Theater Review: FOUNDING F%!#ERS (Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, MA)

SOME DARE CALL IT TREASON

Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold can hardly be called founders of the United States. In fact, while both acted as military leaders in the American War for Independence, they also played an antagonistic role in the Revolution. Benedict Arnold’s name has become synonymous with being a traitor; Allen is romanticized as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys who captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. What is less well-known is that Arnold and Allen fought together, loathed one another, and that between 1778 and 1783, Allen undertook negotiations to make Vermont a British province, an effort that many consider to have been treasonous.

All this and more is winningly portrayed in Founding F%!#ers: The Story of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. Written by Conor Casey, this World Premiere in the Don Fulton New Works Project brings a lively and humorous account of this forgotten corner of Revolutionary War history to the Greater Boston Stage Company.

Under the direction of Weylin Symes, all the pieces of this production come together, from the scenic design (Katy Monthei) of movable panels suggesting doors to everything from a rural Vermont pub to an elegant Philadelphia drawing room to the entrance to a fort, to the clever and perfectly calibrated sound design (Caroline Eng).

When the show opens, Will McGarrahan raises the tension level of the audience by appearing on stage to apparently deliver what promises to be a rather dull lecture, given the amount of paper-shuffling, about the origins of the American Revolution. It doesn’t take long before we find ourselves in the midst of the snowball fight that devolves into the Boston Massacre. That’s our first introduction to the hapless and long-suffering Redcoats (Stewart Evan Smith and Jules Talbot) who provide a comic through line, bemoaning their postings to ever colder climates, from Boston to upstate New York to Canada, always dressed in the same uniforms worn by British soldiers in India.

All the actors are good, but Marge Dunn really stood out for me as Benedict Arnold. She humanizes this notorious traitor, but doesn’t take him too seriously, either. His loathing for the crude and often drunk Ethan Allen (William Johnston) becomes funny in Dunn’s treatment, but we sympathize with his frustration at being stymied in his career, consigned to what seems at the time to be the backwater of Philadelphia (from a military standpoint), where he is seduced by the charming and beautiful Peggy Shippen (delightfully played by Jenny S. Lee) who also happens to be a spy for the British. The other female character in this production is Rosie, the Vermont bar maid who fends off Allen’s drunken advances with aplomb. The fact that the actor playing Rosie is the bearded, deep-voiced Jeff Mitchell only adds to the humor. The Green Mountain Boys are portrayed, probably accurately, as thuggish and xenophobic, and Ethan Allen as courageous but rather stupid—he hatches the plan to invade Quebec that leads to his own imprisonment by British and because Arnold felt obligated to provide military backup, Arnold’s own demotion.

I find little to fault in this production except the title. As I stated at the beginning, neither Allen nor Arnold can be considered a “founder” of the nation, and why title something with a word that people either aren’t sure how to pronounce (because it violates standard orthography) or are reluctant to say for fear of giving offense? But “what’s in a name?” as someone in the theater world once asked. This play with any other title would be just the same—entertaining, enlightening, and remarkably enjoyable.

photos by Maggie Hall Photography

Founding F%!#ers
Greater Boston Stage Company
395 Main Street in Stoneham, MA
ends on May 18, 2025
for tickets ($25-69), call 781-279-2200 or visit GBSC

for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston