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Dec. 9th, 2018 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI just got out of New Repertory Theater's production of 1776, which caught my attention several months ago when the cast list circulated and I realized this iteration of the Continental Congress included only a handful of white men - John Adams, James Wilson, Lymond Hall, Andrew McNair, and Robert Livingston in a double role as Martha Jefferson.
(Here's the trio: Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin.)
I had no idea how they were going to play the blind casting and I was sort of braced broad comedy or audience winks around the various race- and gender-swaps. In fact, however, the show played everything extremely straight (...including the parts that were extremely queer) with absolutely no changes to the book. It clearly wasn't aiming to particularly revolutionize or critique the text, but it was probably the best standard production of 1776 I've ever seen.
Highlights:
- Bobbie Steinbach as Franklin was the most chutzpah-filled tiny loud grandmother and I loved her
- the sheer swagger of Pier Lamia Porter's Richard Henry Lee!
- the John and Abigail Adams scenes as played by Ben Evett and Carolyn Saxon were really intensely romantic -- lots of that very Regency-pining choreography, all the love and desire and very careful lack of touch -- in a way that you don't often see visibly middle-aged people get to be onstage and still less visibly middle-aged women of color and size and I ATE IT UP WITH A SPOON, Yuletide fic about this John and Abigail immediately
- on a less heterosexual note, Dan Prior's entrance as Martha Jefferson was also played EXTREMELY romantic and his subsequent dance scene with Franklin and Adams both swooning over him was fantastic, and, again, not played for comedy any more than the comedy that's in the text; within the world of the play Martha is a.) Jefferson's wife and b.) extremely dreamy and these are the only relevant factors. (The friend I went with hadn't checked out the casting in advance; when Martha entered and went into the clinch with Jefferson she shrieked and grabbed my arm in sheer delight. At the talkback afterwards the actors said that last time they had a school group come in for the show, they had to pause for an extra minute to wait for the kids to stop applauding.)
- worth noting: the cross-cast female actors all wear frock coats and pants, and so does Martha; Abigail is the only character in a skirt. I understand why that choice was made, but I'm not sure how I feel about the inconsistency. On the other hand, the cast all do look GREAT in their frock coats
- otherwise, the costuming was consistently delightful, a whole range of multi-colored and patterned frock coats with lots of really fun and playful details (Jefferson's waistcoat gave off intense sweater-vest vibes; Dickinson had really stark and elegant black-and-white costuming that Wilson was very clearly trying to mimic and doing less well at carrying off; Adams' coat was a very bland grey, but under it he had TIGHT LEATHER PANTS, I died.)
- KP Powell's Jefferson was very effectively underplayed -- unlike in most productions I've seen, he didn't join in the dancing at all in "But, Mr. Adams", glowering out the entire song on the side, and he spends most of the second act, as the Congress dissects the Declaration, just quietly sinking lower and lower in his chair. I'd been wondering how the production would handle "Molasses to Rum", when the issue of slavery explicitly rears its head. For the most part, the answer, again, is that for the most part it just lets the text speak as the text, for better or worse. But there's something about the visual optics of Rutledge (played by a white woman) and Adams (played by a white man) arguing about the slavery clause in the Declaration while a black actor playing Jefferson sits aside with his head in his hands that I'm still chewing on.
- the American flag never appears in this production - only the British one, ripped down at the end -- and I'm glad of it
We also stayed for the talkback afterwards, at which a very elderly lady politely said she had a question for McNair; McNair (a minor role) visibly perked up; and the very elderly lady promptly asked him what the point was of having his character in the show because she hadn't quite understood it. Sorry, McNair! You're symbolically important!
(Here's the trio: Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin.)
I had no idea how they were going to play the blind casting and I was sort of braced broad comedy or audience winks around the various race- and gender-swaps. In fact, however, the show played everything extremely straight (...including the parts that were extremely queer) with absolutely no changes to the book. It clearly wasn't aiming to particularly revolutionize or critique the text, but it was probably the best standard production of 1776 I've ever seen.
Highlights:
- Bobbie Steinbach as Franklin was the most chutzpah-filled tiny loud grandmother and I loved her
- the sheer swagger of Pier Lamia Porter's Richard Henry Lee!
