Franklinland

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Lloyd Suh writes quirky historical plays from a unique perspective as ironic comedies. In Franklinland, the latest entry in the EST/Sloan Project, commissioning and developing plays about science and scientists, Suh creates a Benjamin Franklin like you have never seen him depicted before. Unlike Howard Da Silva’s iconic and benevolent Franklin in the now classic musical 1776, this Franklin is crotchety, irascible, arrogant and demanding. In the play’s six scenes covering 33 years, we see him in his fraught and contentious relationship with his illegitimate and only son William who though not a great mind or a scientific genius like his father goes on to do well for himself politically.

You may know Franklin as the inventor of the lightning rod, but did you also know that he also invented bifocals, the urinary catheter and the glass harmonica? And, of course, as one of the Founding Fathers, he also held a great many positions in the new United States of America. However, the play is mainly devoted to his attempt to bring up his son William to follow in his footsteps as a scientist and diplomat. Directed by Chika Ike, and with Thomas Jay Ryan as Benjamin Franklin, Franklinland is a totally original take on this great American. The title refers to a land grant Franklin received in Nova Scotia where he hoped to start a scientific community, but settles on the new American democracy as all the experiment he needed.

We meet Franklin and William first in 1752 in Benjamin’s barn in Philadelphia that he is using for a lab, working currently on proving that lightning is electricity.  He is 46 and his son his 20. William accepts the challenge from a rather sarcastic Ben to “endeavor upon such glorious explorations, which will chart the course of human history and illuminate the mysteries of existence,” but he never seems to come up to his father’s standards. When next we see them five years later, they are on a transatlantic ship to London with Ben trying to test instruments to prove the warmth of the Gulf Stream. William is beginning to balk at his father’s meddling in his life.

Three years later finds them in London for the coronation of King George III, while Ben is inventing a flexible metal catheter for help with his brother’s medical condition. Ben is shocked to find that William is to be appointed Royal Governor of His Majesty’s Colony of New Jersey, a job that he thinks is not good enough for him. He also does not think William’s girlfriend is on his level and has arranged for him to be introduced to someone else while they are in London.

In the last three scenes set in New Jersey, Philadelphia and London during and after the American Revolution, things turn political and patriot Benjamin (ages 61 – 79) and royalist William (ages 35 – 53) find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. In the final scene, we meet William’s 24-year-old illegitimate son William Temple, now assistant to Benjamin and showing much more promise than his father ever did. The relationship between Benjamin and William remains strained though the father eventually has the upper hand. As much of the language is contemporary, the play has a modern feel though still true to its historical period.

Chika Ike, who directed the play’s Chicago world premiere, has given the play a polished production. Neither the play nor the program gives us a clue as to whether Franklin was this irascible or whether he treated his son with such disdain. Thomas Jay Ryan, who has played similarly surly and querulous characters in historical plays such as Enemy of the People, The Crucible and Becky Nurse of Salem, is true to form and turns in a fine performance as an unsympathetic though remarkable man. As his rather slow-witted son William, Noah Keyishian is under his thumb until he breaks away and makes his own, often wrong, decisions. Appearing only in the last scene, Mason Reeves as young William Temple Franklin is quite charming as a young genius in the making.

Riw Rakkulchon’s clever unit setting with its many props from designer Thomas Jenkeleit for both scientific projects and 18^th century items works well for all six locations as well as making the transitions between scenes follow swiftly. Though the characters do not wear the wigs or hair styles of the period, Christopher Vergara’s costumes beautifully capture the late 18^th century era. The lighting design by Carolina Ortiz Herrera suggests the feeling of candlelight without actually using wax.

Lloyd Suh’s Franklinland is an idiosyncratic and unconventional take on a famous American who up until now has been embalmed as a saint. The play takes Benjamin Franklin down a peg as not a very nice person but a genius nevertheless. Chika Ike has given the play an elegant though mannered production which is both entertaining and enlightening. In Thomas Jay Ryan’s hands, Benjamin Franklin comes alive in a way he never has before. Noah Keyishian and Mason Reeves give able support as very different personality types as his descendants.

Franklinland (through November 3, 2024)

Ensemble Studio Theatre and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

EST/Sloan Project

Ensemble Studio Theatre, 545 W. 52nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.estnyc.org

Running time: 85 minutes without an intermission