San Diego Magazine / August 2006 / Lessons from Lincoln

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Lessons from Lincoln

OBSERVERS OF OUR POLITICAL PANORAMA often lament the quality of the candidates, adding something like “We need a modern-day Lincoln who could elevate and unite us.” Well, that’s the approximate idea behind John Strand’s Lincolnesque, getting its world premiere at the Old Globe (August 5–September 10).

In Strand’s script, a speechwriter for a congressional candidate has a brother who has been released from the hospital after a mental breakdown and now often imagines he’s Abraham Lincoln. The brother’s frequent quoting of the Great Emancipator inspires the writer, who starts working the references into the candidate’s speeches. For a while, the stirring words raise the level of politics, but then . . .

“I’m afraid the reaction to Lincoln would not be very favorable” nowadays, says Strand. “He was poetic and articulate and had high ideals, but today, politics is a matter of packaging. Would we even recognize a Lincoln?” If Strand sounds a mite cynical, it could be because he lives in Washington, D.C., where politics is the main industry, entertainment and diversion. His work has been mostly produced in that city, although he had a couple of plays commissioned by Costa Mesa’s South Coast Rep. Strand hadn’t been to San Diego until the Globe slated Lincolnesque.

Politics and campaign tactics, of course, are timely this election year. But the script encompasses other themes, like brotherly bonding and conflicting loyalties, and he leavens it all with humor. Above all, it celebrates Lincoln. “He was a magnificent writer,” Strand says, “so this play was a wonderful excuse for me to delve deeply into his life and words.”

ANOTHER WORLD DEBUT promises lighter fare. In Coronado, Lamb’s Players Theatre offers a romantic comedy, Five Cups of Coffee (August 11–September 17). The script, commissioned under the company’s PlayWork development program, is by Gillette Elvgren, a writer-director from Virginia who’s the son of the late same-named pinup artist.

The play, as you might surmise, is set in a coffee shop, in which significant moments of a rocky romance are marked by the five occasions of the title. A young DNA researcher, troubled by the state of the world and frequently mired in existential angst, walks out on his wedding, loses his beloved, wins her back and—well, you’ll just have to see how it turns out. If it sounds sitcomish, banish the thought. Although aiming for laughs, the play poses some provocative questions and has elements of magical realism, including jaunts to the Middle East and the Pearly Gates. To give you an idea of the script’s rollicking range, the coffee shop owner also appears as the priest who marries the couple, the gatekeeper at the Garden of Eden, a Middle Eastern tour guide, the ghost of Harry Houdini and Elvis. I’d say that, for any actor, is a stretch.

IN JUNE, JERSEY BOYS added another outstanding-musical Tony to the growing La Jolla Playhouse collection. An earlier Playhouse-born Tony winner continues its prosperous maturity at Moonlight. The outdoor Vista stage houses the regional musical theater premiere of Thoroughly Modern Millie (August 23–September 3), the Jazz Age trifle that danced from La Jolla to Broadway and gathered 11 2002 Tony nominations and six wins, including the biggie for musical. Millie’s bouncy Jeannie Tesori–Dick Scanlan score enhanced the Scanlan–Richard Morris revamp of the popular 1967 film. At Moonlight, Kirby Ward blends his considerable talents for direction and choreography into the frothy mix.