. This is very unusual for a musical, but effective, because it evokes the frustrations of the delegates as they endlessly debate whether they should pursue independence.
The musical starts with Adams saying, “I’ve come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress.” (This line got a big cheer from the Paper Mill crowd.) Soon, Adams is singing:
We piddle, twiddle and resolve
Not one damn thing do we solve
Piddle, twiddle and resolve
Nothing’s ever solved in
Foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia!
EVAN ZIMMERMAN FOR MURPHYMADE
Elena Shaddow and Will Blum as Abigail and John Adams in “1776.”
This production of “1776” comes, of course, at a time when, you could argue, our government is more dysfunctional than ever. But is it really relevant to the current moment? I’m not sure. Everything is so different now, in ways that these Founding Fathers could not have possibly imagined. The idea, for instance, of communicating with the public directly and instantaneously, via social media, would have seemed as impossible, in 1776, as soaring around the moon in a spacecraft.
But “1776,” does, certainly, capture the messiness of democracy. The delegates come to agree that independence from Great Britain is worth fighting and maybe dying for. But the Northern delegates give in to the Southern faction over the slavery issue; Jefferson’s condemnation of it is deleted. This makes the triumph that the Declaration of Independence represents significantly less glorious. But it is to Stone’s credit that he didn’t sugarcoat this aspect of U.S. history.
“All right, gentlemen,” says Hancock, before signing the Declaration. “We are about to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper. And how it shall end, God only knows.”
If Hancock really said this in 1776, the other delegates would have felt it deeply. The line must have resonated, too, when “1776” premiered in the politically and socially tumultuous year of 1969. As it does, today.
The Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn will present “1776” through May 2; visit papermill.org.
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