1776 (musical): Difference between revisions

'''Adams''' [to Franklin]: ''Never''!<br />

'''Lee:''' HELLLLOOOOO, JOHNNY! }}

* [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]]: Adams. He does have a heart of gold. Somewhere. For instance, he really does love his wife, and he really does want the best for his country and its people. He's just... [[Good Is Not Nice|not that nice about it]].

* [[Large Ham]]: Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson's fellow Virginian.

** Richard Henry Lee's addiction to adverbs. He uses them constant-LEE!

** John Hancock's flyswatter.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: A book on the play notes what parts were accurate, what parts were left out, and what parts were admittedly fudged for the sake of the narrative.

* [[Smart People Know Latin]]: Edward Rutledge, although in this context it's more a marker of social class. Col. McKean mistakes it for French.

** Not so much [[Truth in Television]]... at least not in regards to his reason for being away from Congress. While Caesar Rodney did die of skin cancer, he was in no ways the "dying man" Colonel McKean describes him as in 1776, and had not returned to Delaware to take to his deathbed; in fact, he lived another eight years after the signing of the Declaration before the cancer killed him. In actuality, he had gone home to make a speaking tour to try to stiffen the spines of his fellow Delawarians, who were wavering on Independence and the Revolution. To be fair, though, he ''did'' still make what then amounted to a two-day-plus trip overnight -- ''through a thunderstorm'' -- while suffering from the effects of both his cancer ''and'' asthma.

* [[Villain Song]]: "Cool, Considerate Men" fits, "Molasses to Rum" defines.

* [[We ARE Struggling Together]]: One of the big, big takeaways from the play is that independence was ''not'' a foregone conclusion. Moreover, the victory of the independence movement was built on a lot of backroom dealing and hustling. And what's more, the new nation's ability to back the Declaration was and would remain in serious question for at least half a decade.

** It's a sign of a good production of this musical if one's [[Suspension of Disbelief|disbelief is suspended enough]] that one forgets the (in hindsight) [[Foregone Conclusion]].

* [[Welcome Episode]]: Dr. Lyman Hall's arrival at Congress allows the audience to meet all the remaining (important) members of the cast.

 

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