With politics all around us in this final lap of the long presidential race and Congress engaging in verbal blood sport over the bailout that almost wasn't, it's hard not to ask, ``Can't politicians ever work together for the national good?''

The musical 1776, a lavish yet revealingly human look at the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, suggests that contentious politicians eventually can get along -- though the path toward unanimity may be strewn with sacrificed ideas.

Actors' Playhouse is kicking off its season with an impressive revival of this nearly 40-year-old musical by composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, whose book crowds out music for long stretches of the show's three-hour running time.

Artistic director David Arisco has been angling to stage 1776 for years, but from the moment the curtains part to reveal the Continental Congress bickering in Philadelphia's summer heat, the reason that only the largest professional theaters produce the show is obvious: It's huge.

With 26 actors onstage and seven musicians in the pit, 1776 is a costly but timely choice, a reminder of how we became citizens governed by a president instead of subjects ruled by a king.

History buffs will note that the script fudges certain facts, and this lengthy amalgam of civics lesson and musical comedy won't be to everyone's taste. But Arisco, his artistic team and a powerhouse cast deliver a 1776 that fulfills its creators' intentions.

The musical takes a warts-and-all approach to its historical characters, sometimes adding or amplifying flaws they may not have actually displayed during that fateful summer.

Thus, future president John Adams (a puckish Gary Marachek) agitates for independence like some windbag party guest. Ken Clement is a gout-plagued, lusty, witty Benjamin Franklin. Barry J. Tarallo displays a focused haughtiness as independence antagonist John Dickinson. Jim Ballard plays a self-adoring Richard Henry Lee, Shane R. Tanner the pro-slavery Edward Rutledge. David Jachin Kelley is a striking if reserved Thomas Jefferson. Colleen Amaya is a crystalline-voiced Abigail Adams, the woman behind the man who helped inspire the birth of a nation. And as Javier Ignacio sings a haunting lament for friends who died too young in war, 1776 feels piercingly timeless.

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