Photo by Carol Rosegg

The holiday season is often a time of reflection, but Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of How I Learned to Drive, has squinted back a bit further in time than most. Vogel’s new work, A Civil War Christmas, currently staged in a resourceful and intermittently affecting New York Theater Workshop production by director Tina Landau, trains its eye nearly 150 years back on the final Christmas Eve seminal president Abraham Lincoln would ever see. It’s an over-long pop-up history lesson that absolutely has its heart in the right place but misjudges just when it comes time to take a bow.

Not exactly a musical yet not quite sturdy enough to qualify as a solid dramatic work, Christmas occurs on Christmas Eve, 1864. It is also the eve of emancipation and the end of the Civil War, though both remain a few weeks away from seeing the light of day. So, too, does Jessa (Sumaya Bouhbal) long to see daybreak. The young girl has been separated from her mother, Hannah (Amber Iman), an escaped slave on a sojourn to the White House. Meanwhile, Lincoln himself (a terrific Bob Stillman, hitting grace notes full of wry humor and humility) has managed to evade his bodyguards – despite an existing threat on his life – to grab the Christmas gifts he has left behind. Saddled with a sudden, rare sense of freedom in his solitude, he embarks on his own quest of self-discovery once he finds Jessa and makes it his mission to reunite her with Hannah.

While he is on his own, Lincoln isn’t alone in such a voyage. Vogel’s grand canvas also includes room for characters both historical and historically based. For instance, Landau’s nimble ensemble, bouncing around in multiple roles, essays real people like Ulysses S. Grant (Chris Henry) and Robert E. Lee (Sean Allan Krill, who also plays John Wilkes Booth), who each prove to be flawed, compromised leaders. One of the characters played by Alice Ripley (who even plays the very male Lewis Payne) is Mary Todd Lincoln, whose association with freed slave and seamstress Elizabeth Keckley (Karen Kandel) elevated the latter to great heights in the nation’s capital. But they also portray composite characters like Decatur Bronson (K. Todd Freeman), who has abandoned his service in charge of a regiment of black soldiers to work as a Union blacksmith at a Union Army supply depot. He has vowed vengeance on any Confederate soldiers he might encounter in return for the rebel kidnapping of his wife.

Unlike Keckley, however, Vogel hasn’t quite stitched together as seamless a work. The multiple threads she tries to interweave in Christmas sometimes clash. An encounter between a dying Jewish soldier (Jonathan-David) and poet Walt Whitman (Krill yet again) feels forced and haughty, and undercuts any growing affection characters like Bronson, Keckley, and Abraham Lincoln have earned. The playwright also forgets that less is more. She sometimes gets too mired in  details when Landau’s cast can actually fill in a lot of emotional resonance on their own (I’m thinking of some of the rather superficial scenes involving Mary Todd.) Landau does succeed in purveying handsomely evocative stagecraft; Scott Zielinski’s standout lighting design, Tony Leslie-James’ costumes, and James Schuette’s minimalist wood set all serve as a reminder of the everyday hardships with which even the most distinguished of 1860s America had to contend.

Vogel’s intentions are honorable. She wants to portray that people on both sides of the bloody battle were indeed people and had more in common as humans than they were divided by ideology. But the work, at two and a half hours, lumbers on longer than it should. When does Landau’s piece come together? In the Christmas’ musical numbers, a combination of holiday hymns, battle cries and spirituals, quite lovingly directed by Andrew Resnick. Only then does the large cast literally achieve a sense of harmony. One wishes that this feeling didn’t have to be interrupted so often. Then again, there’s a lesson in that as well.

A Civil War Christmas

New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street. Through Dec. 30. http://www.nytw.org/a_civil_war_christmas_lp.asp

Compiled by Alexandra Waldhorn

Friday, May 28

Journey to Brazil—Grammy-award-winning composer and guitarist Mario Adnet and his ensemble, Ouro Negro, perform in “Journey to Brazil.” The show is in honor of Brazilian composer Moacir Santos, who influenced generations of musicians worldwide. The group performs a selection of Santos’ work and pieces from Adnet’s record, Ouro Negro. Also May 29. Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway at West 60th Street, 212-721-6500; 8 p.m., $10 to $95.

