Review: Father Anonymous and America’s Daddy Issues

What explains our persistent fascination with the Founding Fathers? Robert Blecker’s new drama at AMT Theater off-Broadway, Father Anonymous, doesn’t offer any persuasive answers to that question, but it does attempt to expand the popular pantheon of revolutionary daddies.

Despite what the title might suggest, Father Anonymous is not about a clandestine Grindr hookup at the Vatican, but Dr. Joseph Warren, a Boston revolutionary cut down by British fire on Bunker Hill, now mostly remembered by historians and the cranky old souls (like me) who read them. Blecker, a longtime professor of Constitutional history, seeks to “dramatically rescue from obscurity” this forgotten Founding Father. Unfortunately, he has chosen to do so with a musty historical drama that is laden with facts but lacks an emotional hook that will snag 21^st-century audiences.

It opens on that fateful June day on Bunker Hill, then flashes back to March 5, 1770. Sam Adams (Alcorn Minor) spins tales of British tyranny for his Boston Gazette. Acting Governor Hutchinson (John Ramaine) seems poised to arrest Adams and his chief sponsor, John Hancock (Joshua Koehn, who also directs). And the silversmith Paul Revere (Robert Spiker) just wants to be helpful, even if only to sell Hancock some new buckles (plenty of these show up on Cynthia Johnson’s TDF collection-standard colonial costumes). But a massacre of Bostonians that very day gives Revere an opportunity to apply his skill in service of the revolution.

You already know all about Revere’s famous ride, but what do you know about the man who sent him on it, Joseph Warren (Craig M. Cartwright)? Did you know that he was crucial in keeping Hancock on the side of the patriots? Did you know he served as the chairman of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, where he acted as a moderating force? Did you know that he persevered through crippling headaches to procure much-needed supplies for the fledgling militia? (This last bit is depicted in a furious letter-writing scene, which is about as thrilling as you might suspect.) Flattering wealthy benefactors, keeping the troops happy, and stretching every dollar through creative accounting—plotting a revolution is a lot like producing an off-Broadway play.

Unfortunately, Cartwright makes for a somewhat totemic protagonist, oscillating between Yankee sobriety and fury, with few shades of humanity in between.

The writing certainly doesn’t help: Blecker samples liberally from Dr. Warren’s real oration for what are meant to be dramatic arias. And while I’m sure they brought the house down in the late 18^th century, presented to an audience ready to accept melodrama as truth, phrases like, “Take heed ye orphan babes, let your streaming eyes fix upon the stones bespattered with your father’s brains,” are likelier to raise thoughts of zombies (rather than patriotism) in the contemporary imagination.

Passing references are made to Warren’s deceased first wife, Elizabeth, and the new woman in his life, Mercy Scollay—but we never meet either. Nor do we hear about the widower’s four children, a missed opportunity to make this walking, talking statue relatable.

Other characters come through more clearly: Minor plays Sam Adams like a cross between Jean-Paul Marat and Steve Bannon. Ramaine makes a compelling villain as Governor Hutchinson, his serpentine stage whisper giving voice to the perfidious seductions of the British Empire. And Koehn has directed himself in a hilarious portrayal of John Hancock as a fatuous rich dude with an enormous ego—which checks out.

One gets the sense that Blecker might have been able to accomplish more in a longer format—perhaps a television miniseries like John Adams, but featuring a protagonist we actually like. The playwright’s initial ambition is evidenced by the outsize cast of characters, many of whom appear only once.

All 15 actors crowd around the postage stamp platform that constitutes John Lichtwalt’s set, which smartly suggests a New England meeting house. Mirrored sconces and candle lantern footlights take us back to a world lit only by fire (Lichtwalt is also the lighting designer). While no sound designer is credited, Koehn makes good use of the offsides actors to produce live sound effects with their mouths, hands, and a piece of sheet metal. It’s the kind of resourceful theatricality a play this large in a theater this small requires—but it still cannot compensate for a script that presents a whirlwind of characters and events with little room to reflect on how this story might touch us in 2025.

And that’s a shame in a time when an increasingly monarchical commander-in-chief has sent soldiers into an American city to intimidate civilians. No daddy figure past or present will swoop in to save us from such abuses. In fact, I suspect a certain attraction to paternalism helped bring us to this present moment.

The Founding Fathers in all their voluminous writing have little to say about war with Iran, the importance of securing rare Earth minerals, or the technological disruptions that will be brought on by AI, but we can at least learn from their example. John Hancock was 33 at the time of the Boston Massacre. Joseph Warren was 29. Sam Adams was the elder statesman at 47. Despite everything they had learned from their fathers about how the world was indelibly ordered, they stood up and demanded a better deal. What is stopping you from doing the same?