![]() ![]() In theory, it deepens the ideas being batted about in the hot, fetid, fly-infested Philadelphia summer. Anyway, if you prefer, you can simply ignore the fact that these fathers aren’t men, and focus - or try to - on the plot, which encompasses nothing less than the months of negotiations and maneuverings that led, just barely, to the Declaration of Independence.įor me, that double vision is the best thing about the production, which opened on Thursday at the American Airlines Theater. Neither the 1969 musical nor (as “Hamilton” has proved) history itself is so frail as to crumple under new ways of looking at our theatrical and national past. Though some will see the casting - which is diverse not just in gender but also in race and ethnicity - as a stunt and a travesty, I’m in the wondrous camp. ![]() ![]() Davis, who makes a very visibly pregnant Thomas Jefferson. A transformation that’s either wondrous or scandalous, depending on your taste, occurs less than a minute into the Roundabout Theater Company’s otherwise disappointing Broadway revival of “1776.”īarely a line has been uttered or a note sung when the performers, who identify as female, transgender and nonbinary, and are wearing more-or-less contemporary streetwear, hike up their black tights and white socks to simulate breeches, don buckle shoes in place of clunky boots, step into frock coats of various colonial cuts and become (thanks to Emilio Sosa’s outstanding costume design) our Founding Fathers. ![]()
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