- Mm-hmm.
Good day friends, fellow citizens
of this fair City of Williamsburg.
And what a marvelous time
it is to be in this city,
the city in which I've lived
for the past 18 years of my life.
As I was walking here,
the birds were chirping,
flowers were in bloom.
There was that lovely, light green tint
still upon the leaves of spring.
And I saw not one, not two
but three lovely couples
gazing ever so longingly
into each and the other's eyes.
It seemed that the charms were working.
Friends, I apologize for my stutter.
It has been said of me that I have
a bit of a stutter for which I apologize.
I am no Patrick Henry (laughs)
You're welcome.
When I married my wife,
the weather was not half as good.
We married in 17 in '72,
in the winter of '72, January 1.
And there was a terrible snowstorm.
Do you recall the snow storm of '72?
Snowdrifts I right were six feet high.
We married at her father's plantation
called The Forest.
It sits in The Forest.
Very creative name, that one.
And then we spent our honeymoon,
that time wherein you extend your love
to your spouse.
We spent our honeymoon at The Forest
with my in-laws (laughs)
It's a true delight,
a true, true, true delight friends.
I recommend it.
If you're in the office of marriage,
then spend your honeymoon
with your in-laws.
When the snow began to fall,
there was a decision to be made,
do we wait for the spring thaw,
another two weeks, two months?
Or do we brave it?
Well friends, we absolutely
braved it and tried
to drive our carriage
through six feet of snow.
Let me save you the trouble,
it does not work.
We lost our carriage, finished the rest
of the journey on horseback,
achieving the summit of that mountain
very late in the evening.
I shouldered open the cold frozen door
to my honeymoon cottage.
My wife perused my effects,
didn't take her very long.
There she found a
half-empty bottle of wine.
We should probably stop the story there.
But let us simply say
that the next Christmas,
there were three of us
celebrating that Christmas.
I do not wish to just speak of love though
in the spring season
for spring brings in the
City of Williamsburg,
legislative assemblies,
the courts are in session.
And right now our legislative assembly
is doing one of the greatest tasks
that man might create,
and that is an establishment
of a new system of code of law.
I'm on a committee of five.
Well, there once was five.
And our job was to revise
the entire legal code in Virginia.
The committee is now just two.
One man passed away, one
man considered himself
too sick to carry on, that's George Mason.
One man got called home
on domestic business,
that's Edmund Pendleton,
leaving just two friends,
the duo, George Wythe and myself.
The old master and the young upstart,
revising the entire
legal system in Virginia.
We put forth 126 new bills friends.
New bills which change
and promote a new sense
of equality, equitability
under Republican ideals
in the State of Virginia.
126 bills,
and we shall go through them now (laughs)
Sorry, most of my jokes
are for myself, friends.
Nah, we shall just go through two.
Two which I believe exemplify
this great progressive movement forward.
They are so numbered in the batch of 126.
Bill Number 51 and Bill Number 79.
Bill Number 51 does away
with the slave trade in Virginia.
It is time.
It is right.
We said in the Declaration of Independence
that all men are created equal.
And yet how can we as
a new and free society
hold that ideal of equality in one hand
and yet continue to hold
the lash of slavery in the other?
It does not work.
It is irresponsible and
hypocritical, friends.
If we do, then we begin on a lie.
So let us begin with truth.
Let us do away
with the abhorrent
slave trade in Virginia.
This bill begins that process.
And what better way to
continue that process
than by Bill 79?
That's an excellent segue Mr. Jefferson.
Oh, you're welcome, very much.
Bill Number 79, my bill
for the more general
diffusion of knowledge.
Well, what does that sound like friends
about publicly-funded education
at the state's expense?
No longer will men be allowed access
to an education only if they have
an allowance of means of finances.
I was afforded an
education when I was young
because my father could
afford an education.
But this does disservice
to the greater population of Virginia.
The next Bacon, the next Newton,
the next John Locke,
well, they might be out there
upon our beautiful Rolling Hills.
They might not have the
funds for an education.
But wouldn't we all benefit
from the next Newton, next Bacon?
I say yes.
And so the state shall
pay for your education
and here's the radical
audacious point friends.
This Bill 79 doesn't
just apply to the male,
but also does the female.
Oh!
I am a radical, or perhaps not at all.
Perhaps we see as education is a right,
that right should be applied equitably
across all sexes, across
income categories.
No matter how much money
you make or do not make,
the State of Virginia will pay
for your education, friends.
I could go on all day
through these 126 bills,
but rather I wish to turn
the conversation over to you,
and to a dear friend of mine.
I've known him all my life.
And with that being said,
I shall in proper parliamentary procedure
turn the conversation and cede the floor
to you friends.
Until we meet again, I am ever your humble
and most obedient
servant, Thomas Jefferson.
