HOW SOFT THE LINING
Presented by Bad Habit Productions. At Deane Hall, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, Nov. 5-20. Tickets: $21, 617-933-8600, www.bostontheatrescene.com
Afriendship between first lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress Elizabeth Keckley has fascinated playwright Kirsten Greenidge for more than a decade. Her play, “How Soft the Lining,’’ which is having its world premiere with Bad Habit Productions Nov. 5-20, explores that close relationship and the tell-all book that tore it apart.
“The play is based in historical fact,’’ says M. Bevin O’Gara, who is directing the production, “but then Kirsten has imagined the conversations between these two women. What’s fascinating is how little has changed in the way the media judges the first lady.’’
Lincoln was an educated and ambitious woman, but she was considered “a hick,’’ says O’Gara, by Washington, D.C., society standards.
“Her first night in the White House, she was described as ‘unpleasant looking,’ so it was important that she align herself with the dressmaker the Washington society saw as fashionable,’’ O’Gara says.
That woman was Keckley, a freed slave who had become an accomplished dressmaker and seamstress. The two women developed a close relationship, finding commonalities in their outsider status, and through the mutual loss of their sons, Lincoln’s to illness, and Keckley’s to the Civil War. The play opens after the assassination of President Lincoln but before Congress has agreed to provide his widow a pension. Mary (Bridgette Hayes) and Elizabeth (Elle Borders) are in New York with a plan to sell all the dresses Elizabeth has made for the first lady and to have Elizabeth write a book, which would become “Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.’’
“They thought that if the clothes didn’t sell, the book would, and one way or the other, they’d gain a little financial security,’’ says O’Gara. “But Elizabeth turned the book into a gossipy tell-all, revealing all the goings-on in the White House, and Mary disavowed her. The question the play explores is: What would motivate you to say unflattering things about your best friend?’’
Greenidge, an Obie Award-winning playwright (“Milk Like Sugar’’), has been commissioned by regional theaters around the country and has received acclaim for, among other works, “Luck of the Irish,’’ which premiered at the Huntington Theatre. She is in the midst of adapting the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Common Ground’’ for ArtsEmerson. O’Gara, an associate producer at the Huntington, directed “Milk Like Sugar’’ there. She’s also directed productions at New Repertory Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Company One, and Actors’ Shakespeare Project.
“I love the diversity of projects,’’ O’Gara says. “New plays should not just be happening at the Huntington. Working on a smaller stage and with a smaller budget demand ingenuity. And there’s a freedom in those restrictions.’’
While O’Gara and Greenidge may have a smaller canvas to work with, that doesn’t limit Greenidge’s vision or O’Gara’s creative approach. “How Soft the Lining’’ features 40 scenes and a myriad of projected images to create the impression of Keckley’s designs.
“The clothes brought these two women together,’’ says O’Gara. “But the play explores the friendship between these two outsiders. At the same time they shared some life experiences, this white first lady and this black seamstress were very different. I’m drawn to the flawed humanity of these women. That’s what makes their story universal.’’
An Iraq-US art connection
The “Boston-Basra Connections: An Iraq-U.S. Collaboration in Theater, Poetry, Art, and Music’’ culminates in a free performance and exhibit Nov. 4 at the Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. Events will include a video from Iraq called “Panorama Joy,’’ with music composed for the project by Qays Qwda Oasim, as well as workshop performances of two plays written for the project: “Brides Look Forward’’ by Johnny E. Meyer, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and “In the Reeds’’ by Amy Merrill, one of the project coordinators.
Admission is free, but space is limited and reservations are recommended. Go to www.fortpoint theatrechannel.org or www/nerve garden.com/Basra-Boston.
HOW SOFT THE LINING
Presented by Bad Habit Productions. At Deane Hall, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, Nov. 5-20. Tickets: $21, 617-933-8600, www.bostontheatrescene.com
Terry Byrne can be reached at trbyrne@aol.com.
