Each character is allowed one or two traits: John Adams (Peter A. Carey) is sour and argumentative, Ben Franklin (J.T. Turner) is a cuddly wit with a gouty foot, Jefferson (Terrence O’Malley) is incapacitated by desire for his absent wife, and so on. This comic reductionism might be fine for a 10-minute skit, but for a full-length play it’s both aggravating and, since the musical is also intended to rouse our patriotic sentimentality, disingenuous. We’re supposed to giggle over the knock-about misadventures of comic-strip versions of historical characters and then get teary-eyed over the writing of the Declaration and the courage of Washington’s rag-taggle troops preparing to take on the far greater numbers of trained British soldiers. But you can’t believe these idiots could have organized a potluck supper, let alone a revolution.
The pacing of the Lyric production is laggardly, though I don’t know what director Spiro Veloudos could have done to spruce up the endlessly talky Congress scenes; American history has rarely seemed so dull. And though Janie E. Howland’s set uses the space effectively, the size of the ensemble presents Veloudos with staging problems he hasn’t been able to overcome — it’s a cramped, static show. There are a few bright lights among the cast. The two women, Eileen Nugent as Abigail Adams (who appears only in her husband’s imagination as, stuck in Philadelphia fighting for independence, he receives her letters from Boston) and especially Jennifer Ellis as Martha Jefferson dispatch their dopy songs sweetly and expertly. Brendan McNab, Robert De Vivo, Dan Cozzens, and Kevin Ashworth, in supporting roles, manage to suggest real human beings. And at the close of act one, Andrew “Curly” Glynn does a beautiful job — simple and sincere — with the war ballad “Momma Look Sharp,” the only song in the score that doesn’t make me cringe. Otherwise 1776 is a reminder, unpleasant for those of us who love musicals, of how bad they can get.
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