Inconvenient truths about Thomas Jefferson explored in ‘Sally & Tom’ at Round House in Bethesda

While the musical “Hamilton” elevated the status of Alexander Hamilton from a mostly historical afterthought to a cultural icon, “Sally & Tom,” a play currently at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland, does the opposite for another Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson.

As we know from our history books, Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

These truths are self-evident.

Also true: Jefferson owned over 600 enslaved people, including Sally Hemings, with whom he had a decades-long relationship, fathering at least six children with her. The relationship started when Jefferson was 41 and Hemmings was 14. Jefferson never freed Hemmings.

“I did hateful things,” the character Tom/Mike says in a Shakespearean aside near the end of act one.

The term Founding Father takes on quite a different meaning.

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, many celebrations are planned. Sally & Tom is not one of those celebrations. It’s a serious, and sometimes funny, exploration into how history will, and should, remember Jefferson.

It’s a play-within-a-play written by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Suzan Lori-Parks who has made a career debunking myths.

A theater group called The Good Company puts on a show called “The Pursuit of Happiness” in the present day about Hemmings and Jefferson. The playwright Luce plays Sally and the dir...