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Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C. The Widow Lincoln Also see Susan's reviews of Gigi and Bessie's Blues
The facts of Mrs. Lincoln's life are widely known: her comfortable childhood in Lexington, Kentucky; her marriage to Abraham Lincoln when he was still a small-town lawyer; her term as "Mrs. President" following her husband's election, with allegations of excessive spending during wartime; and the years following Lincoln's assassination, during which she spent time in a mental institution. Still's script focuses on the time immediately after Lincoln was shot, April 14, 1865, during a performance at Ford's Theatre. (Ford's is planning commemorative events for the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination.) On a set (designed by Tony Cisek) consisting largely of high stacks of trunks and suitcases, Mary Lincoln (Mary Bacon) has shut herself up in a room in the White House and refuses to leave, even to allow the new president, Andrew Johnson, to take residence. Under her black wrap, she still wears the gown she wore to the theater. The psychological drama focuses on Mary's lost hopes of the happy life she could have shared with her husband after the end of the Civil War, recovering from the death of their son Willie in 1862. She recounts the carriage ride they took together on the afternoon of that last day as they made plans for the rest of his term and their lives back in Springfield, Illinois. She drifts into fantasy and hallucination, attended in the present by her dressmaker and friend Elizabeth Keckly (Caroline Clay) and servants. Spectral figures of black-gowned women observe Mary as the play progresses. In the course of the performance, Mary watches the performance of Our American Cousin from the wings at Ford's, observing herself and her husband in their box seats while interacting with leading lady Laura Keene (Kimberly Schraf). She imagines conversations with her childhood nanny (Lynda Gravátt) and Queen Victoria (Sarah Marshall), and fights to answer the attacks on her character. The whole thing has flashes of theatrical invention but little sustained dramatic power. Ford's Theatre
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