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MID all the nudity and neon,season a newas well as a musical can. with thegress that culminated in the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence.at least one reviewer complained that the was tasteless and stereotyped and reduced the heroic birth of the nation to the level of a feeblejape,” it won the New York Drama Critics’ Award, And although it contains no scenes Of simulated sex, it received immediate andis is worthy of note at a time when Americans seem to be immersed in cynicism and self-doubt, un-pleased with the present and not altogether confident of the future. Perhaps, underneath all the sophistication, we are looking for any kind of reaffirmation that what happened in Philadelphia 193 years ago was something immensely worthwhile, unique and momentous in human history.We can thank the young people of today in part for this current mood of national introspection. They are no longer content to accept romanticized, whitewashed history. With the special talent of the young for perceiving that the emperor has no clothes, or at least is not as elegantly garbed as he imagines, they demand that we not only tell it like it is but like it really was as well. ;The Boston Massacre, the New York and Boston TeaParties, the acts of violenceitself, they remind us, wereauthority ofamen we revere as heroes were ous rporaries, who numbered possibly a third of the population of the colonies. Few of those who signed their names to that parchment in Philadelphia had any intention of extending the inalienable rights they claimed for themselves to anyone not of their race and class.Yet strangely enough, when the young call American society to task for its sins of omission and commission, it is the creation of these imperfect men, and Declaration of Independence, they figuratively hold aloft, de-are you going to live up to it?”no answers that satisfy them, too many of the young seem prepared to write off America as a finished experiment, a failure. But the flag, whatever stains may blemish it, is not yet for burning. America, for all its faults and shortcomings, means more to more people around the world than ever in its past. It is because great things are expected of us—not for but expected—that there is such a readiness to pounce on us for any departure from our guiding ideals.What happened in Philadelphia 193 years ago was indeed something immensely worthwhile, unique and momentous in human history. Have we lived up to its promises? •Much more than the men of that time could have dreamed. Much less than the men of future times will take for granted.Newspaper Enterprise Assn.Q Birth Certificate!
Newspaper Details
Pacific Stars and Stripes
Tokyo, Tôkyô, JP
Fri, Jul 04, 1969
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Cheryl R.
TX, USA 11 Jan 2020
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