Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert Sherwood (1939)

Summary:  This play chronicles 30 early years in the life of Abraham Lincoln.  The opening scene depicts him being tutored (around high school age) and the final scene is his farewell to Illinois immediately before leaving for Washington, D.C.

Thoughts:  This play was a little dull, but raised a number of historical "did that actually happen?" questions for me.  Lincoln's humanity is most vividly depicted early in the play when he reveals his romantic feelings to a girl named Ann...who dies a few pages later.  He later convinces himself that marrying ambitious Mary Todd is the right decision, though feelings of romance toward her are never illuminated.  Clearly, Lincoln's oratorical skills warranted exploration which results in this play having a number of long sweeping monologues, most about labor and abolition.  This is another play whose audience enjoyment would depend almost entirely on the strength of the lead actor.

The Gassner/Barnes introduction revealed a number of interesting facts about Robert Sherwood.  As a teenager, he attended Milton Academy and then Harvard, where he "survived the threat of three expulsions for youthful capers and became an active member of the Hasty Pudding Club."  Additionally, Sherwood is responsible for writing The Best Years of Our Lives which happens to be one of my most cherished movies.  Near the end of the short biography, Gassner/Barnes remark, "The rest of his career, which included conspicuous assistance to to President Roosevelt and the invaluable service in the O.W.I. belongs to political history" (306).  An interesting followup to Archibald MacLeish, it seems.

"Ran into Stephen Douglas--and we had some argument in public..."

A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee (1967)

Summary:  Agnes and Tobias are a married couple living in the comfort of the suburbs, clearly affluent enough to never discuss working outside of the home or any sort of financial strain.  Instead, they spend much of their time finding creative and emotionally destructive ways to fight with each other, often surrounding the topic of Claire—a seemingly permanent houseguest (and the alcoholic younger sister of Agnes).  There is news that their 30(ish) year-old daughter Julia is expected back home, fresh off her fourth failed marriage.  In a dramatic break from the routine, Edna and Harry arrive at the end of Act 1.  They are, apparently, Agnes and Tobias’s closest friends.  More interestingly, they are suddenly terrified of being alone in their house, for reasons unspecified throughout the play.

Thoughts:  So many of the plays I have read thus far have been about the way that couples fight with each other, but there is nothing reminiscent of polite veneer (Dinner with Friends, Rabbit Hole, The Subject was Roses) in this play.  Agnes and Tobias know how to hurt each other, and their fighting is reminiscent of another more famous Albee couple—George and Martha (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)  They fight about Claire, they fight about Julia, they fight about Edna and Harry…they fight, seemingly, because they love to fight and excel at it.

The dialogue in this play is interesting enough to make it remarkable, but the play comes to an absolute stunning halt at the end of Act 1 when Edna exclaims, “WE WERE FRIGHTENED….AND THERE WAS NOTHING” (47).  Tobias, Agnes and Claire attempt to figure out what is going on…and the last line of Act 1, only two pages later is Claire’s response, “Don’t you know yet?  (small chuckle)  You will.”  We never know definitively what this fear is—the hints are towards nuclear war, but no one ever says outright.  Eventually, the play ends with a long monologue by Tobias concerning the nature of friendship, love and responsibility.