Abstract
It is unlikely to surprise anyone that Abraham Lincoln is the president who has most often been portrayed in movies and plays. According to Merrill Peterson, he has been a character in 133 films, more than three times as many as any other chief executive.1 This chapter will examine both the most important and some of the less consequential plays that portray President Lincoln as we begin to develop models of how presidents are depicted in the theater.
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Notes
Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994: 389.
Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1958: 5.
Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1984: xxi–xxii.
Christian H. Moe, Scott J. Parker, and George McCalmon, Creating Historical Drama: A Guide for Communities, Theater Groups, and Playwrights, Second Edition, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 2005: 16.
Maxwell Anderson, Valley Forge, in Stanley Richards (ed.), America on Stage: Ten Great Plays of American History, Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1976: 145–56.
Joseph Wood Krutch, “Drama: Red—and White and Blue,” Nation 139 (Dec. 26, 1934): 750.
Brooks Atkinson, “Philip Merivale in ‘Valley Forge,’” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1934: 28.
David Turley, “A Usable Life: Popular Representations of Abraham Lincoln,” in David Ellis (ed.), Imitating Art: Essays in Biography, London: Pluto Press, 1993: 60.
Benjamin Chapin, “Lincoln in the Hearts of the People,” The Independent 66 (Feb. 11, 2009): 305–8.
Thomas Dixon, A Man of the People: A Drama of Abraham Lincoln, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1920: ix. The edition used was reprinted by Kessinger Publishing.
“Lincoln Again Play Hero,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 1920: 18 (Section: Amusements); and Anthony Slide, American Racist: The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004: 69.
Lerone Bennet, Jr., “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?” Ebony, Feb. 1968: 35–42.
Two useful summaries of this debate are Arthur Zilversmit, “Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 2 (1980) Issue 1: 22–45; and Martin D. Tullai, “Abraham Lincoln: Racist, Bigot or Misunderstood?” Lincoln Herald 103 (2001) Issue 2: 85–92.
Raymond A. Cook, Thomas Dixon, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974: 107.
Brook Thomas, “Thomas Dixon’s A Man of the People How Lincoln Saved the Union by Cracking Down on Civil Liberties,” Law and Literature 20 (Spring 2008): 21–46.
St. John Ervine, “John Drinkwater,” North American Review 210 (Dec. 1919): 825.
Eva Chappell, “The Pitiful High Heart of Lincoln,” World Outlook 6 (Feb. 1920): 7.
John Drinkwater, Lincoln, The World Emancipator, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920: 3.
John Drinkwater, Abraham Lincoln: A Play, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919: 2.
Burns Mantle (editor), The Best Plays of 1919–20, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1920: v.
F. Abraham Hackett, “After the Play,” New Republic 21 (Dec. 31, 1919): 148.
Alexander Woolcott, “Second Thoughts on First Nights: Abraham Lincoln,” New York Times, Dec. 21, 1919: 76.
Edmund Wilson, “After the Play,” New Republic 26 (Apr. 6, 1921): 162.
Harriet Monroe, “A Lincoln Primer,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 15 (Dec. 1919): 159–62.
Alexander Woolcott, “The Play,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1919: 18.
Mark S. Reinhart, Abraham Lincoln on Screen: A Filmography of Drama and Documentaries, Including Television, 1903–1998, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999: 36.
Arthur Goodman, If Booth Had Missed, New York: Samuel French, 1932: unnumbered front matter.
Martin Bunzl, “Counterfactual History: A User’s Guide,” The American Historical Review 109 (Jun. 2004), 845–858.
Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: What Might Have Happened in American History if Lincoln Had Lived,” New York Times, Apr. 5, 1932: 24; “New Play in Manhattan,” Time, Feb. 15, 1932, accessed at http://www.time.com; and Joseph Wood Krutch, “Drama: Cleopatra’s Nose,” Nation 134, Feb. 24, 1932: 238.
Eric Foner, “If Lincoln Hadn’t Died …” American Heritage 56 (Winter 2009): 47, 53–54.
Hans L. Trefousse, Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth Century Egalitarianian, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997: 159, 170.
E. P. Conkle, “Prologue to Glory,” in Willard Swire, Three Distinctive Plays About Abraham Lincoln, New York: Washington Square Press, 1961. Most of the dialogue in the play is written in this style of dialect. The major exception is that of Ann Rutledge.
Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: E. P. Conkle’s ‘Prologue to Glory,’ a Fable of Lincoln’s Early Years in New Salem,” New York Times, Mar. 18, 1938: 22; and Time, “New Play in Manhattan,” Mar. 28, 1938, accessed at http://www.time.com.
Thomas Ewing Dabney, “Lincoln Drama Well Received,” New Orleans States, Jan. 24, 1939 and Burns Mantle, “Iowan’s Story of Lincoln Wins Critic’s Praise,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 27, 1938.
Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage: American Drama and Theater of the Great Depression, New York: Oxford University Press, 1974: 273.
For an account of these events, see David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995: Chapter Two.
Robert Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939. The essay is on 189–250; the quotes on 189 and 197.
Gerald Boardman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914–1930, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995: 171; Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: Raymond Massey Appearing in Robert Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1938: 59; and Harriet Hyman Alonso, Robert E. Sherwood: The Playwright in Peace and War, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007: 200.
Joseph Wood Krutch, “A Good Beginning,” Nation 147 (Nov. 5, 1938): 488; Alonso: 200; and “Drama Critics Fail to Name ‘Best Play,’” New York Times, Apr. 20, 1939: 25.
Howard Taubman, “Theater: Lincoln Revival,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 1963: 5; and Richard Gilman, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” Commonweal 77 (Feb. 15, 1963): 543.
Carol Gelderman, “Abe’s Global Vision,” American Theatre, Dec. 1, 1993: 13; and Michael Sommers, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois Revival Depicts a Spiritual Heritage,” The Oregonian, Nov. 25, 1993.
David Richards, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” New York Times, Nov. 30, 1993: C15
Vincent Canby, “A Lincoln With an Agit-Prop Subtext,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1993: A5
Michael Kuchwara, “‘Lincoln’ an Impeccable Drama,” Albany Times Union, Dec. 3, 1993: C9; and “Backwoods Lawyer Hews a Path to the White House,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 2, 1993.
Herbert Mitgang, “Saturday Night! Lincoln v. Douglas,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1959: X1.
“The Tangled Weave,” in The Rivalry tour play program booklet in Corwin Papers and A. J. Langguth (editor), Norman Corwin’s Letters, New York: Barricade Books, 1994: 210.
Norman Corwin, The Rivalry, New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1960: 12, 31.
Brooks Atkinson, “Vivid Americana,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1959: X1; Harold Clurman, “The Rivalry,” Nation 188 (Feb. 28, 1959): 194; Kenneth Tynan, “Matters of Fact,” New Yorker 35 (Feb. 21, 1959): 96–98; Richard Watts, Jr., “Those Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” New York Post, Feb. 9, 1959; and “New Play in Manhattan,” Time, Feb. 16, 1959, accessed at http://www.time.com.
Sid Friedlander, “The Man in the Stove-pipe Hat,” New York Post, Feb. 15, 1959: M2.
Max Lerner, “The Wrestler,” New York Post, Feb. 11, 1959: 48.
Harold Holzer (editor), The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, New York: Harper Collins, 1993: 63, 283.
Norman Corwin, “Coast to Coast with a Dramatized Debate,” Theatre Arts 43 (Feb. 1959): 61.
Charles Poore, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, Feb. 12, 1959: 25. Two collections that include The Last Days of Lincoln are Richards and Swire.
Tom Donnelly, “Longhi: Arguing with the Immortals,” Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1972.
Clive Barnes, “Lincoln Mask at Plymouth,” New York Times, Oct. 31, 1972: 51; and Brendan Gill, “Self-Wounding, Self-Delighting,” New Yorker 48 (Nov. 11, 1972): 130.
Mel Gussow, “Stage: Weaver as Multimedia Lincoln,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1976: 62.
Herbert Mitgang, Mister Lincoln, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982: v.
James Lardner, “A Century Later Abe Lincoln Returns to Ford’s Theatre,” Washington Post, Jan. 13, 1980: M1.
Mel Gussow, “Stage: Mister Lincoln, Starring Roy Dotrice,” New York Times, Feb. 26, 1980: C5
John Beaufort, “An Authoritative Mister Lincoln,” Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 3, 1980.
Barry Schwartz, “Lincoln at the Millenium,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 24 (Winter 2003): 1–31 (quote on 31).
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© 2010 Bruce E. Altschuler
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Altschuler, B.E. (2010). Plays about Abraham Lincoln. In: Acting Presidents. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115316_1
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