Daniel Day-Lewis won an Academy Award for his indelible portrayal of America's 16th president in "Lincoln."
On stage in the Twin Cities, actor Steve Hendrickson is keeping company with the multiple-Oscar winner.
Hendrickson delivers a sterling performance as Lincoln in "Abe Lincoln and Uncle Tom in the White House," Carlyle Brown's meaty and ingenious one-act that premiered Saturday at the Guthrie Theater.
Hendrickson has the president's visage, gestures and deliberative mien down pat. He also has the dry wit. The actor is not as tall as his the man he plays, but his high-waisted pants (Clare Brauch designed the period costumes) tricks the eye into giving him more height.
In his portrayal of Lincoln, Hendrickson is at once measured and stately. He also gives us Lincoln's repressed torment and his emotional detachment from Mary Todd Lincoln (Jodi Kellogg), who has been grieving their dead son.
The drama opens with crashing thunder and blood-red lightning bathing the White House (C. Andrew Mayer did the sound design, while Mike Wangen did the lights). In the midst of this storm, we hear a ghostly boy's voice saying "Father?" It is the ghost of Lincoln's son.
When the tempest subsides, lights come up on the president, eyes closed, sprawled on a sofa, one foot on the floor and one hand covering his heart, as if taking an oath. He has reasons to be weary. It is Sept. 22, 1862, just five days after the terrible loss of life at the Battle of Antietam. Lincoln is considering signing the Emancipation Proclamation, something that will free slaves in the South even as it may inflame and prolong the Civil War.
Suddenly, the doors to Lincoln's office swing open. In steps Uncle Tom, the fictional title character from Harriet Beecher Stowe's famed anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life among the Lowly." Uncle Tom has come to influence President Lincoln. What follows is a crafty conversation, based on an absurd setup, on freedom and slavery, on war and faith.
