As people across the state mark the 250th anniversary of the country’s independence with parades and fireworks, one Wisconsin community is celebrating a key figure in early American history with a new work of theater.
Adams, Wisconsin, a small city north of Wisconsin Dells, celebrated America’s 250th birthday with an original play about the city and county namesake — founding father John Adams.
“In many ways, he’s kind of the forgotten founder,” said Adams County Historical Society President Michael Goc, who wrote the play. “We think of Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, but Adams was there all the time.”
“Abigail and John: The First Couple of the United States” made its debut at the refurbished movie theater along the town’s main drag in late June, produced by the historical society and Adams Community Theatre.
John Adams was the driving force behind the Declaration of Independence. According to Goc, his influence went far beyond 1776.
“John was everywhere,” Goc said. “He was involved in every important political event in the revolutionary era from before 1776 and all the way up until he left the presidency in 1801.”
So, Goc said, it “just made sense” to mount a play about Adams this year as America celebrates its 250th birthday. He started research and writing over the winter.
As Goc researched Adams, he also learned more about first lady Abigail Adams. In the play, John and Abigail sit at a table, reading letters they wrote to each other over the years. Most of the dialogue was pulled directly from real historical letters from the many years the two spent apart while John worked to establish a new country.
For Goc, the couple personifies the best parts of American history.
“They cared about the country, they worked hard, they worked with each other,” he said.
It’s also a love story, Goc said.
“They stayed together for 54 years, and as John said, they were ‘like steel to magnet.’”
John and Abigail played by local married couple
As the lights came on, actor Aaron Bonnett took the stage in a tricorn hat, greeting the audience.
“Good day, my fellow patriots, I am John Adams,” he proclaimed. “You know me as the second president of the United States. I am also the namesake of your county, this city, and this theater.”
Sitting at a table downstage, he began to read. The play includes the story of Adams’ role in the Continental Congress, his time as a diplomat in Europe and his term as president — and how Abigail was there through it all.
Bonnett said that, along with worrying about founding a new country, John and Abigail’s letters show they dealt with the same problems many married couples face today.
“250 years later, couples are still dealing with the same thing with family,” Bonnett said. “How much time do you dedicate to your profession, how much time do you dedicate to your family?”
The comparison is made all the more real for Bonnett by the fact that his real-life wife Tania Bonnett played first lady Abigail Adams. Coincidentally, Aaron, a sixth-generation farmer, played John, a lawyer. Meanwhile Tania, a lawyer and circuit court judge, played Abigail, who ran the family farm for the many years John was away.
She said learning more about the former first lady has been a rewarding experience that she’s been grateful to share with her family.
“Everyone’s heard of John Adams, and everybody knows what he did for our country, but here there was this really strong woman next to his side advising him, and he really had a high amount of respect for her and turned to her a lot, and I think that’s something that history just hasn’t told us about,” Tania Bonnett said.
‘The hot hits of the 1770s’
The play’s dialogue took place over four short acts, with songs from a local choir in between. It’s a setlist music director Sandra Swisher-Pheiffer called the “the hot hits of the 1770s.”
Accompanied by a banjo, the choir sang several verses of “Yankee Doodle.” But the words are slightly different than the audience may know, Swisher-Pheiffer said, because they chose the American version of the song over the British version “that was intended to make fun of the colonials.”
The choir also performed a period hymn that may have been sung at John and Abigail’s wedding and a campaign song called “Adams and Liberty.”
For Swisher-Pheiffer, the play was a profound experience, especially during tumultuous political times.
“It can be easy for me to feel a little bit discouraged now, but this gets back to the the importance of honor and of liberty and freedom, and how no one individual should have total power in any sense within the government, and it’s reminded me of where we started, and that’s made me feel good,” she said.
She hopes audience members felt the same.
This story was originally published by WPR.
