I went to Kansas City on a Thursday; by Friday I had learned a thing or two about Musical Theater Heritage, the ambitious little troupe run by George Harter.

For one thing, Harter doesn’t reject any suggestion out of hand. So when director Sarah Crawford approached him and said that she wanted to do 1776 with an all-female cast in a concert staging, Harter was inclined to say yes.

Said marketing director Chad Gerlt “George polled our subscribers and asked if they wanted to see the show with all women. The majority said yes -- but then we asked them if they'd like to see it with Deb Bluford as Ben Franklin. She’s really beloved here, so the answers became overwhelmingly approving.”

I entered the appropriately named Off Center Theater, once a small cinema; its seats still have cup holders. Crawford started the show with the scene that starts the film, with Adams (Karen Errington) by himself until summoned back to the Continental Congress chamber. Then came the overture, which spurred the audience to show its immediate support by clapping along in rhythm to the six-piece band.

Then 22 women filed in – two fewer “men” than the original production had. Crawford decided to have delegate Robert Livingston (Lena Andrews) not go home and celebrate and pop a cork with all the Livingstons together back in old New York; instead, he, not Lewis Morris, stayed in Congress and represented the Empire State. There was no “Leather Apron” either, for congressional custodian Andrew McNair (Emily Harris) took on his duties.

For this particular concert presentation, I expected that the women would be appropriately costumed. After all, men’s clothes in the 18th century were (by today’s standards) somewhat effeminate, especially with those below-the-knee stockinged legs. Instead, everyone emerged in a black jacket, shirt and pants. Those who were pro-independence wore white ascots while loyalists wore red ones. (When minds were changed, ascots were not.)

As Errington took charge of “Sit Down, John,” I could already tell that she would be superior to at least three other Adams I’d seen. I noticed too that the keys had been raised, and feared that this would place undue strain on Abigail; now she’d be required to sing stratospherically high soprano notes. But the golden-throated Sarah Kleeman had no problem reaching them. And while sopranos are famous for not injecting much humor into lyrics, Kleeman amused when she quoted a tradesman’s saying, “Don't you know there's a war on?” in a voice that was genuinely basso profundo.

The authors wisely didn’t include Ben Franklin in that first scene, for he would have pulled focus. Instead, he was chosen to start Scene Two, and here was the acclaimed Bluford making good on the confidence her public had in her. Even this early in the show, I was reminded of a line in the 1968 comedy Forty Carats -- “People take their cue from you.” Because Errington and Bluford were comfortable in their roles, they made us comfortable, too. Yes, the audience members laughed when Allison Moody as Richard Henry Lee said that he was going home to “refresh the missus,” but they weren’t mocking a woman’s saying the quip; they were just enjoying one of librettist Peter Stone’s best lines among dozens of equally sharp ones.

Truth to tell, the artificiality of a concert setting helped get the atypical casting across. Had this been realistically played with each costume, table and prop, we might have had a hard time buying these women as men. In front of music stands, however, they didn’t seem so out-of-place.

But the music stand locale didn’t keep them from doing the quill-pen pass-along from one delegate to the next in “But, Mr. Adams.” While that was fun to see, something ever nicer happened during the song. After Franklin, Sherman and Livingston turned down Adams as Declaration writer, Adams stared at Jefferson – but before he could resume singing, the audience members assumed the pause occurred because the song was over, so they began applauding. That’s how into it they were.

Indeed, this was the 13th production of 1776 I’d seen dating back to the original, but I'd never witnessed an audience respond as enthusiastically. There was hearty laughter, a roar and a belly laugh at almost every joke. And when the famous 32-minute musicless scene ended, it got applause.

Much later, “Molasses to Rum” had another sudden and long pause, but this time the audience didn’t applaud. The reason, I’m sure, is that by that point in the song they'd been too stunned by what they'd heard. While singing it, Katie Karel had arresting gravitas or, if you will, balls. She did it as well as anyone I'd ever heard sing it.

