For Thomas Jefferson and Maria Cosway, It’s Love on the East Side
12-13-11
Bruce Chadwick lectures on history and film at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He also teaches writing at New Jersey City University. He holds his PhD from Rutgers and was a former editor for the New York Daily News.
More Between Heaven and Earth
Abigail Adams Smith Theater
417 E. 61st Street
New York, N.Y.
The Salon/Sanctuary Concerts series in New York typically features classical music from the past, such as La Serenissima: the Music of Venice. It was something of a surprise—to this reviewer, at least—to learn that on December 17 the series will stage More between Heaven and Earth, a brand-new play with musical interludes wrapped around the romance between Thomas Jefferson and his Parisian love, the painter/musician/composer and very married Maria Cosway.
A torrid love affair among the violins?
The unique historical play, research by Jessica Gould and written and directed by her sister Erica Gould, is based on letters between Jefferson and Cosway. Jefferson met her while he was in Paris as the U.S. ambassador to France in the late 1780s. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, former governor of Virginia and a widower, was 43; Maria was 27. The two had numerous common interests and Jefferson fell for her. Maria was reportedly in a marriage of convenience to a painter more than twenty years her senior. She was an acclaimed painter at the time and today her work is preserved in some of the world’s top museums. Jefferson not only found her intellectually stimulating, but, in letters, raved about her physical beauty. The Jefferson-Cosway relationship was the talk of Paris.
The drama between Jefferson and Cosway played out heavily over a year or so and then ended when Jefferson was called back to America to be the first secretary of state. They never saw each other again, but kept in touch via the mail all of their lives.
The musical play is an historic research gem. Director Gould read through all of the letters between the pair and in them discovered a number of composers the couple enjoyed, such as Sacchini and Hewitt. They then included works by those composers in the show, along with some works by Cosway herself.
According to Jessica Gould, it really wasn't that difficult to find sheet music from the 1780s. Columbia University's library had original music that Jefferson and Cosway listened to, written in 1784.
Jessica thinks music was what drew the two together. Jefferson played a violin all of his life, she said, and was very interested in music and others who played music. Maria was a natural attraction.
The Abigail Adams Smith Auditorium, where the play is being staged, is itself an historical venue. The auditorium is part of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, one of the few eighteenth-century buildings left in New York and which sits on land once owned by John Adams's daughter.
Matthew Modine plays Jefferson and Tony Award-nominee Melissa Errico plays Maria Cosway. They are joined by Kathleen Chalfant. The script to the play includes a lot of history as it traces Jefferson’s role as minister in the turbulent period just before the U.S. Constitution was written. On the other side, it tracks the history of Cosway and the French Revolution.
Later, of course, Jefferson become president. Maria returned to Paris and from 1803 until her death in 1838 ran a number of private schools for young women (Jefferson himself founded the University of Virginia).
The sisters might re-stage the play again if it receives a warm reception on Saturday.
Given this historic dalliance as a play, what will the rarefied Salon/Sanctuary Concerts do next? John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe in song and dance?
This article has been revised to correct factual errors.