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NEW YORK — As directed by Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus, the revival of the 1969 musical “1776,” which opened Thursday in a production by the Roundabout Theatre Company, is the latest entry in the current trend of blowing up the baked-in optimism of the American musical theater.
These productions are not so much revivals as deconstructions. And, as with the case of this peculiar treatment of the much-loved Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they are open to the charge of bait and switch.
The most valid response to that charge is, to my mind, radically excellent artistry. In the case, say, of Daniel Fish’s “Oklahoma!,” you had a show that did not look like any other revival nor even embrace the show’s inherent belief in American exceptionalism. But it sure made its case with superb singing, vivid stage pictures, arrestingly present acting and a juicy relishing of the show’s seething subtext.
With “1776,” now in a limited Broadway engagement and starring Crystal Lucas-Perry as John Adams, Patrena Murray as Benjamin Franklin and Elizabeth A. Davis as Thomas Jefferson, none of that applies.
Part of the issue here is that Lin-Manuel Miranda got there first with “Hamilton,” an original show that made the vital point that the Founding Fathers were not the crusty, white-haired crew from your wallet but young, scrappy and hungry. And although that show had nods aplenty to “1776,” along with other musicals, Miranda had written his own material. He could talk afresh about race, immigration and America.
Page and Paulus are making their primary statement through casting: the company is made up of female, trans and nonbinary performers, mostly of color. That’s a radical statement, for sure, and very much in conversation with one of the principal (and inarguably valid) charges made against “Hamilton,” that it switched up race but relied on existing Broadway tropes of gender.
The opening moment of seeing this committed company of folks, excluded historically not just from the events being depicted but from Broadway itself, is as arresting as it is potent. Many make their Broadway debuts.
In the original musical, the omission of slavery from the document is depicted as an expedient choice by the like of Adams and Franklin, a necessary compromise (among others) to get the slave-owning states to go along, lest independence fail entirely. By the standards of its era, “1776″ was a liberal musical, fully aware of that missed opportunity, sophisticated in its understanding of American mythmaking and lamenting the messiness of what happened in Philadelphia. The song “Molasses to Rum,” an unstinting indictment of how the Northern statement benefited from slavery, was astonishingly prescient for its day. But it was still blissfully unaware of how it looked to have a bunch of powerful white guys bartering in song over human lives, especially guys who were slave owners themselves or who had business interests therein. This production corrects that issue with great force. There can be no argument with that.
But the show is still a muddle of styles: the score is said to feature updated arrangements, but they sometimes feel just louder than conceptually rethought. Some of the acting (and singing) feels intentionally of this moment; other performances have a period veneer. And, more problematic yet, it rarely feels like anything really is being lived or decided in real time.
That’s the problem with approaching an old musical in this way: minds in the production are made up from the opening frame and you can tell that from all the subsequent choices being made. But the actual material, far subtler than this conception, is supposed to be lived in real time; as they say in “Hamilton,” “history is not inevitable.” You certainly see the actors from the present assume these roles and the pain that involves; but you don’t feel they all are living each and every moment.
Frankly, I think the show would have worked better with all actors of color, or all trans and nonbinary actors, since the level of intentionality here is not clear. Similarly, the show never fully figured out how to deal with the comedic, domestic moments baked into “1776,” which sit awkwardly on this conceit.
In short, then, you have a revival that wants both to revive the material and blow it up, even though “1776″ hardly was a crude work of musical triumphalism. Sure, “1776″ is problematic, not unlike most cultural entities from 1969, but if that it was it wanted to foreground, the production needed to have better sense of the irony of bringing it back to our attention.
As distinct, say, from supporting a new musical by people of color about the complexities of American history.
At the American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., New York; www.roundabouttheatre.org
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
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