★★★
Mrs President is not quite what you may expect from a historical drama about a First Lady, both for better and for worse. John Ransom Phillips’ play following Mary Todd Lincoln and Mathew Brady through a series of portrait sittings has an interesting question at its heart about historical figures and the way their images are shaped and how those images affect their public perception. It is easy to see why Mary Todd Lincoln makes a good subject for this kind of story, given she was widely vilified during her lifetime. When it works, the framing device of the portrait sitting is excellent as with each photograph taken, further layers of Mary are unravelled, allowing the audience to see more of the woman beneath the image.
However, this device also has its drawbacks. Throughout the play, we jump around within Mary’s life to various key points but it is never entirely clear what is past or what is present, or exactly what moment in time we are in. It’s also never completely clear if what is being shown is reality, a memory of the past or something happening in Mary’s imagination, especially given her deteriorating mental state. The transitions between scenes are so rapid that there is never time to really sit in any one moment before the play has moved on to the next. It would be nice to sit with some of the heavier moments of the play, particularly the scenes exploring Mary’s grief for the loss of her sons and husband, for a little longer.
The highlight of the play is without a doubt the performances of the two actors, especially Miriam Grace Edwards as Mary. She shows amazing emotional range throughout the piece. Her grief at the loss of her children and husband is palpable and devastating, and the moments where Edwards is alone onstage expressing this anguish is where the play really hits its emotional heights. Edwards creates a nuanced and sympathetic portrait of Mary, as not just a woman branded insane near the end of her life and thrown in an asylum, but as strong and resilient in the face of many tragedies.
Edwards and Sam Jenkins-Shaw (as Mathew Brady) have an excellent on-stage dynamic and their back and forth is where the show’s dialogue is at its best. Phillips’ script is a little verbose and stuffed far too much with overwrought metaphors (the apple as a metaphor for the death of Mary’s son is particularly overdrawn), but the increasing tension in the back and forth dialogue between Mary and Brady as the power struggle between them heightens is very well done.
Jenkins-Shaw also portrays multiple characters as other famous people who have sat for portraits in Brady’s studio. This device, whilst amusing, adds little to the overall narrative of the play and if anything, detracts from the main focus which should be Mary. Jenkins-Shaw approaches these characters with aplomb, but their sequences would not have been missed if they had been cut and if anything, the narrative would have been tighter as a result.
The strangest choice however, are the interludes of conversation between Brady’s camera and the chair in which his subjects sit. These conversations between inanimate objects add next to nothing to the narrative and merely result in confusion for the audience as even for a piece that plays with the lines of reality, they stick out as odd as there aren’t really any other fantastical devices used and the play is mostly grounded in reality.
From a creative standpoint, the standouts are Gregor Donnelly’s set and costume design and Matt Powell’s video design. The flashbulb renderings of the portraits taken by Brady’s camera are extremely well done, and the way Brady’s darkroom appears as if from nowhere is a nice bit of theatrical magic. The set is fairly minimal but very effective for what is needed and the classic aesthetic of Donnelly’s costumes and set contrasts well with the unconventional narrative. Sam Rayner’s movement direction shines most in the photography sequences. Bronagh Lagan’s direction elicits great performances from Edwards and Jenkins-Shaw but is somewhat hampered by the lack of narrative cohesion in the script.
Ultimately, Mrs President does succeed in its aim to humanise Mary Todd Lincoln and show the woman beneath the public image, and the performances of the lead actors shine throughout. However, the lack of narrative cohesion and overwrought script, along with some strange production choices mean that the show never quite reaches the heights that it could with such phenomenal performances. Mrs President has potential to be really great, but it feels like the creative team have yet to land on the best version of the show: more focus on Mary herself and a greater narrative cohesion would have made for a more satisfying piece. It is still worth seeing for the lead performances alone and for the insight into a fascinating woman, who I definitely left wanting to learn more about.
Mrs President is on at the Charing Cross Theatre until 16 March.
Words By Jo Elliott
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.