Writer: John Ransom Phillips
Director: Bronagh Lagan
When Mary Todd Lincoln moved to the White House as her husband Abraham was elected President of the United States, her presence was not a welcome one to all. Coming from a Southern state where slavery was permitted and with a family that included men who served in the Confederate Army, she was mistrusted from the start.
In John Ransom Phillips’s Mrs President, Mary does what many modern celebrities do when they wish to enhance their image: embark upon a PR campaign. Miriam Grace Edwards’s Mary chooses to be photographed by Mathew Brady (Sam Jenkins-Shaw), a former Civil War photographer whose portraits of important men in the US included the portrait of her husband on which his image on currency was based. Brady states that the portrait must show Mrs Lincoln as the person she is, which begs the question: who is she?
Edwards brings a stately quality to a woman burdened by grief. By the start of the play, her son Edward has already died of tuberculosis, and, of course, worse is to come. As the play progresses, Mary’s utter torment at losing another son, Edward, to typhoid and then her husband to assassination takes its toll. Dealing with such loss at any time is hard enough; doing so in the public eye is even harder.
When Phillips keeps focus on Mary, Mrs President delivers a devastating portrait. But all too often, he pulls focus away to Brady, who, while not an uninteresting character in his own right, literally pulls focus from the play’s main subject. The play migrates further away from its main topic when Jenkins-Shaw is called upon to imitate some of Brady’s other famous clients. There seems little point to such excursions other than to subject the audience to an excruciating French accent while the persona of artist and ornithologist John James Audubon is with us. As Mary questions what is happening with these personality changes, one is left asking the same question. If they are designed to elicit more about Mary Todd Lincoln, there would be better ways to do so within a tighter script.
Compounding the folly of Phillips’s approach are moments where Brady’s camera and the chair upon which his subjects sit start to have their conversation. Again, there are pertinent themes within their dialogue – the chair’s memory of being a tree and being uprooted and fashioned into something quite different resonates with Mary’s life as First Lady, for example. But the writing just isn’t strong enough to carry such flights of fancy.
Director Bronagh Lagan elicits two substantial performances that largely offset such missteps. The set and lighting design, along with some evocative use of video projection, help to amplify the production’s more salient moments.
Ultimately, though, one would hope that a play about Mary Todd Lincoln would focus more on its titular character than it does. As a result, a woman whose role in history has often been pigeonholed continues to be frustratingly elusive.
Continues until 16 March 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
An elusive portrait