- the John and Abigail Adams scenes as played by Ben Evett and Carolyn Saxon were really intensely romantic -- lots of that very Regency-pining choreography, all the love and desire and very careful lack of touch -- in a way that you don't often see visibly middle-aged people get to be onstage and still less visibly middle-aged women of color and size and I ATE IT UP WITH A SPOON, Yuletide fic about this John and Abigail immediately
- on a less heterosexual note, Dan Prior's entrance as Martha Jefferson was also played EXTREMELY romantic and his subsequent dance scene with Franklin and Adams both swooning over him was fantastic, and, again, not played for comedy any more than the comedy that's in the text; within the world of the play Martha is a.) Jefferson's wife and b.) extremely dreamy and these are the only relevant factors. (The friend I went with hadn't checked out the casting in advance; when Martha entered and went into the clinch with Jefferson she shrieked and grabbed my arm in sheer delight. At the talkback afterwards the actors said that last time they had a school group come in for the show, they had to pause for an extra minute to wait for the kids to stop applauding.)
- worth noting: the cross-cast female actors all wear frock coats and pants, and so does Martha; Abigail is the only character in a skirt. I understand why that choice was made, but I'm not sure how I feel about the inconsistency. On the other hand, the cast all do look GREAT in their frock coats
- otherwise, the costuming was consistently delightful, a whole range of multi-colored and patterned frock coats with lots of really fun and playful details (Jefferson's waistcoat gave off intense sweater-vest vibes; Dickinson had really stark and elegant black-and-white costuming that Wilson was very clearly trying to mimic and doing less well at carrying off; Adams' coat was a very bland grey, but under it he had TIGHT LEATHER PANTS, I died.)
- KP Powell's Jefferson was very effectively underplayed -- unlike in most productions I've seen, he didn't join in the dancing at all in "But, Mr. Adams", glowering out the entire song on the side, and he spends most of the second act, as the Congress dissects the Declaration, just quietly sinking lower and lower in his chair. I'd been wondering how the production would handle "Molasses to Rum", when the issue of slavery explicitly rears its head. For the most part, the answer, again, is that for the most part it just lets the text speak as the text, for better or worse. But there's something about the visual optics of Rutledge (played by a white woman) and Adams (played by a white man) arguing about the slavery clause in the Declaration while a black actor playing Jefferson sits aside with his head in his hands that I'm still chewing on.
- the American flag never appears in this production - only the British one, ripped down at the end -- and I'm glad of it
We also stayed for the talkback afterwards, at which a very elderly lady politely said she had a question for McNair; McNair (a minor role) visibly perked up; and the very elderly lady promptly asked him what the point was of having his character in the show because she hadn't quite understood it. Sorry, McNair! You're symbolically important!
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Date: 2018-12-10 12:35 am (UTC)Otherwise the whole production sounds delightful.
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Date: 2018-12-10 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-10 12:40 am (UTC)Man, that is basically McNair's life. Good job, meta.
(I am mentally negotiating the concept of John Adams in leather pants, but this production sounds really good.)
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Date: 2018-12-10 12:46 am (UTC)Also thank you for catching my misspelling of McNair! >.>
(It took me like three scenes to notice it under his gray frock coat and as soon as I did a literal double-take but it's HILARIOUS, especially during "But Mr. Adams" - 'but I burn, Mr. A!' 'SO DO I, MR. J!')
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Date: 2018-12-10 01:49 am (UTC)Do Bostonians crack up entirely at the very accurate description of New Yorkers?
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Date: 2018-12-10 02:09 am (UTC)We also crack up at the very accurate description of New England!
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Date: 2018-12-10 02:19 am (UTC)"There's somethin' about that chair that makes a man awful noisy."
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Date: 2018-12-10 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-10 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-10 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-10 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-11 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-10 06:43 pm (UTC)But I'm really into how you describe this production doing Jefferson- I feel like that's a tricky role what with the whole... who Jefferson was as a person thing, vs his role in this. Also looking at the site there seem to be some very cute people in it... As Scribe mentioned, we probably have literally no time to see this, but I am VERY tempted to try.
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Date: 2018-12-11 03:32 am (UTC)I also was really curious how they were going to do Jefferson, especially since there's really no way around the Hamilton influence on this particular production in this particular time, and I'm really glad that they went in the direction they did.