The Patriots

This pulitzer prize winner's play, about Thomas Jefferson, that won the drama critic's circle award for best play of 1943. Mr. Kingsley wrote the play while in service during World War II, and the result is intriguing. "What is this democracy we are fighting for?" Mr. Kingsley says he asked himself. "Just what did these fellows - our original patriots- have in mind?" His answer, embodied in the character of Jefferson, is a confident faith in the common folk to govern themselves, to survive without guidance from a privileged aristocracy. The aristocratic side is represented by Hamilton, whose bill to restore the value of currency and the young nation's credit rating creates great personal fortunes and the threat of a moneyed aristocracy. He and his friends talk of creating a monarchy, of how the "time is ripening for us to have a real king". The most prominent candidate however, Washington, will have none of this. "Don't 'Sire me!" he keeps telling one particularly obnoxious sycophant. Apparently, the debate between Jefferson & Hamilton, to this day, has not satisfactorily been resolved. …