1776 — Studio C

“1776” performance review, The Daily Cardinal, March 2000

Judging by the audience that came out to see 1776, the famed Broadway musical that arrived in Madison Wednesday night, this review would seem to hold little interest for readers of this paper. The large crowd of middle-aged spectators seemed far removed from the UW campus just a few blocks away.

It could be the prohibitive cost of a Civic Center ticket, which, in fairness, reflects the high price of staging an extravagant production like 1776, and is considerably less cost-prohibitive than a ticket to the same show in, say, New York.

It could be the feeble attempt generally made by the Civic Center to reach college students, whether you judge this by the relentlessly tepid fare the Center presents, or the demographic targets of its marketing campaign and sponsors.

It could be that the college-aged are simply uninterested in the quaint artifice of the Broadway extravaganza, though a quick harkening back to recent university productions like Guys and Dolls confuses the argument.

Then again, it could be the show itself, dated by the standard of 31 years ago when it came to Broadway alongside the staunchly contemporary Promises Promises and Hair. Considering how dated Hair now seems, this wouldn’t bode well for the musty conventions of a show like 1776.

Being a show of somewhat unfamiliar stock, a little background is in order. 1776 opened in 1969, becoming the surprise hit of the theatrical season. Nudging out its more-fashionable rivals — Promises Promises and Hair — for the Tony® Award for Best Musical, the show found enough momentum for a three-year run. A revival a generation later won similar acclaim and spawned the national tour that came to Madison Wednesday night.

As the title suggests, 1776 travels back in time to the summer of that first year of our nation’s history, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence serving as its stirring climax. In between there’s a lot of mirth and music, though the deliberations of the Continental Congress sometimes become so intricate that long stretches pass without any music at all.

We see our nation’s founding fathers quibbling over words and vainly eyeing posterity. We see the famous delegates (not quite all of the 56 who were in Philadelphia that hot summer) drinking and swearing.

There’s John Adams, passionate, patriotic … and obnoxious and disliked. And Ben Franklin, avuncular, prudent … and a bawdy old-man who nods off during congressional debate. And, of course, we see Thomas Jefferson — eloquent, saturnine, slave-owning hypocrite.

Peter Stone’s book confronts the tougher issues that threatened to immobilize the Congress; composer Sherman Edwards ponders the most serious of them, slavery, in the fervent hymn “Molasses to Rum,” without imposing the revisionist ideology that could be expected with hindsight and historical scholarship debunking the mythology of these men. But the fact that these were men, and not demigods, as Ben Franklin points out late in the show, is the foundation for the entire production.

This may explain why the show’s general demeanor is that of gentle spoofing rather than irreverent deconstruction, as could be expected of a show written at the tumultuous end of the 1960s. What it doesn’t explain, however, is the show’s indifference toward the early feminist notions of Abigail Adams who, through stage-device, is grafted into the plot. Instead, she is shown to be a doting, if somewhat feisty, spouse giving her husband simple, sentimental encouragement.

The music may be at times overwrought and embarrassing (not to mention rhythmically dull), the arrangements pedestrian, the humor sophomoric, and the dialogue crude and unimaginative. And the compromise — over slavery — that this country was founded on is not exactly the sort of undiluted heroism that feel-good Broadway fables are usually made of. But somehow, with little to recommend it, 1776 overcomes these many obstacles and leaves one’s chest swelled with pride and patriotism. Maybe it’s the large-scale reproduction of the Declaration of Independence that comes unfurled from the rafters as the show ends — curiously without a rousing musical climax. Maybe the resounding applause and standing ovation that result are more a projection of an audience’s gratitude to the real Ben Franklin and the real John Adams, and, of course, to Thomas Jefferson and the rugged document that he produced. Or maybe it’s that seeing our Founding Fathers brought to life, singing and dancing in their princely costumes before us on stage, has an irresistible and timeless charm.