More Samba Sounds—Claudio Roditi performs music from his new Grammy-nominated CD, Simpatico, in a show that doubles as a birthday celebration for the Brazilian trumpeter. The all-star lineup includes pianist Nick Rolfe, bassist John Lee and drummer Vincent Ector. Roditi’s music meshes Brazilian samba and bossa nova with straight-ahead jazz from the times of bebop to the 1960s. Kitano New York, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119; 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $25.

Saturday, May 29

Civil War Footsteps—Learn about the history of the Civil War in New York on a walking tour rich with first-person accounts. The agenda covers the draft riots, Gramercy Park and personalities such as George Templeton Strong and Edwin Booth. Through July 10. Meet outside the Church of Transfiguration, 1 E. 29th St., 646-573-9509; 11 a.m., $15 to $20.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Drama—The York Shakespeare Company presents a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical drama about a family addicted to drugs, alcohol and hurting one another. The play is set in 1912. Through June 12. The Lion Theater, 410 W. 42nd St., 212-279-4200; 8 p.m., $18.

Sunday, May 30

American Classics—Paula West sings classics from the Great American Songbook with the George Mesterhazy Quartet. Joe Brown from the San Francisco Chronicle raved about West’s “red wine voice—a deep, mellow Cabernet voice.” Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., $25 to $30.

Monday, May 31

Honor the Vets—Join New York City’s largest Memorial Day observance with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other honored guests. The U.S. Navy band plays at 10 a.m. before the Grand Procession, led by the New York Scottish Pipes and Drums and sailors and marines from the visiting fleet. Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park at West 89th Street, 212-580-0745; 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Free.

Tuesday, June 1

Outdoor Performance—The new season of Tudor City Greens continues with an outdoor evening concert, “Stars and Songs of Broadway,” featuring performers from Broadway and the New York City cabaret scene. Raissa Katona Bennett, Tudor City resident and Broadway and cabaret performer (Phantom of the Opera, Chess), hosts the event. Select Tuesdays through October. South Park of Tudor City Greens Park at Tudor City Place between East 41st and 42nd streets, between First and Second avenues, 718-791-5739, www.tudorcitygreens.org; 6 p.m., Free.

Wednesday, June 2

Summer Showcase—Parsons Dance presents two short evenings as part of the company’s 10th annual “Summer Intensive Workshop” for professional and pre-professional dancers. In collaboration with Marymount Manhattan College and Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, excerpts from six productions—Wolfgang (2005), Hand Dance (2003), Caught (1981), Swing Shift (2003) and Ebben, from the dance/rock opera Remember Me (2009)—coalesce for a special show. Also June 3. Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, 248 W. 60th St., 212-869-9395; 7 p.m., $18 to $25.

Thursday, June 3

Classical—Guest conductor Guerguan Tsenov makes his first appearance with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra this season. Tsenov presents the orchestra’s first performance of the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Suite #2, with violinist Georgy Valtchev as featured soloist in the Brahms Violin Concerto in D. Peter Norton Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 2537 Broadway, 212-864-5400; 8 p.m., $10 to $18.

Moving Drama—New York Classical Theater kicks off its signature theater on-the-run with Richard III, a story about the impact of dictators on millions of people’s lives. Start out in Central Park and chase this Shakespeare remake as the actors move the show and audience every 15 minutes to a new park location. Through June 28. Starts inside of Central Park near West 103rd Street and Central Park West, 212-252-4531; 7 p.m., Free.

Steal from the Rich—The new off-Broadway musical Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer portrays a character often described as the Jewish Robin Hood. A take on the classic Yiddish play by Moyshe Gershenson, the musical comedy is directed, adapted and choreographed by the Tony Award-nominated director and actress Eleanor Reissa. Through June 27. The Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Ave., 646-312-5073; 7 p.m., $55.