Mrs President
Charing Cross Theatre, London
 

HOW much control does anyone have over their own image? That’s the question posed by John Ransom-Phillips in his new two-handed play featuring Miriam Grace Edwards as Mary, wife of president Abraham Lincoln, and Sam Jenkins-Shaw as Mathew Brady, a famous photographer she’s commissioned to capture her for posterity.
 
The answer to the question seems to be “not much” – and even less if you’re a 19th-century American woman who’s effectively considered to be her husband’s property.
 
Over several sittings with his subject, Brady is oblivious to Mary’s special pleadings, determined to represent her in the way he wishes. Mary, fighting back, tries to have herself framed in the fashion she’d prefer.
 
As the tense series of encounters develop, the relationship between the two becomes less guarded and more fractious, while an element of unreality also creeps in.
 
On occasions Brady morphs into other male figures with things to say about a woman’s place in society. When the two of them are out of the room we see the (male) camera talking to the (female) chair in a similar, if rather more measured, way.
 
Mary’s search for a compassionate portrait of herself is partly driven by the fact that she’s unpopular with the American public who dislike her privileged origins, her mental instability and her liberal spending in the White House.
 
But she’s also had a difficult life, and wants to make pictorial sense of her suffering. Her mother died when she was six, she lost three children before their time and, of course, her husband has been assassinated.
 
It’s in that light that Ransom-Phillips presents a generally sympathetic portrayal of Mary as a fragile, grieving woman attempting to find a place for herself in a hostile world. Historians may argue about the realism of that stance, but there’s no harm in attempting a reappraisal, and it certainly makes for an interesting stage experience.
 
As much of a painter as a writer, Ransom-Phillips is well qualified to consider how images define who we are. The dialogue he produces is often intriguing and eloquent, augmented in interesting ways by the use of video and tape recording.
 
Grace Edwards gives Mary a depth of humanity that stands in stark counterpoint to Ransom-Phillips’s interpretation of Brady as an unfeeling, bombastic man, unable to connect with his subject because his ego and prejudices interfere.

At 75 minutes with no interval, it’s a brief encounter between the audience and two rather strange figures, but one that’s thought-provoking and entertaining.
 
Runs until March 16. Box office: 020 7930 5868, charingcrosstheatre.co.uk