Abe on stage, and curmudgeons

I had the privilege last week (in between bouts of the flu with my students, my kids, and myself, which explains the light blog posting) of attending the Indianapolis Repertory Theater's production of The Heavens are Hung in Black, a play about Abraham Lincoln during the tumultuous year of 1862, when emancipation, the war and in many ways Lincoln's very soul hung in the balance. Afterwards, I sat on a discussion panel with the audience, along with playwright James Still and my friend Bill Bartlelt, author of this excellent book on Lincoln's Indiana years,

I am not often able to attend live theater, so merely the act of doing so was a real treat. I love movies, but there is something just a bit more special about a truly top-notch, live stage production. I'm not sure exactly why. Perhaps the immediacy of the experience, with actual, live actors performing with really no safety net of editing or delayed broadcasts. I actually kind of like the moments in which actors trip just a bit over their lines--it makes the whole experience seem a bit more real.

I enjoyed myself at the IRT; The Heavens are Hung in Black was a wonderful play. It was commissioned for the grand re-opening of Ford's theater earlier this year, premiering on Lincoln's birthday, with President Obama in attendance. I understand the production here in Indy was a bit different, changed from a three-act to a two-act production, but the story was largely the same. The dramatic force of the story is Lincoln's wrestling with the twin issues of emancipation, and the war's terrible death toll, as the casualties steadily mount and the president must confront the meaning of their sacrifice. Still combined recreations of actual events--Lincoln's meeting with members of his cabinet to discuss emancipation, for example--and dream sequences, during which Lincoln argues with the ghosts of John Brown, Stephen Douglas, Dred Scott and others. He also did a fine job portraying the complexities of the Lincoln marriage, and the president's relationships with his sons and his private secretary, John Hay. Even Ward Hill Lamon (one of the more colorful characters from Lincoln's days practicing law on the circuit) makes an appearance.

The play was an impressive work of art, helped along not only by the skill of the playwright, but also the excellent production work of the IRT staff, and some very fine acting by all concerned (Nicholas Hormann in particular did a fine job with Lincoln, delicately balancing the man's sense of humor and tragedy). The segments addressing the Lincoln marriage quite well done, showing Mary's frailty and eccentricities in a sympathetic manner, and highlighting Lincoln's mixture of bemusement, frustration and love for his wife.

So it was a fine performance all the way around. And yet, I must admit, it was sometimes difficult to watch, as all such mixtures of art and history are for me, and no doubt other members of my profession. Historians are, quite frankly, highly trained and sensitive curmudgeons. We instinctively nitpick details, deconstruct fallacies, and (often condescendingly) offer our judgment concerning the ways in which a given work of history-based art (be it a play, a film, or whatever) "gets it right" or not--and let's face it, we usually fall on the side of the "not."

I'm not altogether sure how we get this way. I suspect it has something to do with our training, especially in graduate school. Entering the realm of academic history is rather like seeking admittance to a guild. The established members of that guild, history professors, have a certain set of techniques used to separate the contenders from the pretenders. To do so, the history guild wields "critical thinking."

In the best circumstances and with the best professors, "critical thinking" is a valuable, potent mix of criticism, analysis and deep understanding of a given historian's ideas or works. For most of my own graduate school career, I was fortunate to get the very best sort of education in deep, critical understanding of historical scholarship. But occasionally I ran across another sort: professors who believed that "critical thinking" meant a cynical, unforgiving deconstruction of each and every detail of a given historians' argument, a given work of history or (especially) manifestations of history in popular culture, which usually rated nothing more than a sneer.

I remember one such professor I had the misfortune of encountering while at Rice. He expected a relentless, uncompromising, negative critique of each book he assigned (a fairly perverse philosophy, when you stop to think about it) from each grad student in class. Wo betide anyone who tried to defend the author's thesis, or worse, put forth a thesis of one's own. Heck, wo betide anyone who suggested that American history generally was anything other than a depressing collection of lies, hypocrisy, and darkness.

He once baited the class by asking, "can anyone suggest anything positive that might have arisen from the development of American capitalism during the early decades of the 20th century?" Everyone else in class was smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but (being a totally naive dope) I ventured to observe that the American capitalist system did lay the groundwork for America's victory during the Second World War. He literally came halfway out of his chair, shouting, "Oh yeah, capitalism allowed us to become very efficient babykillers and murderers!" After that, I learned to shut up; if you don't have something nasty to say, don't say it at all.

This guy was the worst professor I ever had--really, the worst teacher I ever had. He created an atmosphere of unrelenting negativity, misery and cynicism, under the guise of "critical thinking." I swore if I ever got my own class room, I'd never do that, and I'd like to think I never have.

Still, the seeds of curmudgeonliness (is that a word?) were planted, in this and other, less drastic experiences during grad school. So when I encounter something like The Heavens are Hung in Black, I can't help but have that little voice go off inside my head: "Lincoln and Davis never actually met, you know (the play suggested otherwise)"; "Lincoln never really had a cabinet meeting like that"; "he surely never talked to ghosts," etc.

Fortunately, such "voices" didn't ruin the experience. The play is a work of art, and thank God for artists like playwright James Still, who both did his homework (the play is actually very accurate) and knew when to depart from the sometimes staid rules of "accurate history" to give us a Lincoln that transcended the mere recitation of facts. And I'm glad for my own professors, most of whom were excellent teachers--they helped me still those negative voices in my head, and enjoy myself at the theater.