![\"Lincoln\u2019s](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/felder-web-185x300.jpg\" "\\"felder")
Having heard Lincoln deliver an address the previous week, the young surgeon went to Ford\u2019s Theatre hoping to study the president\u2019s face at closer range. He observed it at very close range as he attended the fatally shot Lincoln through the night. Shot in the back of his head, Lincoln succumbed early the following morning.<\/p>\n
Instead of backing himself on the piano, Felder employs an excellent ten-piece orchestra conducted by concertmaster Healy Henderson. Stephen Foster songs, such as \u201cBeautiful Dreamer,\u201d \u201cJeanie [sic] with the Light Brown Hair,\u201d and \u201cMy Old Kentucky Home,\u201d feature prominently in Felder\u2019s score, expressing Leale\u2019s feelings for the grieving Mary Todd and the mortally wounded president. Felder is responsible for the affecting orchestrations.<\/p>\n
Though the one-man show lasts only 90 minutes, the audience receives knowledge or reminders of many little known facts and hears the words of a \u201ccrazy\u201d volunteer that visits the Union Civil War wounded in the U.S. Army General Hospital in Armory Square. The oddball man holes himself up in corners and scribbles furiously. Of course it is Walt Whitman, penning his beloved poem \u201cThe Wound Dresser.\u201d Comparisons might be made between Whitman and Leale, each comforting the wounded, in Whitman\u2019s case everyman, and in Leale\u2019s, the first U.S. president to be assassinated. <\/p>\n
Felder also creates comparison between the two assassination plots, one in Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cJulius Caesar\u201d and Booth\u2019s co-conspirators, who planned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson as well, in hopes of bringing down Lincoln\u2019s administration and bringing chaos in the North so that the South could rise again.
\nLeale\u2019s 21-page report on which \u201cAn American Story\u201d is based was filed away and forgotten for nearly 150 years and only rediscovered in 2012 at the National Archives. <\/p>\n
Felder is also author and performer of the popular one-man shows \u201cGeorge Gershwin Alone,\u201d \u201cMonsieur Chopin,\u201d \u201cBeethoven as I Knew Him,\u201d and \u201cMaestro: Leonard Bernstein.\u201d He is a highly entertaining storyteller and at heart, a teacher. This viewer\/listener does not grieve banishment of Felder\u2019s piano from \u201cAn American Story.\u201d If the entertainer would work on vocal contrast, ameliorate the nasal qualities of his forte, and refine his diphthongs, his efforts might fall more agreeably on critical ears. His pianissimo singing throughout is quite lovely.<\/p>\n
An earlier, differently titled and differently focused version of this piece played last year at Pasadena Playhouse, directed by Joel Zwick, who is credited on the title page here with original direction. Also credit David Buess\/Trevor Hay\u2019s scenic design; Christopher Rynne\u2019s lighting; Erik Carstensen\u2019s sound; and Abigail Caywood\u2019s costumes; and most of all by Greg Sowizdrzal and Andrew Wilder\u2019s projection design.<\/p>\n
Playing through February 3 at the Birch North Park Theatre, Felder\u2019s \u201cAn American Story for actor and orchestra,\u201d based on texts by Leale and Lincoln and the music and poetry of Stephen Foster, John Howard Payne, Henry Bishop and Walt Whitman, presents a slice of history, cleanly directed here by Hay. The show continues at 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays at the Birch North Park Theatre, 2891 University Avenue, through February 3, $58, birchnorthparktheatre.net<\/a> or (619) 239-8836.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The iconic president\u2019s attending doctor is portrayed in a one-man show By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theatre Critic Even though Dr. Charles Augustus Leale was only 23 years old, Mary Todd Lincoln trusted the young surgeon, who was the first physician to reach dying president Abraham Lincoln after he was shot by actor John Wilkes […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Lincoln\u2019s final hours","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}