Performing Arts

FORT WORTH – Would American politics be more wholesome if somehow Abraham Lincoln reappeared in Washington, D.C.?

Rose Pearson

From left: Amanda Doskocil, Jonathan Fielding and Jack O'Donnell offer a look at politics in Washington, D.C., in Circle Theatre's production of Lincolnesque.

That's the question John Strand's Lincolnesque poses, though it muddies the issue by channeling the 16th president through a genius political operative who has had a psychotic breakdown.

Circle Theatre's production, reviewed Saturday, is only the third the script has had since its San Diego premiere. Come to think of it, Lincolnesque gives us the fifth chief executive on the Fort Worth company's stage in less than a year, after its revival of The Dead Presidents Club last season.

In the current show, we first see Francis (Jack O'Donnell) reciting an actual Lincoln address in front of a projection of the monument dedicated to the great man. Francis' brother Leo (Jonathan Fielding) rushes in to whisk away the increasingly agitated Francis before he's arrested again for disturbing the peace.

Leo has followed in Francis' footsteps by becoming a congressional speechwriter – if without the reputation for savvy and ruthlessness his brother enjoyed before he went over the edge. Because the politician Leo works for is way down in the polls, a new chief of staff, Carla (Amanda Doskocil), is trying desperate measures.

Although Francis isn't supposed to think about politics for fear of a relapse, he advises Leo to write more uplifting speeches – and even offers some of Lincoln's own phrases brought up to date to help the cause.

Michael Muller plays two very different pals Francis meets: a homeless man Francis believes to be Lincoln's secretary of war and a powerful attorney intrigued that someone of Francis' intellect works a menial job.

Mr. O'Donnell looks like a dashing leading man rather than the homely Lincoln, and Mr. Fielding seems awfully young for his role. But both project a kind of innocence that helps the premise work. Director Jaime Castaneda, the founder of FireStarter Productions making his Circle debut, skillfully guides all four actors into performances that involve the audience's emotions into what might have seemed too much a play of ideas.

Mr. Strand gets us all fantasizing about what it would be like if a bit of Honest Abe's eloquence, moral sense and nobility of spirit grappled with the current American political scene. But ultimately he's telling a fascinating story, one that works itself out in surprising, and sometimes chilling, ways.

•Through April 14 at Circle Theatre, 230 W. Fourth St., Fort Worth. Runs 120 mins. $18 to $28. 817-877-3040, www.circletheatre.com.