Prezzing Out

Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party—which opened Aug. 11 at Theatre Row—is more of a campy Choose Your Own Adventure than anything historical, but I still walked away from the show with a greater affinity for our big, fancy 16th president than I had ever felt before.

Set in Lincoln’s backwater Illinois hometown, playwright Aaron Loeb’s show follows a chain of events set into play by a grade-school teacher who slips lines into her students’ Christmas pageant about Honest Abe’s love for his special friend Joshua Speed. When the hillbilly parents of the students freak, the teacher, Harmony Green (a deliciously mousy Pippa Pearthree) is put on trial. The rest of the show, told in three acts (the order of which is chosen via audience participation), focuses on the behind-the-scenes antics of the gun-loving district attorney (Robert Hogan), the state senator who comes to Green’s defense (Stephanie Pope Caffey) and a vengeful New York Times reporter with a heart of gold (Arnie Burton).

As the characters each present their side of the antics behind the trial—very little time is actually spent in the courtroom—we learn about the people of Menard County, Ill., and how they’re often being discriminated against in a way that their hero Lincoln would have been against. Whether it’s the DA’s gay son (Ben Roberts) ending a bad date with a broken arm or Caffey’s African-American politician being kept down by the white-boy GOP machine, the point that’s hammered home—despite the hammy dancing that should have been worked out since the show was a hit at last year’s Fringe Festival—is that the rumpus over Lincoln’s was-he-or-wasn’t-he gayness is about our own issues, not the dead President’s.

Not that the show ever gets too heavy. Some gags fall flat and it cannot be said enough that the dance scenes, featuring a whole gang of Lincolns kicking up its heels, need to be aggressively trimmed; still the show is a success. Most of the jokes are funny—some laugh-out-loud—and director Chris Smith keeps the offbeat charm of the entire situation strong enough to make any shortcomings forgivable.

Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party

Through Sept. 5, Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 212-714-2442; $50 .