If Only

I make no pretense to objectivity with regard to Tom Klingenstein's new play "If Only," which is premiering at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. I know the author and consider him a friend.

But if I am not without bias, I can with confidence say that the play and the production deserve more attention than they have so far received. Prior comment on the play has focused upon its female lead, Melissa Gilbert, the sometime teen star best remembered for her role in the long-running television series "Little House On The Prairie."

Gilbert is cast here in another story that dates to the time before central heating, and with the maturity of an woman in her fifties she is even better than she was in her days as a staple subject in the gossip magazines -- although even then she was a wonderfully natural if presumably largely untrained performer.

The play's subject and story are novel ones. The tale concerns an eccentric white woman, Ann Astorcott, (Gilbert) and a black man named Samuel Johnson (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) who became friends during the Civil War. We eventually learn that they had been introduced to one another by an unseen figure: none other than Abraham Lincoln.

The African-American had served in the Union Army. Injured, he wound up in a military hospital in Washington where Astorcott was a volunteer nurse. There Lincoln encountered him, recognizing him as a former White House porter. Concerned with his welfare, Lincoln had asked the nurse to give him special care.

Klingenstein's story is set on a single evening more than three decades later. Johnson, we learn, has moved to Chicago and become a bachelor school teacher while Astorcott has married but not had children. A chance encounter at a memorial service inspires the two to meet again, and we gradually realize that they have had a romantic yearning for one another. But, as one might expect given the time period, they did not think that this attraction was practicable.

Looming behind this is their mutual interest and admiration for Lincoln. His legacy becomes a subject of conversation as the pair warily consider the question of whether their love might have been and whether better race relations in the country would have been possible had Lincoln not been assassinated. Important as these discussions are, they might arguably have been trimmed some.

What distinguishes the play, however, is Klingenstein's considerable gift for characterization and his facility at capturing the elegant and formal patterns of turn-of-the-century speech. From these he constructs a story of surprising and very real poignancy. He is aided in that by director Christopher McElroen's fine staging.

Gilbert is superb as Astorcott, a neurotic but goodhearted woman who is a product of her place and time but also somewhat apart from it. She is well-matched by Smaltz's solid yet delicate performance. Special notice should also go to lighting designer Becca Jeffords, whose controlled work brings a subtly to this intimate and affecting drama.

"If Only" is playing through September 17 at the Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street. For tickets or information, call 866-811-4111 or go to https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/33005/1501560000000 or .