My life's a crooked mess of things I've broken with my head

[sovay]

My paramount goal for last night was sleep and it failed so horrifically that I have had a flat and frustratingly nonexistent day, but in listening to the three different cast recordings of 1776 which I now own—1969 Broadway, 1970 London, and 1972 film—and rewatching a handful of scenes from the handily streaming film, thirty years after initial exposure in eighth grade social studies it finally clicked with me that so much of the appeal of its John Adams is directly proportional to his being such a disaster. Especially as incarnated by the superbly obstreperous William Daniels, the delegate from Massachusetts is simultaneously an incandescent engine of rage against the machines of tyranny and an indignant wet cat of a man endowed with the inalienable right of shooting himself in the foot, cf. the opening number devoted to establishing that he has achieved the political and personal milestone of pissing off an entire continental congress. His capacity for chill is somewhere in the decatherms and he wasn't even close enough to the door to be standing behind it when social finesse was handed out. He has the self-aware saving grace of a sense of humor which quirks out in unsuccessfully repressed smiles, but he's the awkward straight man just as often as he snarks drily for the Colonies; one of the best details of his physical acting is a nervous flicker of the fingers which stands sometimes for constant restive thought and sometimes for not knowing what the hell to do with his hands. It's not a comic characterization, but it does make the moments where he lets his guard down all the more quietly effective, because too often it's punctured for him. His own personality is among the obstacles of policy, philosophy, and factionalism facing a successful declaration of independence and down to the wire the play never lets him forget it. He dances so gravely and gracefully with Blythe Danner's Martha Washington, he earns the smugness with which he calls across to Howard da Silva as they whirl into the showiest choreography of the song, "We still do a few things in Boston, Franklin!" Who wasn't supposed to imprint on that unbeatable combination of furious integrity that shouldn't be let out unsupervised for five minutes? Damn this government for making any national celebration so meanly jingoistic, I couldn't even think about attending this spring's sestercentennial of the Battle of Lexington in my eighteenth-century shirt.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

After the April run of our LARP whose elevator pitch was "1776, the Assassin Game -- only in a fantasy universe!" those of us who slept over the additional night watched the movie of 1776. SUCH a weird musical, structurally speaking, and I spent the whole movie wondering what the directors were smoking when they made many of their choices. (I'd seen it before but it'd been a while.)

I was and am compelled by that portrayal of Adams as passionate about principle & getting things done, while impeded by his own personality (and aware of the fact but frequently unable or unwilling to do anything about it).

I also think it's hilarious that Alexander Hamilton and John Adams hated each other while being in many ways the same person with the same strengths and flaws. (The portrayal of Hamilton in the musical being similar in many ways to Adams in 1776, though with a helping of "young and overeager" instead of Adams's "middle aged and still energetic but keenly aware of life's obstacles.")

[sovay]

After the April run of our LARP whose elevator pitch was "1776, the Assassin Game -- only in a fantasy universe!" those of us who slept over the additional night watched the movie of 1776. SUCH a weird musical, structurally speaking, and I spent the whole movie wondering what the directors were smoking when they made many of their choices. (I'd seen it before but it'd been a while.)

(a) The structure of the musical has always been unique and the decisions the film makes about its moment-to-moment distance from the conventions of realism, theater, or cinema are definitely something—and the score for that matter is its own kind of one-off—but I have loved it since that social studies class and it takes up the kind of space in my brain where I can apparently talk about it at the drop of a "Sit down, John!"

(b) I must have missed that LARP, because with that kind of pitch I would have wanted to ask you about it!

I was and am compelled by that portrayal of Adams as passionate about principle & getting things done, while impeded by his own personality (and aware of the fact but frequently unable or unwilling to do anything about it).

It's compelling! And I love that the audience can see it in action: that it's not a case where we're told a character is difficult, but the narrative actually tilts us onto their side the whole time. Adams really is that dedicated to his cause and that much of a pain about it. He gets into quarrels he doesn't need to and escalates the ones he's already in—spatch had to listen to me enthuse about the scene in which he comes to physical blows with Dickinson because it's such a good, obviously avoidable example, they have just been at one another's throats verbally but managed to back down, all Adams has to do is not rise to the bait of Dickinson's characteristic needling and instead he's the one who throws down the real gauntlet of calling Dickinson a coward. It's brilliant of the show to put that much tension on its hero's difficulty getting out of his own way: it is both intensely relatable and infuriating.

I also think it's hilarious that Alexander Hamilton and John Adams hated each other while being in many ways the same person with the same strengths and flaws. (The portrayal of Hamilton in the musical being similar in many ways to Adams in 1776, though with a helping of "young and overeager" instead of Adams's "middle aged and still energetic but keenly aware of life's obstacles.")

Yes! And that reminds me that the New York City Center did a joint interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda and William Daniels in 2016 which was very cute.

[desireearmfeldt]

And I love that the audience can see it in action: that it's not a case where we're told a character is difficult, but the narrative actually tilts us onto their side the whole time. Adams really is that dedicated to his cause and that much of a pain about it.

Yes, indeed!

That's a fun interview -- thanks for the link!

I must have missed that LARP, because with that kind of pitch I would have wanted to ask you about it!

It's a weekend-long LARP I wrote with jencallisto, originally run in 1999. The premise is that a fantasy/post-apocalyptic nation had a civil war and is now trying to make peace and re-unify via the mechanism of editing their existing constitution to something they can all live with. There are 7 delegations of 3 members each, each with their own personality and personal opinions/agenda, with lots of interpersonal relationships among delegates, which is the major way in which it feels like 1776. (Though 1776 doesn't have nearly as many blood relatives and romances as BLR does... :) ) Play is split between sessions of proposing/discussing/voting on amendments, and recesses for free mingling, log-rolling, having relationships, doing research plots, etc. We structured it pretty heavily in some key ways: the schedule of sessions & recesses is pre-ordained and immutable; the amendments are pre-written so the only choice is which ones to propose for voting; each district has a popularity value for each of the amendments, so that delegates know the consequences of voting for a given amendment.