performance

"1776" – Terrific Cast

By Gary Tischler

MAY 2008

It’s not much of a drive to go out to Olney, the still bucolic, but also lively and lovely  Maryland town about 20 miles outside of Washington, DC, and take in the theatrical offerings at the Olney Theater Center. The theater, (actually three theaters now after completion of a major expansion plan in 2005), has been around for 70 years, but the perception persists that it’s still one of those institutions that fits under the category of secret treasures.

The theater critical establishment tends to be wary and a little snobbish of suburban theaters as lacking in edge and seriousness and sometimes those theaters-unless you’re a Signature or a Synetic Theater in Virginia-don’t get the attention they deserve.

That’s been changing for the Olney under the artistic directorship of Jim Petosa, and the 2008 season and the presence of Olney’s production of the always popular “1776” go a long way in explaining the reason why,  as well as illustrating the dilemmas faced by the theater.

Even dark and edgy theater companies at some point have to fulfill the dictum to “put butts in the seats,” and that’s even more true if you’re in Olney where family friendly fare always has to be part of the mix in any theatrical season.

Certainly Christmas offerings like “Cinderella” or even the upcoming chestnut “The Mousetrap” fulfill that fare. The great and thick repertoire of the American musical-a staple of dinner theaters as well-also fit the bill. “1776,” first exploding on Broadway in 1973, certainly fits the bill, although, even today, it’s hardly a traditional Oscar and Hammerstein style song-and-dance-and-story musical. In the 21st Century, it remains something of an anomaly, musically and dramatically neither fish nor fowl.

But, since it did win the Tony for best musical, “1776” is a 35-year-old musical, familiar to one and all and this production is so good that it easily manages the task of “putting butts in the seats”, or at least it should. But Olney hasn’t shied way from riskier material, less mainstream, witness this season’s highly praised version of “Doubt,” which concerns issues raised by a potentially abusive priest, and the appearance in June of “Stuff Happens”, David Hare’s controversial and slapdash, stinging look at how we might and likely did get into Iraq.

This way, Olney straddles that old tightrope of pleasing a diverse audience for a year-round, full-schedule of plays. “1776” does a good job of illustrating the tightrope.

For sure, it’s timely: there’s HBO’s strong mini-series on the life of John Adams, who figures prominently in “1776,” which is after all a show about the deliberations of many of our founding fathers leading to the Declaration of Independence, both the written document and an expression of the right to be free. The fact that we remain in the middle of a combative Democratic Party primary process doesn’t hurt either.  Opportunities for comparisons abound in “1776,” where the principals like Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Northern and Southern colonies battle over issues still echoing in today’s national debates. And even here, in comes down to Pennsylvania.

“1776,” which beat out the rock/hippie musical “Hair” for the Tony Award, was in its own way very non traditional. In its day, it was sniped at for its irreverent treatment of such an august and holy matter as the origin of the political bible of our country, or at least its Genesis.  These delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia are seen as “obnoxious” (Adams, unanimously), randy (Jefferson, pining for his wife), racist (Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina), drunks, and dirty old men (Mr. Franklin, of course). Jefferson, in fact, is so, um, full of yearning for a conjugal visit that Adams arranges one to get him to finish the Declaration of which he was the principal author, with critical edits from the delegates.

Strictly speaking, a musical “1776” is not, although there are a number of songs at irregular and unpredictable intervals. Some of them are great fun. There’s the rousing “The Lees of Virginia” by the preposterous Richard Henry Lee, and the vaudevillian turn of “But Mr. Adams.”  But all of it, even the songs, is about talk, and it’s wonderful talk, sharp talk, funny talk as the delegates, led by the bull-headed, piss-ant, determined Adams, come to within a whisker of NOT forming a nation.

There’s a terrific cast at work here. Paul Binotto’s Adams has a lot more energy, and a wisp of more charm than the HBO version, for instance, and Thomas Jefferson, as played by Rob Richardson is at turns romantic, hard-nosed, frustrated and smart enough to use his height to advantage. (Apparently George Washington, who is heard through increasingly depressing dispatches from the failing war front but not seen, was not the only tall Virginian). 

What’s most appealing about the show is that it’s like a great political television show, thankfully minus television explainers. The process, as seen here, is messy, human, funny, unreasonable, and an incredibly close thing, like our last few elections. And seeds were sown here.  Edward Rutledge, the South Carolina delegate played with that florid polite charm that Southerners to this day seem able to call upon at will, has a Darth side, if you will.  You can hear its echoes today in the song “Molasses to Rum”,  where you can see why the opposition to slavery expressed by Jefferson in his original version disappeared.

“1776,” for all of its innuendo and broad comedy, is a grown up show, for grown up times, it’s history that’s every bit as telling as the HBO movie.  And the production at Olney is a grown-up production, hugely entertaining, engaging hearts and minds as  it should.

“1776” has been extended through May 18 at the Olney Theater Center, at 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road.