- Good afternoon friends and citizens.
Welcome to the Spring of 2020.
We are coming to you live
from the Capitol Building
at Colonial Williamsburg.
The Capitol Building of course
was the capital of Virginia
during our colonial history, and equally
during the first portion of statehood.
Friends, we have an opportunity
not just to talk to you
about Thomas Jefferson,
of which I have the honor and pleasure
of portraying 40 hours a week
for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,
but clearly I don't have
my wig or my hat on.
I'm coming to you, not
as Thomas Jefferson,
but rather Kurt Smith.
As I said, I portray Thomas Jefferson
for the foundation 40 hours a week.
I am a first-person interpreter.
The craft of interpreting
is, well, the topic of today,
in fact I want to turn the conversation
over to you in a bit.
And we can talk about all things
that are interpretive in nature.
How the foundation goes
about interpreting,
how you as Kurt
go about interpreting Thomas Jefferson.
What is the craft and how do we take
a primary source and bring it to the life
and breath on stage live to you?
But before we get there,
first, I wanna touch
briefly on interpreting.
Colonial Williamsburg
is the world's largest
living history museum.
Which means you see, when you come here,
a lot of people dressed
in fine-looking clothes
with funny hats and buckle shoes
using sometimes long
words in Greek and Latin.
But this all has a basis
and a foundation in history.
The most important aspect of interpreting
is to first and foremost
get the history right.
Get the fact right.
After that, we can begin
to spin those facts
into a narrative.
We place them together.
This is the work of a playwright.
We place them together to create programs
that are engaging, they're provocative.
They evoke something from you.
They take the audience on a journey.
And we use the classic
narrative structure.
We go, there's a
beginning, middle and end.
There's rising action, a
climax there's conflict.
Of course we end in
some sort of resolution.
And after we have taken
primary source and done
our months of research, crafting that
into a play, a program is the phraseology
that we use, then we rehearse it.
We put it up on its feet
and see what sticks,
see what needs to change.
And finally, when we're finished
with all these steps,
we present it to you.
Now it should be mentioned here
that I am a first-person interpreter,
which means I interpret
in the first person.
I portray one person,
that's Thomas Jefferson.
I have colleagues who portray
upwards of 10 people.
I only have to keep one man in my head,
so I have the easy part.
But my script remains the same script
as any first-person interpreter,
and that is the history.
We utilize primary source.
And for me, well, that means
we have 50,000 letters written
to and from Jefferson,
and that's my script.
That's what we use to craft this thing.
But there are other types of interpreting
and another types of interpreters,
not just first person.
The National Park Service and NAI,
the National Association of Interpretation
does a great job of laying out parameters,
guidelines and best
practices for interpreting,
not in character, but rather a source.
A feather, a quill, a wig,
a geode down to a document,
the Declaration of Independence,
you can stay out of
character and interpret
a source or a site like house museums
and Colonial Williamsburg do every day.
So with that being said, I'm excited
as Kurt Smith, who
portrays Thomas Jefferson,
to turn the conversation over to you.
What questions might you have?
Well, type them in the comments below,
and we'll see if we can get
to as many questions as possible.
So Cashmey is my friend here off camera,
and he is going to present questions
as they come in and I will answer them
as best as I can.
- [Cashmey] Our first
question is from Kimberley.
It's a wonderful way to
start the conversation.
She asks, how did you become interested
in becoming an interpreter?
- Kimberly, well, there is no one way,
no one pathway into this thing.
The staff at Colonial
Williamsburg has people
who've come to this with
history backgrounds,
with acting backgrounds
as a retirement job.
So the path that I took is not abnormal
and it's not the only
way, but I come to this
from an actor's background.
I have an undergraduate degree in acting,
a master's degree in
acting, I taught college
for a little bit of time,
worked in New York City
for several years as an actor.
And then this job kinda
came across my desk,
and I thought it sounded
pretty interesting
to be able to not just
memorize a 50-page script,
but rather have 50,000
letters at your disposal
and begin to create
and craft narrative around that.
That seemed absolutely fascinating.
As an actor, you're
pretty lucky if you have
a gig that lasts more
than a couple of months.
So the opportunity to grow right alongside
the person that I portray
also was vastly interesting.
I can, for example,
today's the 28th of May,
I can look back when Thomas Jefferson
on the 28th of May was
the same age that I was,
and I can read exactly what he was writing
on that day when he was my age.
I can go into his accounts and do
the exact same thing and know
exactly what he was spending money on
on the same 28th day of
May when he was the age
that I am.
That in itself gives me goosebumps still.
Secondly, I thought it
was supremely interesting
that I could steep myself
in this guy for so long.
It's not a one-month rehearsal process
and the show goes up for another month
and after two months you moved on
to something else.
