History has not been kind to Mary Todd Lincoln. Wife to one of America’s most mythologised presidents, she outlived Abraham Lincoln by nearly two decades, having already endured the deaths of three of her four children, public vilification, financial ruin and eventual institutionalisation, signed off by her own son, no less. She became, conveniently, the ‘mad widow’: a cautionary footnote to a Great Man’s story, recently introduced to a new generation after her absurdist depiction in Broadway smash Oh, Mary!. So, really, it’s no wonder that she’s keen to rewrite her story.
And rewrite it she tries. John Ramson Phillips’s Mrs President, first staged in 2025 and revived after further dramaturgical development, returns to Charing Cross Theatre with a different cast, the same writer, and director (Bronagh Lagan) and, unfortunately, the same issues.
In this version, Keala Settle (The Greatest Showman) takes on the role of Mary, entering swathed in a floral pink frock, a nod to the real Mary’s iconic outfits, standing out against a swampy green set (Anna Kelsey). She’s working with famed Civil War photographer, or ‘the father of photojournalism’ as he was known, Mathew Brady (Hal Fowler), who is determined to capture the ‘real’ her - or at least the version of her he imagines to be real.
At first, she embraces the process, declaring that she needs ‘a new image that will change people’s perception of me’. But Brady’s pursuit of artistic immortality soon curdles, as he hovers behind her like a mad scientist, coaxing and extracting trauma for the sake of a shot. Mary’s memories surface in fractured flashbacks: the night at Ford’s Theatre, the children she buried, while Fowler metamorphoses into taunting figures around her. Birds appear alongside climbing, gothic projections, and piano interludes (Eamonn O’Dwyer). It’s disorientating and bit depressing.
With little levity, the play remains saturated in grief, almost forgivable, given that Settle is dazzling when anguished. Still, it’s a shame considering the real-life complexity of Mary: a brilliant, yet understandably traumatised, woman. Fowler, by contrast, often thins into a ghostly background character, despite the play being a two-hander.
More problematically, the play repeatedly revisits its central ideas - authorship, image-making, the historical silencing of women - at the expense of character development and narrative momentum. Big declarations about legacy and reclamation feel overworked and, ultimately, a little boring. Again, it’s a shame, because the questions Mrs President raises are important ones with genuine contemporary resonance: Britney Spears’ conservatorship only ended in 2021, and the media can still be just as cruel and illusory. The play captures this occasionally, but not consistently enough to fully compel its audience.
