Upcoming Events
Check back here for lectures, speaking engagements, book signings,
screenings, live poetry readings, media appearances, re-enactments and
other special events.
An exciting new music CD, Ron Maxwell's NEW Civil War Songs will be released
by Time-Life Music and available at this website in November, 2003. They are performed by Country super-stars Randy Travis,
Darryl Worley, Ricky Skaggs, Daron Norwood, Blake Shelton, Josh Turner and
more.
For up-to-date notices on the international release of the movie, the US
video/DVD or the new Country Music CD, sign up here
Spring through Fall, "Lights of Liberty" at Independence Hall, Philadephia
- an exciting new addition to Philadephia after dark. It's a new kind of
light and sound out-door show experience that takes visitors back to the
American Revolution - as it happened and where it happened.
ILLUMINATING WAR; IN PHILLY, A NEW LIGHT ON THE REVOLUTION
TODD PITOCK
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, July 25, 1999 ; Page E01
You are standing in the midst of battle. Smoke swirls, cannons blast,
bullets ricochet, and the hectic shouting and rapid, voluble clop of
horses' hoofs bearing down almost make you want to throw your arms up as a
shield. Barricades of entwined tree branches offer scant protection.
Then the smoke clears and the chaos subsides . . . only to reveal a line
of Redcoats standing in a row, their rifles cocked with the composure of
experienced executioners. There's the crack of the fusillade, the
discharge of smoke. You duck. Then it's over. The wounded moan; nearby a
bereaved woman wails pathetically.
The experience--a brief segment of Lights of Liberty, a first-of-its-kind
walking sound-and-light historic re-creation show that debuted earlier
this month in Philadelphia--intends to offer more than a sterilized,
voyeuristic foray into battle. The idea is to revitalize the story of the
American Revolution and renew people's appreciation for the courage and
sacrifice of those who waged it--by using technology to take them there.
Equipped with headsets and directed by costumed guides, visitors take a
60-minute nocturnal tour on a cobblestone path through Philadelphia's
historic district. As the drama of the American rebellion plays on the
headset in audio, massive projectors and robotic light fixtures throw
images onto the walls of historic buildings, starting with Benjamin
Franklin's former residence on Market Street and ending at Independence
Hall. Five years and $12 million in the making, it's a
technology-assisted, surround-sound saunter through a chapter of American
history most people know only in outline, if at all.
Colonial Philadelphia was the richest and largest city in British North
America. As a protected trade enclave, it avoided the empire wars and
skirmishes that damaged other colonies, benefiting culturally and
politically. From 1790 until 1800, the city was America's capital. Its
wealth and success attracted a diverse ethnic crowd of Scots, Swedes,
Welsh, Germans, Native Americans and blacks, among others.
That diversity, along with the florid English language of the period, is
effectively captured in the narration, a five-act screenplay by Ron
Maxwell, the Los Angeles writer whose script for "Gettysburg" intrigued
Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, an American Revolution buff who got so
involved in the project that he vetoed earlier script drafts by other
writers. Celebrities including Charlton Heston, Claire Bloom and Walter
Cronkite provide the voices. Whoopi Goldberg narrates a children's
version.
The Lights of Liberty crew wanted to expand the universe of "the founders"
to include women and blacks, who made up 50 and 20 percent, respectively,
of the city's population. Black participation in the revolution was
especially remarkable considering Britain's offer of emancipation in
exchange for renouncing the America that enslaved them. James Forten, the
grandson of a slave who bought his own freedom, was one who stood by
America. An early abolitionist who was captured and jailed by the British,
Forten is resurrected to narrate the show.
The main story line centers on Benjamin and Deborah Franklin and their
son, William, who was governor of New Jersey and ultimately a British
loyalist. The tour starts outside Franklin's house and a
(still-functioning) post office that the Philadelphia luminary set up to
earn a pretty penny via the Stamp Act. Off in England to negotiate
licenses and commissions, Franklin underestimates his compatriots' fury
over the newly imposed tax. Feeling betrayed, a mob gathers at his house.
Some propose to burn it down.
Trapped inside, Franklin's terrified wife writes him beseeching letters.
As a visitor, you get two simultaneous views. Standing beneath an image of
the Franklins' house, you are part of the mob. Yet the narrative takes you
not just into the house but into the Franklins' thoughts.
A sad tale evolves. The elder Franklin sides with the Colonists; his son
remains loyal to England. Their relationship is destroyed, and William,
who in 1754 had helped his father gather an army to repulse a French and
Indian attack on the Colony, winds up in jail, an enemy of his father's
cause and people. When they met some 20 years later, father and son had
little to say to one another.
The relationship was a microcosm of the split between loyalists and
patriots--most of whom at one time regarded themselves as English
subjects. Through the first half of the show, you witness the ambivalence
about independence that must have tormented that generation. As a cross
section of Philadelphians--merchants, sailors, tradesmen, British
loyalists, all with sundry accents--parade through the story, you
experience their irritation with taxes, the back-and-forth over what to do
about it and the reevaluation of their identity as citizens. Outside
Carpenter's Hall, the site of the first Continental Congress in 1774,
Patrick Henry announces the dissolution of the Colonial government.
In the show, the rising spirit of revolt reaches its climax at the
columned front of the Second Bank. With reports of shooting in Concord,
Franklin's face is magnified in successive images as he shares a letter
written to a British member of Parliament.
"Look at your hands," he says. "They are stained with the blood of your
relations. You and I were long friends. You sir . . . are now my enemy!"
Battle erupts--the show's only displaced event, since Philadelphia was
never a battle stage--and then the audience moves to Independence Hall,
where it is privy to the signers' debate. Here, we're reminded of a unique
fact about the American revolutionaries: Whereas most upheavals are waged
by poor discontents, this one was led by wealthy, successful people. They
had much to lose--and many did indeed lose their families, fortunes and
lives.
The show concludes with signer John Nixon proclaiming the Declaration of
Independence outside the State House (now called Independence Hall). The
document scrolls up the wall and the Liberty Bell rings. Forten, who
returned to America emaciated after his imprisonment, does not gloss over
the human-rights challenges the new nation had yet to overcome: "And so
the American Republic was born," he concludes. "For some the fruit [of
liberty] was slow to ripen, and watered with much blood."
That acknowledgment, often missing from patriotic retellings, keeps the
show from being merely sentimental, and it manages to avoid both pandering
to political correctness or diminishing the contributions of the founders.
The 3-D technology, along with the strong script, succeeds in re-creating
three-dimensional people and leaves you feeling a proper measure of
admiration for the men and women whose revolt and ideals changed the
course of world history.
Not a bad message to carry away from a visit to Philadelphia.
The hour-long tours start at dusk and run until 11:15, and are held
nightly through October, weather permitting. The cost is $18, with child,
group, senior and affinity club discounts. The show is available in
Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Japanese. Info:
1-877-GO-2-1776, www.lightsofliberty.org.
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