Impulsive, imperious, and foolish in money matters, Mary Todd Lincoln was beset by a series of unhappy events in the years following her husband’s tragic assassination. Disturbed by still persistent rumors that she, as a Southerner, had hampered the Union cause, frustrated in her attempts to obtain a pension from Congress, and deeply grieved by the untimely death of her beloved son Tad, she was for a brief time committed to a mental institution by her sole surviving son, Robert. But as the play so eloquently makes clear, Mary Lincoln was also a woman of great courage and compassion, who grew in stature as she came to accept the vicissitudes of her life—and her ultimate reconciliation with her remaining son is a moment of deep emotion and human understanding.