Granted, some performers weren’t just miscast in terms of gender. Stephen Hopkins, the second-oldest man in Congress, was played by the youthful Cathy Wood. But in the history of non-traditional casting, has there ever been any instance that can eclipse Chioma Anyanwu as Samuel Chase? She’s also black and thin -- unlike Chase, who was easily the heaviest man in Congress. Why didn't Crawford use the more ample Megan Alexander as Chase instead of making her Thomas McKean? That became immediately apparent once each of the actresses – actors -- opened her mouth. Alexander had a pin-point perfect Scottish accent that has always been a McKean requirement and Anyanwu was beautifully centered and articulate as Chase.

Jessalyn Kincaid was nearly a couple of feet shorter than the 6-foot-two Thomas Jefferson. This meant a lost joke in “But, Mr. Adams” – where the diminutive Adams said he was ready to use "physical force, if necessary" on the imposing Jefferson to make him write the Declaration. That didn’t play here because Errington's Adams could wipe the floor with Kincaid’s Jefferson.

Cheryl Weaver as prime independence opponent John Dickinson? Think of Kay Thompson in Funny Face. (Although I have a feeling that if Thompson had been around in 1776, the Declaration would have been signed by July 2.) Weaver was also very skillful at leaning in and using the microphone to its best advantage when she came in with her many zingers.

Speech teachers will tell you, as much as a sexist generalization as it may seem, women more than men tend to make the ends of their sentences into questions. (Remember in Collected Stories how often Lisa did this and how much it bothered Ruth?) It happened here as well, when Sarah Goeke’s Witherspoon told Franklin about his son -- “the royal governor of New Jersey???????”

But having many female voices on hand did make for one completely arresting moment. After Malena Marcase sang the first three A-sections of "Momma, Look Sharp," all the other women in the cast, off-stage and unseen, sang the B. ("I'll close your eyes, my Billy.") It was a hauntingly beautiful moment of which composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards would have approved. How do I know? Because, as demos show, Edwards originally wrote the scene to be played on the battlefield where mothers would come after the conflict to search for their sons -- and sing this section.

(One thing's for sure: Keith Edwards, Sherman's son, attended and certainly approved of what he saw. "They showed some of the courage that the founding fathers had," he said. Edwards also believes that other theater companies with as many gifted female performers as Musical Theater Heritage should try it this way.)

Although the production played fast and loose with sex and race, Marcase was close to age-appropriate. A later dispatch from George Washington said that he had 15-year olds in his army; indeed, Marcase was all of 14. Although she had a tendency to smile too much during this mournful song, she was wonderfully composed and has a stunning future ahead of her.

Most of the delegates sat behind the principals in a solid row, which made keeping them straight significantly more difficult. Crawford would have done better, too, to have Caesar Rodney (Diane Bulan) leave the stage when this terminally ill character returned home -- so that when he made his triumphant and necessary return, we would have noticed and been impressed. (Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?)

In the end, I was reminded of what I wrote some years ago when I attended the Theatre by the Blind, whose casts consist of blind performers, sight-impaired actors and fully sighted actors. “After watching them for a while,” I wrote, “I stopped wondering who was and wasn’t blind and just enjoyed the show.”

And so it was here. Deep in the second act when Bluford said, "We're men -- no more, no less," neither I nor anyone else snickered at the inadvertent irony. We’d come to accept everyone as a man.

But the women who played women? Sarah Kleeman was touchingly tender as Abigail and Emily Shackelford gave a nice lilt to Martha Jefferson’s “He Played the Violin.” There was no attempt to even indicate the Tom-and-Martha kiss; it was glossed over. So the “Look how well they fit” line didn’t have any impact.

When the Declaration was to be signed by the 13 delegates, they did not each go over to the desk and affix a signature; instead each stayed in place in darkness until lighting designer Shane Rowse illuminated each with a special. As it happened, we did not see a scrim of signatures in front of everyone; instead, an American flag rose from behind the performers. It had 13 stripes and 13 stars to represent the flag that flew during the Revolutionary War, when few if any could have imagined that it would survive to see 37 more stars.

And that, of course, is the best part of 1776. It reminds us of what our founding fathers endured to give us the freedom that so many of us now take for granted. As a result, even a mediocre production of 1776 is worth seeing – but this one was genuinely worthy.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com. Check out his weekly column each Tuesday at www.masterworksbroadway.com.

 

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