Berea group captures spirit of "1776"

by Tony Mastroianni
Cleveland Press July 21 1972

The Berea Summer Theater couldn't have picked a better show with which to open the new art and drama center of Baldwin-Wallace College than "1776".

Surely the people who plan art and drama centers must be optimistic souls. As for modern theater works, there is none quite so optimistic, so anti-cynical in a cynical age, so entertaining as it chronicles the beginnings of this nation, surely a move that had more optimism than probability about it at the time.

THIS IS A COMMUNITY theater production but these is little about the set, the staging a and the use of a full pit orchestra that smacks of community theater.

The use of mostly non-professional in the cast leads to some variety in the quality of the playing but it is very much on the good side of the ledger and director Bill Allman has whipped his company into spirited shape.

Curiously the singing comes out best in fact is exceptionally good. There is little about the singing that would mark this production as anything but professional.

"1776" has more than its share of music, much of the drama being told in musical terms in moments that derive somewhere between Mozart and Gilbert and Sullivan.

THE STORY of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is an unlikely subject for musical comedy so it is appropriate that "1776" be unorthodox in some respects. It takes the usual hero and heroine and you know how it is going to come out. But it has romance nonetheless and even suspense.

Don Edelman is a fiery John Adams, that character everyone is greed is both obnoxious and disliked. In a script filled with wit, his lines have the most bite to them.

Those lines that are droll belong to Ben Franklin played with puckish humor by Earl Keyes. Cliff Bemis is a flamboyant Richard Henry Lee and Ken Preston is a solid Thomas Jefferson.

Helen Rathburn and Lenny Jacobs are the only women in the cast and they are more than just decorative. The ensemble singing is robust and the few dances in the show are delivered nimbly.

Ken Mehalko's musical direction kept orchestra an singers together, even during a couple of moments when an unneeded spirit of independence developed among one or two of the singers.

As for the new hall-

SEATING is comfortable and spacious. Sight lines are good and acoustics are excellent. Air conditioning, like all modern air conditioning, often let loose a cold blast.

The stage is large and can probably accommodate anything anyone wants to put on it. This show is big and filled it nicely. The next test welcome when a small show is placed on it without getting lost.

The place deserves to be in constant use.