AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Endowed by our creator12/31/2023 ![]() Taking an obvious cue from Hamilton, which was at first harshly criticized for its casting, 1776’s has gone further with “multiple representations of race, ethnicity, and gender” who “identify as female, transgender and nonbinary.” It’s a fantastic choice that brings the American Revolution to a wider audience and creates fresh dialogue. This 2022’s show’s PR team has put casting front and center so have Playbill’s headlines. While the original cast was entirely thirty-something plus white males, later iterations of the show have used “ color-blind” casting with Black actors and actresses. This is the fourth revival of 1776, with the last seen in 2016 while Hamilton-mania was just beginning to run wild. Although, there are glimpses of economic and personal motivations more consistent with Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), in sound, look, and feel, the 1776 of fifty years ago is pure Americana. But it fit fairly consistently with how historians wrote about the Revolution during the Cold War era-as in Bernard Bailyn’s 1967 Pultizer Prize-winning the Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Reviewer Eric Atkins of the Tampa Bay Times called it “a Yankee Doodle Dandy show that takes historical figures, kids them a little bit, and in the process makes those men we’ve been reading about since first grade come alive as humans instead of symbols.” The original played with near-mythic figures with some deep cracks that are frequently poked and prodded for comedic and dramatic effects. It won a Tony in 1969 and critics loved it. On the surface, 1776 represents a fairly traditional, even celebratory view of the Founders. As Japproaches, 1776 revival once again faces a nation grappling with the definition of patriotism and its own past, present, and future. While there has been a portion of the population that’s clung to the Declaration with a “ reverential, quasi-religious treatment” for decades, others who have maneuvered to have it contextualized with a “ trigger warning” in the National Archives are something new. Although many American may never see the show on Broadway, they will still be the voices that evaluate the Founders’ legacies and determine their place in today’s society. So “does anybody care” about 1776 in 2022? Americans need to care. Originally released in 1969, the musical tells the story of the Second Continental Congress meeting to discuss the possibility of declaring independence from Great Britain in the late spring and early summer of 1776. ![]() 1776 excels by grappling with such tension even amidst turmoil within the cast that similarly asks the question: whose Revolution is it? Page and Diane Paulus and the Roundabout Theater Company. And therein lies the inherent contradiction of the Declaration, Jefferson, and the latest revival of 1776 by directors Jeffrey L. ![]() “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in the summer of 1776. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |