Lincoln’s Children an Entertaining and Thought Provoking World Premiere From Fortune’s Fool Theatre at the Crane Studio

Lincoln’s Children the new play by Mike McGeever opened to a sold out house this Friday. Now it’s in the Crane Studio which is rather tiny so that isn’t as unlikely as one might think. But, having seen the work I can tell you if there is any justice in the world it should be a sold out run. The next time we see it performed, and it is a work we should see again and again, it will be in a larger venue. It’s not only important work, it does the one thing that theater needs to do in this time and place, it entertains. There is a line in the play attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and I’m paraphrasing without a script at hand, If you can get a man to laugh you can get him to think. Which is exactly what McGeever does with his play. Don’t mistake me, it isn’t a comedy, but like life, it has plenty to laugh at. A superb cast along with an intelligent script combined with a tiny venue, the answer to that equation is get your tickets now.

Lincoln’s Children tells its story across two timelines. In the present Professor Mathers, a white academic hires Chloe, a young black graduate student to be his research assistant. Mathers is writing his umpteenth book on Lincoln and looking for an assistant with a fresh perspective. Chloe is the descendant of a black slave who was loaned to Mary Todd Lincoln in the mid 1800’s. That is the other time period that the play takes place in. Chloe is a good researcher but she also has her own agenda which is to try and prove that she is a descendant of Abraham Lincoln. Chloe represents Black America in the present and in the past. In both time periods she’s clearly intelligent, but it’s only in the present that she can show it freely. As we all know freedom as a concept and freedom as a reality are different things. Present day Chloe is able to question and argue and through her the things that are still very wrong in our country have a voice. She debates points with Professor Mathers who is not the embodiment of all that is wrong with the white man in modern times. That role is played by his mentor Calhoun Alexander, a good ol’ southern white academic. Mathers is the white America that tries to do better and thinks he does, but still doesn’t get that the field is not level. What struck me most about McGeever’s script is his ability to understand, present, ridicule, yet still show compassion for a character like Mathers. We don’t hate him, but we shake our heads at him. The other great thing McGeever did is give the character of Chloe the intelligence to make the arguments against the status quo, clear and effective.

As Chloe and Mathers, Kyra Richardson and Jeremy Motz are perfectly cast. Richardson knows how to make her point and make it stick, her line deliveries are like darts hitting the bullseye every time. We see her intelligence but also her flashes of anger at the world that isn’t color blind. Her Chloe in Lincoln’s time is completely different, there is still intelligence, but it’s used not to fight injustice or ignorance but to stay alive, which means keeping her head down and intelligence to herself. Motz plays the mansplainer who doesn’t know he’s a mansplainer. He’s intelligent as well, but he’s not as tenacious, he’s a white man, he’s never needed to be. Motz is the stand in for the good intentioned but entitled white male, he finds the humanity in the character so that we are genuinely angry with him when he makes a feeble and misguided move. I was so involved that I actually tried to verbally restrain him before I realized what I was doing. My apologies to the cast and audience, that “No!” was me. I can think of no higher compliment to pay Richardson and Motz than to admit that I was so involved with what they were doing that I forgot I was in the theater. The supporting roles are so well cast from Nicholas Nelson who is perfect in look and speech as Lincoln to Ariel Pinkerton who makes you see what a difficult woman she would have been to cross. Winifred Froelich, Dawn Krosnowski, and Scott Gilbert all make the most of their small roles and it’s a credit to their talents and Mcgeever’s writing that none of them feel like caricatures, well maybe Gilbert’s Calhoun Alexander does, but it’s a true to life caricature that’s perfectly executed.

The play is directed by Duck Washington whose timing within scenes is impeccable. The play clips along, but there is no sense of it being rushed. The only decision I don’t agree with, though there may be reasons for it, is the shifting of the table between scenes. One assumes this is done to show a change of location but it’s unnecessary. Otherwise the set design by Keven Lock is exactly what is needed without anything extraneous, which is essential given the space limitations. CJ Mantel has done nice work with the costume design particularly with Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, and the Chloe from that time line.

Lincoln’s Children is a play that deals with very real and important issues, more than there was time to unpack in this review. It makes you laugh and then helps you to think about our world, what it is based on, what is true, what is fact. It reminds us that history isn’t truth, it’s the story told by those in power. It runs through September 22nd in the intimate Crane Studio Theatre for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://fortunesfooltheatre.org/what-were-doing

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