musical theatre review: 1776

[calimac]

After South Bay MT's first show of the season, I wasn't sure how good their chops were, but their 1776 was up to snuff. There were only a couple of minor characters who couldn't act, a couple more who couldn't sing, but the only song that was scuffed thereby was "Momma Look Sharp". Everybody else was good, some excellent. Dickinson was the best actor of the bunch; Richard Henry Lee pranced vigorously throughout his song without losing breath (I complimented him on this after the show and he explained, "Aerobic exercise"); a more stolid and weathered Adams than the usual contributed to the power and hence amusement value of his interruptions of the chorus in "But Mr. Adams". Abigail was a woman of size, and not afraid to use it. So was Franklin: this and several lesser parts were played by women, and except for the one who couldn't figure out what octave she should sing in (see above criticism) you'd hardly notice.

It's a little difficult to watch 1776 today, when our long democratic story is lying choking in its own blood upon the ground (to borrow a phrase), but a good enough production can make you forget that ... momentarily.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

We're just home from tonight's show. And liked it very much. The gender-neutral casting worked better than I'd expected - and yes, Dickinson was excellent. (And I looked him up on Wikipedia, and his actual role in the founding of the US was ... well, nothing like the show suggests...)

That was my first live 1776 (we run the movie every year on July 4th, at my half-birthday party), and I'm not even an American yet.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

They did oversimplify a lot, but the core is true. Dickinson was highly opposed to British treatment of the colonies, or he wouldn't have been in the Congress in the first place. But the Congress really did, as Adams complained in his opening song, desperately search for acceptable reconciliation terms even as they were running a rebellion, and Dickinson was the principal reconciliator; but it's also true that when the British (later on) finally offered the terms that the colonists had been asking for before the rebellion, they were turned down; things had gone too far by then. Dickinson's opposition to declaring independence was based on his opposition to violence and his belief that a solution could be worked out by negotiation somehow; thus, in the play, his speech to Adams in the debate before their fight more accurately represents his views than the song "Cool Considerate Men."

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

1776 is the musical I've seen the second-most live. (Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show is first, with seven; Evita is third with two; nothing else is more than one.) I've toyed with an SF fannish version of it for years, casting me in the Richard Henry Lee role in part because I can scan my name into the song.

Looking at the long-range weather forecast, I may have to stay over in the Bay Area next weekend, in which case I may try to see this production. Thanks for pointing it out.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

How do you scan your name? "Richard Henry Lee" is 5 syllables, yours is 4.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Use my middle initial (A for Allen).

My name is Kevin A Standlee, and Fandom is my home,
My name is Kevin A Standlee, and Fandom is my home!
And may my corflu turn to glue
If I can't deliver up to you
A resolution on independecy!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I similarly had to employ an unused middle initial to convert the theme song from George of the Jungle into a campaign song for George McGovern:

George, George, George S. McGovern
Ran for President
AAAOOOOUUUUUGH!
Watch out for that crook!

I wrote this, as a child, during the campaign itself, which is how I know for sure that I considered Nixon a crook long before he said "I am not a crook."

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Nicki and my annual January mini-vacation trips to NYC have spoiled us on musical theater, to the point where we will only go to Actors Equity-level stages (which some of the regional theaters around here are). But, as you describe, there are certainly many fine community theater productions going on and the levels of acting skills are getting better and better.