 For practical and dramatic purposes, the work does not depict all of the more than 50 members of Congress who were present at the time.This version of John Adams is, in part, a composite character, combining the real Adams with his cousin Samuel Adams, who was in Congress at the time but is not depicted in the play.Although the play depicts Delaware's Caesar Rodney as an elderly man near death from skin cancer (which would eventually kill him), he was just 47 years old at the time and continued to be very active in the Revolution after signing the Declaration.