1776: A Musical Play (Penguin Plays)

It was fun to recite the lines with the actors.

On July 4, I found myself watching the movie of  1776 , and recalling when I first saw the show on Broadway when it was relatively new. I remember that as a then-teenager and history buff, I liked the play (and later, movie); but somehow, as I've gotten older, I've grown to like it _more_.The real-life story is one that has always inspired me. In that single moment in time, we had in one place -- and on one side -- so many brilliant people who shared a single goal. They were capable of making hard decisions AND of making compromises -- something that few of us can do. They were all flawed humans who rose above themselves to make something better and lasting. And this story captures the efforts, the flaws, and the human beings... how could I NOT appreciate it? (The music's pretty good, too.)A casual online conversation led me to the discovery of this book-of-the-script, and I invested four bucks in a used copy. Then, when it arrived, I read the whole thing at one sitting. It charmed me, especially since I also could appreciate the authors' notes about sources -- discovering just how much of the dialogue was said or written by the historical characters.For instance, apparently John Adams really did tell someone that even if the revolution succeeded, he did not expect to be remembered in the history books, saying -- in real life and in the script -- "Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves."And much of the dialog between John and Abigail Adams comes from the  letters between the two of them  (which I MUST read someday...) -- though I don't know if this perfect interchange is among them:John Adams: Why, Abby? You must tell me what it is. I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment.Abigail: Oh, John, can you really know so little about yourself? And can you really think so little of me that you believe I'd marry the man you've described?Among the changes the author made for the sake of plausibility, however, is a truth that audiences would never believe. When the South refused to sign the declaration if it prohibited slavery, the script has Adams tell Franklin, "Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us." But, Stone and Edwards wrote, the complete line, spoken in July 1776, was "If we give in on this issue, there will be trouble a hundred years hence; posterity will never forgive us." Yeah -- I'd have thought that was a bit too prescient, too.Mostly, this is a great story... whether you read it as a script or a historical "novel."

Seeing Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards's play "1776" on a stage, or on the movie screen, is in a way easier; reading the play *as a play* is more complex. One loses Sherman Edwards's music when all one has is printed words on a page. But Peter Stone's dialogue is just as trenchant; the diligent research that Stone and Edwards did pays off, as the authors effectively dramatize the Second Continental Congress's 1776 deliberations upon the subject of an American Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.Stone and Edwards create a colonial Philadelphia populated with characters who are quarrelsome, bawdy, fun-loving -- as far as one can get from the marble monuments in Statuary Hall. Whenever I read "1776," my sense that it is truly John Adams's story is reinforced; while Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson share a great deal of time on stage with Adams, John Adams and his wife Abigail are the only characters (aside from Martha Jefferson) who are referred to in the play's stage directions by their first names. It is always "John," and "Abigail," in contrast with "Franklin" and "Jefferson."Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson all come to vivid life in this play. Adams combines a core of moral rectitude and integrity with a famously prickly personality; he refers to himself, and is referred to by almost every other character in the play, as "obnoxious and disliked." Franklin is avuncular, humorous, acutely conscious of his own celebrity -- if someone doesn't recognize him, he'll quickly introduce himself as "inventor of the stove" -- but he can turn deadly serious when occasion warrants. And Jefferson is self-effacing, modest to a fault, but possessed of talents and convictions that will make themselves apparent in due time.The sources of drama in "1776" are twofold. First, there is disagreement within the Congress over whether independence from Britain is achievable or even desirable; it is striking to hear John Dickinson, an anti-independence Pennsylvanian, appeal to Magna Carta as a shared inheritance of all English-speaking people. Second, once the consideration of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence has actually begun, Deep South delegates led by Edward Rutledge stand ready to walk out if an anti-slavery passage penned by Jefferson and championed by Adams is allowed to remain in the Declaration.The play premiered in 1969, and the film adaptation was released in 1972. At that time, the nation felt the pride of an impending Bicentennial, and yet the turmoil of the Vietnam War and the tensions of the Civil Rights Era were awakening feelings of doubt and anxiety among many Americans. Accordingly, there is nothing easy or facile about America's beginnings as dramatized in "1776." As Franklin says at a crucial moment in the independence debate, "Revolutions come into this world like bastard children...half improvised and half compromised."This edition of "1776" further benefits from the inclusion of Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence, annotated with the changes made by the Congress, and from a "Historical Note by the Authors" that shows the extensive historical research that Stone and Edwards did in developing the play. (It comforted me, for example, to know that the authors were aware that Martha Jefferson didn't *really* come to Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 to comfort her lovesick husband and thereby make possible the writing of the Declaration of Independence.) "1776" brings to powerful life the story of America's beginnings.

Handy actor-size version of the script.I used this version for auditioning for this play and had the freedom to mark it up with impunity as well as having it handy to run my lines whenever I wanted.Do be careful to compare it to the "official" script if you are using it to act from. There are more than one version.Paper is much like newsprint. Uncoated and porous - but fine.

The book is in fine condition for 44 years old. However the smell of mold and mildew on it is overwhelming. It isn't at all subtle. I'm on week 2 of trying to get the stench out just to be able to have it indoors. Taking it out of the box actually took my breath away it was so musty. There's old book, and then there is neglected, rotting book. A week of 70, sunshine and wind hasn't done the trick. The next step is baking soda and kitty litter. UGH.

Ohhh... One of my favorite musicals! And now I can follow along with the movie on DVD and know what some of the words I couldn't quite make out before actually were. Especially in songs. Not that there were a lot of them, but... would have been nice to have some musical notation, if only chord markings, to the songs, but you can't have everything.

Despite being panned by the critics years ago; the music is great and the dialogue intelligent with much of it ripped from the historical notes from the continental congress

A great musial about the Declaration of Independance.They can't record the entire show on CD,so it's good to have the script to get the entire show.Nice supplement about what changes had to be made to make history work as drama.Highly tecommended for fans of this show

great