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Also this issue: Art Oh Captain, My Captain Death and Statues Wise Guides Bad Medicine |
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June 6-12, 2002
cover story
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“Hi, I’m Megan -- and I’m your Liberty Leader!”
So starts my Lights of Liberty tour. Other inauspicious beginnings: They’ve run out of adult headsets (with dignified narration intoned by Walter Cronkite), so they give a 46-year-old critic the child’s version (with Whoopi Goldberg sounding like Troy McLure). Also enhancing the Simpsons-esque quality of the event is our group, composed of about 40 noisy adolescents, chaperoned by a couple of dour adults. (“Noah, get off those steps!” one of them yells, tugging on the kid next to me.)
Nonetheless, we all persevere and schlep, en masse, behind the unflappable Megan.
Lights of Liberty is a combination historical tour and light show. Depictions of the American Revolution and related events take the form of something between painted slides and animated movies. These are projected upon the sites where they took place. The headset supplies details and features not only music by the Philadelphia Orchestra, but a cast including Claire Bloom, Frank Langella and David Morse. (Could it happen without Charlton Heston, you're wondering? Of course not -- he's John Nixon.)
Publicity describes LOL as "interactive"; it also claims, rather loftily, that the less-than-one-hour show is in "five acts" (like Shakespeare or French grand opera). What this actually means is that there are five locations: Franklin Court; Carpenters' Hall; the Second Bank of the United States; a weird setup of several screens and a smoking cannon or two; and (da-dum) Independence Hall.
Crammed into Franklin Court for the expository scenes, I'm getting cranky. It's hard to see much, and what I can see looks like filmstrips I remember from elementary school. The narration dutifully recounts Important Events: no taxation without representation ... the Stamp Act ... Continental Congress ... yadda yadda yadda.
Distracted by heavenly smells wafting from nearby Fork, I found my mind drifting, wondering (as I periodically do) why God didn't make me a restaurant critic.
Next we march over to Carpenters' Hall, as Whoopi explains that there's an embargo on British goods. The kids around me suddenly snap to attention. "Ohmygod -- no Burberry?!" I sense them thinking, the epic nature of history making an indelible first impression.
Just as suddenly, the show improves. The next sites -- especially the Second Bank -- are not only fabulous buildings, they actually make effective background screens. The projections themselves improve, and some of it -- the running horses, especially -- looks pretty cool, in a Disneyland-haunted-house sort of way. And the kids are clearly getting into it.
By the time we're standing behind Independence Hall for the grand finale, I've become a bit of a fan myself. More than anything, I'm impressed at how well LOL is working on what could be a tough crowd. At the end, we're all expected to sing "God Bless America" with our tour leader. (This must be the "interactive" part.) I kid you not -- everybody joins in.
Three details you'll want to remember:
1) Lights of Liberty is a nighttime-only event, with groups leaving every 15 minutes or so.
2) Though a Liberty Leader took pity on me and opened an "authorized personnel only" lavatory, it doesn't seem that there are public toilets in the Liberty Center -- or accessible en route. Empty bladders make for happier tourists. You figure out a solution.
3) Headsets are specific to individual tours, and the audio programs are synchronized to the projections. (I know this because I naughtily wandered into another LOL group, and experienced postmodern narrative discontinuity.) Make sure you stick with your group.
Cheesy? Yes. But did I have fun? Sure. So while you're in Philly, take in Lights of Liberty. It's a whole lot of Yankee Doodle, and some of it's Dandy.
Lights of Liberty shows depart from The PECO Energy Liberty Center at Sixth and Chestnut, $12-$17.76. For schedule call 877-GO-2-1776 or visit www.lightsofliberty.org.