I can steep myself in this guy
and really begin to
understand him on a level
that is so supremely rare
in the world of acting.
So I came into it from acting and I have
a pretty large script and
the creative side of me
is very happy.
And my dad is happy that
I have an acting degree,
but I also have a 401k (laughs)
- [Cashmey] Our next
question comes from Ray,
who inquires, what sources do you use
for interpreting in
preparing for your part
as Thomas Jefferson?
- Greg, is that right?
Greg?
- [Cashmey] Oh, Ray.
- Oh, Ray.
So Ray, there's a load of, in fact
I have some material here.
So one of my first go-to sources always,
I hope you can get this,
but is The Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
This is volume one.
There are 40-some odd volumes
being created right now
for The Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
These are his letters that
he wrote, his projects
that he worked on,
spanning the very first letter
that we have to the last
letter that he wrote.
The Princeton University started
a project in 1950,
and their job was to compile and annotate
all of Jefferson's letters.
They started in 1950,
and in this year of 2020,
they're still working on it.
They hope to be finished
with The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
by the 250th of this nation.
So they have a few years left.
Monticello has actually started working
from the back end
and they're gonna meet in the middle
with one golden spike, I suppose.
So The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
that's my Bible.
It is primary source,
and that's what I use, number one.
Number two,
oh, did Dumas Malone not make it in?
What a travesty?
So Dumas Malone is a Jefferson biographer.
He wrote six volumes on Jefferson.
And I highly recommend
them if you're interested
in taking deeper dive.
That of course is not primary source,
but he sources his stuff very well.
Additionally, I can go
to other primary sources
that Jefferson would
know, like John Locke's
"Second Treatise of Government",
Jefferson references this of course
in the Declaration of Independence.
He was an influential philosopher
in his own, right, but of course
very influential in Jefferson's right.
So it's not just about
what Jefferson wrote
in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
it's also about what Jefferson read
from Jean-Jacques Rousseau
to Montesquieu to John Locke
to Spinoza to even newspapers of the time.
These are things that he would just know
by being a subscriber
to the Virginia Gazette.
So that's another great primary source.
And if you want secondary sources,
there's loads of those.
Of course so much has been written
about Jefferson, much has been written
about the 18th century, and you can get
everything from well-respected
and well-sourced philosophy
to science of the 18th century.
And if you want a good
Jefferson biography,
I always point people
to Jon Meacham's "The Art of Power".
And that of course, again,
is not primary source.
But if you wanna take a first dive
into a life-to-death, one volume
of Jefferson, that's a pretty good one.
- [Cashmey] Our next
question comes from Violet,
one of our younger viewers today.
She asks, how are you and
Thomas Jefferson alike
and not alike?
How hard is it for you
to portray Thomas Jefferson?
- Violet, that's the
actor's work, isn't it?
One of the great questions
you can ask yourself
when taking on any role is what part
of this character resonates with me?
What part is me and where do I connect
with this character?
And usually then from that connection,
you can begin to connect with the parts
that maybe don't resonate with you.
I will say early on in my research
of Thomas Jefferson, I began to resonate
pretty profoundly with Thomas Jefferson.
He is hesitant to speak publicly.
I tend to be kind of a hermit.
He loves his books,
well, so do I.
I'd much prefer on a day like today,
it's raining in Virginia,
to be snuggled up
on my couch with a good book
than to be out somewhere socializing.
Jefferson had a hesitancy
to present himself publicly.
That fits with me as well
and yet here I am working publicly
40 hours a week, it's
a very strange thing.
Jefferson also was very curious.
Boy, was the guy curious?
There's someone writes who meet,
they meet Jefferson in a tavern.
And this woman says, when we were talking,
they didn't know who, she
didn't know who he was.
And she says, when we were
talking about the law,
I felt certain he was an attorney.
When conversation turned to religion,
I felt certain that he
was a man of the cloth,
a preacher of some sort.
And then when conversation
turned to medicine,
I thought, no, that man is a doctor.
And only later after their conversation,
she asked the innkeeper who he was
and the innkeeper said,
well, don't you know that's
Mr. Thomas Jefferson?
So he was a very curious fellow and I tend
to be also a very curious fellow.
He has an interest in natural philosophy
that has a deep place in my heart.
That was my first almost
degree was in biology.
And where we differ,
well, of course times change.
And science has changed, our understanding
of the world around us has changed.
So there are some
philosophies that are held
by Thomas Jefferson
that are quantifiably,
verifiably false today.
But at the time that was a known,
verified fact, cutting-edge science.
So of course we differ
on some of those philosophies.
And slavery being one of them,
he had a kind of a bicameral understanding
of the thing.
He wanted to get rid of
it, but how did he do it?
How do we do it?
He was wrestling with the issue as well.
It's not just a moral,
simple problem for him.
