Garrett Deagon’s chameleon-like transformation into our nation’s 16th President opposite Samantha Craton’s luminous Mary Todd Lincoln elevates Terrence L. Cranert’s The Lincolns Of Springfield into something more than the overly romanticized by-the-numbers Abraham Lincoln bio-musical it would be without their presence on the Colony Theatre stage.

Unlike a recently published biography that casts considerable doubt on the couple’s connubial bliss, The Lincolns Of Springfield paints the picture of a match made in romcom heaven. (It even includes the tagline “The Love Story We Never Knew” as part of its complete title.)

Indeed, as Cranert’s book would have it, since Mary had  supposedly planned her entire life on marrying the President of the United States and since Abraham had apparently intended since boyhood to become just that, it was meet-cute love at first sight, though The Lincolns Of Springfield takes its good time to get to that first encounter.

Former slave Elizabeth Keckley (Lacy Mason) is our narrator, the otherwise minor character’s first appearance serving mainly as an excuse to start the show off with a rousing spiritual-like number entitled “Cotton’s No Longer King.”

Teenage Mary (Catherine Oregon) and her “Mammy Sally” (Linda Broadous Miles) then duet “Dream, Hope, Pray” on their way to finishing school classes led by Madame Mentelle (presumably producer Rebecca Powers Cranert, though she receives no program credit for the role), who instructs her in the ways of “Madame Mentelle’s” in hopes of making a lady out of the unfashionably dressed ragamuffin.

We then segue to young Abe (Deagon) as he recounts to his fellow country boys and gals the tale (and a tall one at that) of the time he followed “Bear Tracks” in order to “keep the family fed.”

It’s about now that Abraham and Mary finally meet at a cotillion at which an immediately smitten Abe informs her that “I want to dance with you in the worst way,” and promptly does just that, though he does eventually learn how to trip the light fantastic.

Marriage and children soon follow, along with lawyer Abe’s decision to run for political office by campaigning quite literally “On The Stump.”

Fast forward to the White House where a now bearded President Lincoln leads the country through a bloody Civil War as Mary finds herself overcome with grief when the second of her four sons dies at the age of twelve.

Then comes the night that Abe and Mary head off for an evening at the theater and the rest is history.

To say that The Lincolns Of Springfield paints an idealized portrait of its two protagonists’ marriage under Cranert’s direction would be an understatement, nor does it reveal anything an audience member couldn’t just as easily find on Wikipedia.

What it does offer are some lovely songs, “Over Yonder” and “A Diamond In The Rough” chief among them, and some clap-along foot-stompers (“Bear Tracks,” “On The Stump”) that give ensemble members the chance strut their dancing stuff under Maria Del Bagno’s lively choreography.

Best of all, for this reviewer at least, is seeing triple-threat Garrett Deagon’s metamorphosis from the musical theater major I raved about in UC Irvine productions a dozen years back into both a spunky, rambunctious Young Mr. Lincoln and the mature, grounded leader of a nation in crisis.

It’s a stunner of a performance made even stronger by Craton’s captivating, touching, gorgeously sung turn as his partner in love and marriage and parenthood and grief.

The lovely Oregon makes for a feisty young Mary, Cranert is the picture of mature sophistication as Madame Mentellle, and Mason and Miles are a couple of loving mother figures as Elizabeth and Mammy Sally, with Emma Beck, Michal Dawson Connor (a commanding William Henry Johnson), Kyle Fridlund (Jonathan Long), Christine Gillilan (Elizabeth Todd), Mark Haan (Ninian Edwards and William Seward), Lielle Kaidar (Sarah), Bobby Kelly (John Todd), Jacquelyn Levy, Maxwell Oliver (George Brooks and Salmon Chase), Luis Alex Rodriguez (Tom), Michael Reese Shald (James Matheny, Edwin Stanton, and Simon Cameron), Mario Tate, and Maddie Wurth acquit themselves ably in featured roles and as ensemble members harmonizing under Steven Applegate’s expert music direction.

Last but not least, child actors William Livengood and Maxwell Oliver are lively charmers as Tad and Willie Lincoln.

Other than an array of sumptuous Civil War-era costumes, credited on the show’s website though not in the printed program to Shon LeBlanc, and Jack Eaton’s generally effective lighting, The Lincolns Of Springfield is as bareboned a production as I’ve seen in an L.A. regional theater.

The Colony stage remains largely empty throughout the show save for the occasional piece of furniture, and Jonathan Alexandrew Cranert’s scene-setting color slides are all that amounts to a “scenic design.”

Kelly is associate producer for Premier Theatrical Productions, LLC. Noelle North is assistant choreographer and wardrobe assistant.

What Lin Manuel Miranda achieved with Hamilton, The Lincolns Of Springfield unfortunately does not. It’s far too old school a musical to make it anywhere near Broadway, though community theater audiences might eat it up, that is provided they can secure talents like Garrett Deagon and Samantha Craton to bring Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln to life, a feat more easily said than donel

Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, Burbank.
www.colonytheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
July 4, 2024
Photos: Hoogland Center for the Arts

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mary Todd Lincoln, Terrence L. Cranert, The Colony Theatre