The first thing to know about Lantern Theater Company’s Franklinland is that the direction is solid, the actors first-rate, and their back-and-forth conversations are punchy and funny. The audience heartily enjoyed it. Lloyd Suh knows how to make a show. Believing there’s no need for playgoers to suffer through mannered and stilted 18th century speech patterns, the language has been updated. Suh has taken historical liberties with the idea that a good playwright should never let actual facts get in the way of telling a story. The lengthy talks and interesting banter between father and son mostly emanate from the father, with few words from the son, who has very different ideas. Will it result in a gun point reconciliation?
Ben Franklin’s character is drawn with a broad brush. In the first scene when he’s speaking to and instructing his son, we are reminded of Hamlet’s Polonius in his advice to Laertes, with added self-adulated pomposity. While giving Franklin his due with regard to his polymath interests and accomplishments, neither the Lantern nor Suh feel that the man is any kind of a saint, and the character has a high opinion of himself that stands in the way of relationships. Suh’s Franklin has an agile mind, and big dreams he wants to impose on his son, who has his own ideas.
Among his many talents, Benjamin Franklin was a scientist and inventor, a writer and successful publisher, a politician, statesman, diplomat, and political philosopher. He was also a slave owner who turned abolitionist and encouraged education for African Americans. So talented in so many different directions, it seems like Franklin’s gifted nature should have been cut short after one or two accomplishments and continued on the next several Founding Fathers. The audience loved this show.
[The Lantern Theater Company, 923 Ludlow St.] May 7–June 7, 2026; lanterntheater.org
80 minutes, no intermission.
Playwright: Lloyd Suh
Artistic Director: Charles McMahon
The fine cast of three: Frank X, Dave Johnson, and Gavin Spiewak