That's a great question, Violet.
And the perfect first
question for any character
you ever want to portray,
how are we alike?
How are we different?
- [Cashmey] We have a question from Kate.
She asks, what is your thought process
for capturing
Jefferson's gestures and mannerisms?
- Oh, that's fantastic.
So the cool thing is Kate,
I don't have to just create the thing.
We have primary-source material
for how a gentleman would stand,
how a gentleman would interact,
not just gentleman,
but the female as well.
The deportment is a very big thing
in the 18th century.
And if you're born into a certain class,
the gentry class, for example,
there's an expectation on how you behave,
not just how you behave,
but what you talk about,
what you don't talk about,
how you move is moving too much.
How do you stand where your feet are?
And of course what clothes you wear.
So in some ways I don't have
to think about it at all.
All I have to do is read it
and then take it on myself.
Now, that's in general
for the gentry class,
which Jefferson was a part of.
But if you wanna dig down specifically
to how Jefferson might've
done these things,
well then, what better source
than primary source?
We have people that write
about basically Jefferson's deportment.
One time someone writes
about in meetings of state,
so we're sitting here in
the House of Burgesses
right now in the Capitol Building.
This is where Jefferson
would have met with all
of the other Burgessmen in the lead-up
to independence and of
course after independence.
And people write about in state meetings,
Jefferson would sit or stand in the corner
with his arms crossed and say not a word.
Well, that's great insight, isn't it?
So sometimes when I'm
talking as Jefferson,
I'll try not to hit the mic.
I will talk with my arms crossed.
And that even a simple act like that
may seem mundane, or it might even seem
to a modern audience wrong,
that why would a gentleman stand
with his arms crossed?
But I'm actually utilizing primary source
to give credence
to the fact that I am now standing here,
sitting here with my arms crossed.
It's very cool.
And then there are other things
like spoken about Jefferson's stutter
or perhaps slight stutter.
So when I portray Jefferson,
I layer it in ever so slightly.
Things like that help
give me and maybe you
a more accurate, hopefully a flavor
and presentation interpretation
of Thomas Jefferson the man.
That's a fantastic question as well.
- [Cashmey] Wallenda asks,
how long did it take for you to perfect
your ability to become Thomas Jefferson?
(laughs)
- Wallenda, you know what word
I'm gonna hit first, and that's perfect.
Just as this union is
becoming more perfect
over time, creating a more perfect union,
I am hopefully, through research, creating
a more perfect
or a more accurate Thomas Jefferson.
When I first signed on
to Colonial Williamsburg,
I moved here, as I said,
from New York City.
And the foundation here gave me
six months of study.
They said, you could go to the library.
They set up a cubicle there for me.
It was my study carrel and I would spend
eight hours a day reading.
And the more I read, the more I perfected
my understanding of Thomas Jefferson.
It's a journey, Wallenda.
It's not over, I will continue to grow
in this thing.
And I will continue to find new sources
and new information
that change my interpretation.
This is exactly
what we were talking
about in the beginning,
how I get to steep in this character
and grow along with it.
As I find new information,
sometimes that even changes what I said
and I find that what I have been saying
for three years now is actually wrong.
It's not an easy thing to accept,
but it's the right thing to accept.
Thanks Wallenda.
Growing, growing.
- [Cashmey] Our next
question comes from John,
who asks, if you weren't portraying
Thomas Jefferson for
Colonial Williamsburg,
is there any other person in history
you would love to portray
assuming your colleagues might have
to give up the character perhaps?
- Oh, you mean in the 18th century?
- [Cashmey] Or any other point in history.
- Okay.
So this is very strange
and don't fault me here,
but I'm gonna be honest with you.
I would love someday to portray,
and I'd have to get some age on me now,
but I'd love someday to portray
in some biopic George Carlin (laughs)
Which is definitely a bit,
a swing 180 degrees from Thomas Jefferson.
In terms of history, I have a colleague
who portrays Roosevelt quite well
and I'm enamored with that guy.
I think portraying him
would be quite fun as well.
- [Cashmey] Had another
question from Andrew here
who asks, what primary
and secondary sources
do you rely upon
for your interpretation of Jefferson?
When it comes to secondary sources,
do you have a particular set of books
that you find useful?
And how do you change your interpretation
as new scholarship emerges?
- Yeah.
That's the question, isn't it?
We're always digging deeper
and we're always reading and creating
the best interpretation we can.
So for secondary sources,
I sort of divided these up
into primary and secondary.
There was a primary source up here as well
that I didn't talk about,
but this is Jefferson's memorandum books.
And these are his daily accounts.
These are fascinating as well.
There's a couple of
volumes of these, guys.
But secondary source, it
depends on what subject
do you wanna study?
Right here, we have
"The Dream of the Enlightenment",
so it's the rise of modern philosophy.
