‘1776’ Review: A Revolutionary Take On An Old Warhorse
variety.comBob Verini When the Tony-winning musical “1776” debuted on Broadway in 1969, it celebrated America’s ideals on the eve of its Bicentennial.
Half a century later, a radical makeover brings critique front and center, while treating those ideals as a chimera rather than a promise fulfilled.
The production’s pre-Broadway tryout at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., holds this truth to be self-evident: that the Declaration of Independence’s promises of freedom and justice were mere words, compromised and betrayed from the very moment of ratification.Director Diane Paulus is no stranger to re-envisioning musical classics, having given new life to “Hair” and brought out the lessons in a circus-themed “Pippin.” Now she and choreographer/co-director Jeffrey L.
Page go all-in on a political perspective, infusing librettist Peter Stone’s story of the Continental Congress with 20/20 hindsight.
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