Cast rehearsing the romantic courtship scene in which, Harold as Jefferson and Greacian as his future wife, Martha, play a violin and piano forté duet. Wiley as Arthur prepares to work puppets. 'The Real Jefferson' 'remembers' and Jefferson's daughter, Martha, reads from her writing. Note: The blocking of the duet changed for the final shoot.

"Had she chosen to be a mere iconoclast, Ms. Traut could have had a field day, judging Jefferson by our late-20th-century sensibilities concerning race and sex . . . she had a different aim: sandblasting some of the myths that obscure the MAN like multiple layers of old cheap paint."  -- Robert McDowell; Raleigh News & Observer (1988)

Saturday's Children  departed from an accepted view that supposes Thomas Jefferson to be the father of his slave, Sally Hemings' children. During playwright Karyn Traut's seven years of research that preceded the writing of the script, it appeared to her that the most likely father of Sally Hemings' children was Thomas Jefferson's brother, Randolph. This novel view was consistent with
the DNA evidence a decade later. Though the journal Nature incorrectly headlined that the DNA proved Thomas Jefferson fathered ‘slaves last child’, whereas the article itself reveals that . the DNA was taken from descendants of Field Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s uncle, and as such, Thomas Jefferson’s brother, Randolph Jefferson, and several cousins were equally implicated.

As Jean and Harold argue things out, the three contemporary characters take on the parts of historic figures with Harold regularly playing Jefferson himself. As points are made, the "real Jefferson" or the "Jefferson women" respond from actual writings. Thus a dialogue across time occurs and adds to the dimension and exploration of the argument.

The United States is a country founded on an idea. It is not, as are many other countries, a collection of residents of a particular geographic region or genetic stock. If we lose sight of our founding ideals, we lose the bedrock of our character.
Thomas Jefferson put words to the ideals of the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and continued to advise, throughout his life, in letters to active statesmen, on the principles of liberty.  In a letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787, he wrote from Paris, where he was serving as the American Plenipotentiary to France, his assessment of the American Constitution:
"I will now tell you what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact."
The heated controversy over the paternity of Sally Hemings' children has distracted many Americans from Thomas Jefferson's writings about issues that are still of vital importance to all Americans.