So of course this is a subject
that Jefferson would know
like the back of his hand.
And this is a great read.
If you wanna read about the foundation
of this government and its ancient ties
to ancient governments,
this is a great read.
"Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts",
this author wrote another book
that I can't think of right now,
but it's also worth your time.
This is an experiment
this government,
but it's not a brand
new top-to-bottom thing.
They pulled a lot from Greeks and Romans.
If you wanna read about Jefferson
in his early life, I'm not gonna show you
the title 'cause you can't read it,
but this is called "Thomas
Jefferson, Lawyer".
This is a time that most people
don't write about when Thomas was a lawyer
here in this city in Williamsburg
for seven years.
So it runs the gamut.
I have books specifically
tying into science.
There's a great book
called "Science And The Founding Fathers".
That's fantastic, I believe
that was broken up by characters.
There's a Jefferson set of chapters
and Franklin set of chapters, et cetera.
And Madison I believe is in there as well.
So if you're going to primary source,
the first thing that I do
is open up table of contents.
Does it have the content
that you're wanting?
And if it does, great,
go to the second step
and that's open up the back,
the citations and the sources.
Do they cite their source?
If the book is thick and
the citations are thin,
it's gonna be hard to do this.
It's gonna be hard to interpret
and portray facts
because you can't be sure
where this author is getting their facts.
But if it's well sourced, that means
they have hopefully checked it
and you can always double back
and double-check their
original sources as well.
Once it fits those two
sieves, it falls through,
then it's probably
worth your time to read.
Yeah, it's a fantastic question.
- [Cashmey] Had a question from Bethany,
she asked, do you ever
have difficulty portraying
the more controversial sides of Jefferson
and voicing his opinions
that you may not personally agree with?
- Yeah, Bethany, the answer is yes.
It's not easy to, for example,
I have a program.
Well, when we're open, I have a program
that runs with Jefferson's
manservant Jupiter.
And in that program,
I stand across a dear friend and colleague
of mine, whose name is Jomar.
And I have to say some things to Jomar
that Jefferson writes
in "Notes on the State of
Virginia", for example.
And he has to take it.
And these aren't things
that Kurt agrees with, not at all.
But I do a disservice
to history and Jefferson
if I only present
the brilliant, beautiful parts of him.
So it's not always easy.
But just because a
conversation is difficult
and creates unease in us doesn't mean
we shouldn't have the conversation.
In fact, it's probably the inverse.
If conversation is difficult, if a topic
is difficult to talk
about, that's probably
the exact topic we
should be talking about.
One of the cool things
that the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation does
is they allow us, they demand
that we present material,
full, open, warts and all.
I, Kurt don't always agree with Jefferson,
but you came here to hear Jefferson.
So it's my job to portray him.
In "Notes on the State
of Virginia", he says
some things that are not easy to read.
In fact, I'll tell you this Bethany,
when I first read
"Notes on the State of Virginia"
and I got to chapter 14, I was so upset.
I was so angry that I
had to put the book down
and I couldn't read it for months.
And finally, in a conversation
with my mentor and friend, Bill Barker,
he encouraged me to pick it back up.
And so I did, and I reread that chapter
and I've probably read that chapter,
I don't know, a dozen times.
It's still not easy, but I come
to a new understanding of Jefferson
and how important it is
to even with this man
who is sometimes flawed and hypocritical,
to portray all of him.
And that's one of the cool things.
I'll end with this, and
it's a great question.
There's an early Jefferson biographer
whose name is Parton.
And Parton says that,
I'm paraphrasing here,
but he says, if America is right,
Jefferson was right.
And everything that's wrong with America
was wrong with Jefferson
or what is wrong with America
is wrong with Jefferson.
That's a pretty great wrap-up.
So I get to portray 40 hours a week
a mirror to our society.
I get to hold myself up and say,
this is who we are.
Do we like this?
I get to talk about all of the things
that are beautiful and all of the things
that are flawed and
wrong about this country.
That's a, hope that's not
too much navel-gazing,
but I think it's a pretty noble,
pretty righteous maybe position.
- [Cashmey] We have a
question from Michelle
who asks, what do you
do if you have a guest
who asks a question of Jefferson
that is not an answer that either you know
or that he would know?
- Yeah Michelle.
So we have to remember that our people
that we portray don't
always know everything.
If Jefferson were here right now
through the magic of I don't know,
cryogenesis or something,
dino DNA, then we could
ask him everything,
But you know what?
Jefferson wouldn't always have the answer.
So we have to give
ourself a bit of allowance
and say, even the people that we portray
didn't always have the
answer, and that's okay.
And now, if it is something that your guy
would absolutely know, then you can find
a creative way to say, I don't know.
Or you can just come right out and say,
I don't know.
