With the Possible Exception of Abraham Lincoln, a perplexing and dramatically inert two-hander, opens during U.S. election night 2020. A fretting, anxious Trump (Mark Coleman) worries whether he’s about to lose, and so, naturally, he’s happy to talk to the stranger in the room, the Illinois lawyer (Jason Nemor Harden), who may or may not be the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
Coleman is recognisable as Trump by the sweep of his blond hair and his baggy suit (though not, curiously, a red tie). His vocal impression is only fitfully accurate: he generally has the clipped diction, but the accent slides around, sometimes gratingly far off the mark, and at other times into a mumbling lack of clarity. The Trumpian body language and mannerisms are absent. It’s a reticent, deflated performance, and drains energy from the piece from the start.
Harden, in contrast, has a magnetic presence and silken basso profundo speaking voice. It seems at first that he might resuscitate the flaccid script, as his is a voice one could enjoy hearing read the phone directory. Alas, even he cannot make the material theatrical. All that happens is one is left to contemplate how comparatively engaging the phone directory might, in fact, be next to the long and detailed, but largely pointless, passages about basketball, wrestling, and constitutional law.
I initially assumed the production was using race-blind casting, but when the Illinois lawyer becomes the explicit object of Trump’s racism, this is revealed not to be the case. The question of why the ghost of Abraham Lincoln would be black is the least of this show’s problems, however.
Those are legion, with perhaps the most pressing being: what exactly is this piece trying to do? It’s clear that the script, written by David Chocron, intends to lampoon Trump, but it’s less certain whether it’s trying to be humorous. In any event, it’s neither deadpan satire nor at all amusing. This is especially vexing, because making fun of Trump ought to be several orders of magnitude easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
When we’re not getting in-depth sports discourses, mostly what we’re watching is Trump’s imagined thought process as he comes up with the “stop the steal” strategy for the January 6th vote certification. It’s not psychologically insightful. It’s not tense; the outcome is already known and never in doubt. The point seems to be that politics are as fake as pro wrestling and that the private thoughts of politicians and their public opinions are rarely in lockstep. I’m just not convinced that’s going to be revelatory for most people.
The wrestling gambit paves the way for a brief round of actual wrestling, which is preceded by a fourth-wall-breaking swerve into doggerel. I’m not able to tell you why. (I don’t mean I’m withholding spoilers; I’m genuinely stumped.) A Hamilton shout-out? Maybe? After this, Trump suddenly gains the ability to engage in deep self-reflection, as one obviously does after being vanquished in wrestling by a ghost, and then does an abrupt private volte-face, only to publicly double down on his claims about the stolen vote.
With the Possible Exception of Abraham Lincoln is a bewildering, airless misfire from start to finish. Especially given the number of high-quality Fringe shows in the 2026 lineup, it cannot be recommended.
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