It's not always, there's sometimes,
that's the three most
difficult words to say
as an interpreter.
But honesty and transparency I think
is probably very important in this job
as the audience expects
you to give them honesty
and expects you to give them facts.
And if there is dishonesty,
I think presented,
then suddenly walls begin to come up
and there are deeper questions
about, is any of the
material real or factual?
And that's a pretty dangerous place to be.
So it's not easy to say, I don't know.
But you can find a
creative way in character
to say, I don't know.
Sometimes, like for example, I was asked
not so distantly a question
about a letter that Jefferson had written.
And the man, we have
22 and a half thousand
of his letters and I don't have them all
in my head.
And so you know what I did?
I said almost exactly that.
I said, I've written
22 and a half thousand letters
and I can't remember them all (laughs)
But I'll go back into my records
which Jefferson kept and
and find out the answer.
So you can find a creative and honest way
to say, I don't know.
- [Cashmey] We have a question from Kate
who asks, how do you balance portraying
a historical figure when
folks want to see you
through a modern lens?
Perhaps that idea of a
contemporary audience
wanting to view a historical figure
from one perspective or another.
- Oh, well, yeah.
You try your best to present all facets.
You try the best to balance the scale
and present the human Jefferson.
Some people, and rightly
so, come to Jefferson
with some access to grind,
and only view him through one lens.
I'm not saying that's a lens
we should not view him from, we should.
But no one spills out 1,000-piece puzzle
in front of the table before them,
picks up one piece and says,
I've got the whole thing.
If you want the whole
picture, then we need
to digest the whole picture.
So sometimes if I get an audience member
with a clear path, I try to, in my answer,
balance the path with the other side
of the scale, whatever side that is.
And the hope is to present the human.
He was flaw.
Jefferson talks about his flaws.
He's pretty honest about it actually,
which is kind of admirable.
So if I can present that
to you or to a guest
who has a certain view
or lens, then maybe,
maybe I can get some
wheels to turn in a way
that creates an allowance of acceptance
of a larger human, rather
than just being known
for one thing.
And this happens on
both the positive side,
I'll say, and the negative side.
Some people think of Jefferson
as a deified American god.
And sometimes it's my then job to balance
the scale a little bit.
- [Cashmey] Claudia asks,
how did you figure out
the balance between portraying Jefferson
as a historical figure while still be able
to see the man behind that edifice?
- Yeah, well I would say
that's a work-in-progress.
I think it's, you
constantly have to check in.
One of the pitfalls of this job
is that we grow close.
And we grow close to the
people that we portray,
even so close that we might begin to unsee
some things that we first
saw because we begin
to lift them up on the pedestal
that history has created for them.
So you're exactly right.
You have to check yourself and it's good
to constantly sort of check in and say,
am I being honest right now?
And I'll be honest with you,
there are some audiences I have left
and in replaying the
conversations in my head,
I think I presented Jefferson
in a pretty positive
light with that answer.
And I probably should
have balanced the scales
a bit and given a more wholistic answer.
So I think the answer is in being honest
with yourself, constantly checking in
and saying, am I deifying this person?
Or am I really presenting
an honest picture?
And now, the fortunate thing for Jefferson
is if I ever get my
head too big and my ego
too large about Jefferson,
there's a whole lot
of books that'll bring me down (laughs)
You don't have to search
far for biographers
that don't treat them very lightly.
So, and some of those
exist on my bookshelves
and I'll read them.
So I try to, I guess, balance my intake
of information as well.
It's not all Jefferson,
glorified Jefferson.
I read some, what the
other side has to say
and gives me hopefully a
better balance as well.
That's a fantastic question.
- [Cashmey] We've had several individuals
ask or observe about the humor or levity
that you will inject
into your interpretation as Jefferson.
How did you come to make that choice
in your interpretation?
- Yeah, Jefferson,
he's not a stodgy and dusty and old
and tired as some people would believe.
If you read as much
Jefferson material as I do,
you begin to see the
jokes, and he makes jokes.
But I will say I didn't begin to pick up
on Jefferson humor
until probably, I don't know,
5,000, 6,000
or so letters in,
I really began to pick
up on his brand of humor.
His humor tends to be pretty buried
in some erudite (laughs) material.
But he does make puns, for example.
He makes puns to the Marquis de Lafayette.
He makes puns to James Madison.
It should also be said
he doesn't make puns
to people who he doesn't have
a pretty close relationship with.
But when you begin to
pull out these letters
between Lafayette and Jefferson
and Madison and Jefferson, and these puns
start lifting themselves out,
you begin to then see
Jefferson in a new light,
and allow for some humor
in your public audience,
which is what I do.
I also use humor, I'll be honest.
I use a little bit more humor probably
than Jefferson would in a public audience.
And I do have regular conversation
and check-ins with myself.
Am I using too much humor?
I use humor from an artistic point,
but I use 18th century
authentic Jefferson humor
that I then lift out and
sometimes twist slightly
to a modern ear.
But I use it from a dramatic standpoint.
If I've been talking too
long about one subject
and I can feel the energy drag,
then I'll drop something
in to perk people up,
and then we can keep going.
Especially in the hot months,
this becomes pretty useful.
There's a comedian who
says when he's talking
about philosophy in his standup routine,
he likes to make people laugh
because when their mouth is open,
he drops something in for
them to really chew on.
And I think that's
probably a pretty good way
to think about Jefferson and humor
in my public audiences.
I like to laugh.
- [Cashmey] Barbara asks a question
that we could probably
host an entire symposium
here at Colonial Williamsburg on
and still not cover everything.
How do you explain
Jefferson's complicated views
in regards to slavery?
- Oh, Barbara, yes, that is a symposium.
And there has much been written about it.
So how do you explain
his complicated views?
I think first and foremost,
you have to understand
that he's human.
And I say, you have to understand.
But sometimes we forget
that these guys were human.
We have so polished them
and literally etched them in marble
and lifted them up on
pedestals and made them
literally larger than life that their feet
no longer touch the ground.
And we are surprised then
when these American gods make a mistake.
I think we do a disservice
to our generation
when we say things like,
wasn't that a great generation?
The founding generation?
That generation will never live again,
never happen again.
We take power from ourselves when we give
all the power to them
and don't give allowance
for us to do the exact same greatness
or extend, the exact same greatness
upon society, and also
engage in the same faults.
Jefferson's contemplative
nature around slavery
is one of these.
We're bicameral beings,
we have two spheres,
and Jefferson tends to
do that with slavery.
He sometimes bubbles
this thing and juggles
it back and forth in a bicameral nature.
He, I will say in my reading of Jefferson,
I have no doubt that Jefferson wanted
to end slavery.
And we can get into this.
This is part of the symposium
that we're now gonna have,
welcome to a 16-and-a-half-hour symposium,
you thought it started at two and ended
at three, congratulations.
This thing's going until
two in the morning.
(laughing)
Jefferson (laughs) clearly in my view,
wanted to end slavery.
It's all over his public works,
not just his internal writings
and private letters.
The man tried to end it multiple times,
mitigate it multiple times, constraint it,
restraint it, erode it.
It never really took entirely.
The closest he got was
a passage of Bill 51
here in fact.
But did Jefferson sometimes wonder
if the African was
different physiologically
than the European?
The answer is yes.
And when we begin to create
a distinction physiologically,
scientifically
between two races, well then suddenly
they become less like two races
and more like two species,
and we would never give
our dogs or our horses
the same rights that we give us humans.
It becomes a bit easier,
this dehumanization,
it becomes a bit easier
to then create laws
and systems, ever tightening the noose
and perfecting that
institution of slavery.
This is a total symposium.
Come to Colonial Williamsburg (laughs)
We can continue to have this conversation,
not just with me, but we have a beautiful,
lovely, brilliant
African-American interpretive department.
And they visit this
issue every single day.
So you don't just have to listen
to a white man talk about it,
although that's complicated
and extremely interesting.
We portray every facet of
18th century life here.
- [Cashmey] We've got so many questions
and we're so short on time,
how do you feel about a lightning round?
- Let's do it, lightning round.
What do we, 30 seconds an answer?
- [Cashmey] Sure.
From Caroline, she asks,
how often do you change your presentation?
- How often do I change my presentation?
Oh, well.
We're sort of constantly creating
new presentations, Caroline.
So last year I created a pretty cool piece
that I'm excited about
called Pursuing Happiness.
But I have general
sort of Jefferson 101
presentations and Caroline,
I change that thing every
single time I do it.
It's all almost at this
point extemporaneous
and I literally will set a topic in a year
at the front end as I'm walking on stage,
and then run through it
and then answer a question.
So that thing is different
every single time.
[Cashmey] From Kay she asks,
what room are you in right now?
And what might Jefferson have done there?
We are in the House of Burgesses,
the hub of the Capitol Building
in Colonial Williamsburg.
This was the Capitol.
The city was the capital
in colonial times,
post-Jamestown of course
and entering post-independence,
this was also the Capitol.
And this building is the Capitol Building,
houses three branches of government
as you know them as they're just the same,
executive, legislative and judicial.
This is the legislative room,
the House of Burgesses,
our elected representatives,
and Jefferson was an
elected representative
and sat in this reconstructed
Capitol Building.
He represented Albemarle County.
Was that 30 seconds.
- [Cashmey] Yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Cashmey] Don inquires,
what has been your
favorite Jefferson quote
to use in your interpretation?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Thank you, Don.
(laughs)
- [Cashmey] That one, we've still got
some time left on that.
- Oh, okay.
(laughing)
So Jefferson writes this.
He's always switching
languages in his letters,
which is a joy.
He'll switch from Greek, Latin, English,
whatever language fits the phrase
that he wants to use, he
would use that language.
The man was quite erudite,
spoke and wrote seven languages.
It means I would take a tumultuous liberty
over a peaceful slavery.
Pretty cool.
- [Cashmey] Lauren inquires,
do you sometimes think you are Jefferson
when you're not at your job?
- Yes, Lauren, my wife would tell you
to put Jeff (laughs)
He would tell you that sometimes
she tells me to put Jefferson away,
she'd like to speak with
her husband for a while.
So there's always two men in my head
at any one moment.
It does become a little bit difficult.
You absorb so much
material from one person,
it's kinda hard to stop those wheels,
easy to take the clothes
off and the hat off,
a bit more difficult to
sometimes switch back
into your real person (laughs)
- [Cashmey] Sarah inquires,
who is your favorite nation builder
to have a conversation with in character?
- Ooh, my favorite nation builder
to have a conversation with in character,
that's not a sticky question.
(laughs)
- [Cashmey] This might
be one of your colleagues
using a pseudonym (laughs)
- Uh-huh, yeah, one of my colleagues.
Well, let's see if we
can get this one right.
All of them.
(laughing)
How PC and equitable is that?
I will say it is easier sometimes to talk
as Jefferson with some
other nation builders
than it is with others.
And that's just based on the relationships
that they had.
An easy one is James Madison,
the guys were,
they were hashtag
America's first bromance.
They wrote thousands of
letters to each other.
So shout out to J Mad.
- [Cashmey] One last
lightning-round question, how many?
From Kimberly, how many outfits
do you have for Thomas Jefferson?
- Ooh Kimberly, I don't know.
I have a lot.
I wear this.
Colonial Williamsburg does a fantastic job
of not just making sure you have
the right material
and that you're prepped mentally,
but also that you're wearing accurately
down to the stitch.
If you've seen John Trumbull's painting
of the Continental Congress in '76,
well, you'll see Jefferson
dressed in a suit
a lot like this, it's a navy blue,
it's got some buttons
that do absolutely nothing
'cause gentry, he's got a red waistcoat.
And the red waistcoat
I was talking about the
memorandum books here.
Jefferson has listed several times
in his memorandum books that he buys
a red cloth or scarlet cloth.
And he even says
specifically for waistcoats.
So I've got a lot of red waistcoats,
and this is accounted for
in primary-source material.
If you saw me walking down the street,
you might not know that.
But we are as accurate as we can be
down to the very stitch.
I've got a lot of costumes.
I don't know if I had to guess
maybe 12 different full suits.
I've got a velvet suit
based on a Jefferson portrait,
the earliest portrait by Brown.
If you want to look that one up,
he's got powdered hair,
he's looking very fancy
'cause he's in Paris.
- [Cashmey] And that's all the time
we have for questions.
- That's all the time.
Well, friends, thank you for joining us.
If we didn't get to your question,
I'm sorry, but we'll
do our best next time.
You can always, as soon as our doors
open back up, come and speak with us.
We're happy to take you and receive you
in personal conversation
whenever you feel safe
when the foundation opens
its doors again to you.
Thank you for coming here today.
Thank you for having
this brave conversation.
Thank you for entering
into brave conversation.
This is something that
Colonial Williamsburg does
every single day of the year.
We talk here about all of the things
that you're not supposed to speak up
during Thanksgiving dinner.
We talk about slavery and
religion and education
and states rights versus federal rights.
And we do so at Colonial Williamsburg,
we have the uncanny ability
to have heightened,
enlightened conversation
and even have a difference of opinion,
but still remain friends.
And isn't that so desperately
what this country needs?
So if you find yourself needing this,
if you find yourself
needing a Northern star,
you need something to clear away
some muddy waters in 2020 and beyond,
what better place to come
for clarity, for truth,
for fact and understanding of our history,
bringing us to the present than right here
at Colonial Williamsburg?
And until our doors open
again, you can continue
to meet with us
through the power of
great physic electric.
Thank you, Dr. Franklin.
In fact, tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.,
we're gonna have a lovely conversation
on the Facebook live stream,
just like we are today.
But not with me, with two
of our theatrical interpreters,
Alex and Claire.
And there'll be presenting
some beautiful material for you tomorrow,
so stay tuned.
As always, this is a private foundation.
It is only made possible
through your generous donations,
the donations of our donor base
and future donors and
viewers just like you.
So if you can, put a penny in the pot
and we'll keep this thing rolling for you
in 2020 and beyond.
Until then, Kurt Smith
and Thomas Jefferson signing off.
