Theatergoers aren’t allowed to take photographs of performances at Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theatre, but director Vincent Dowling is certain they’ll want to bring their cameras along this week anyway.

After seeing “The Rivalry” — Norman Corwin’s play about the famed 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas — audiences all over have been pulling out cameras to snap a few photos with the actors after the curtain.

After all, how often do you get to take a photo with Lincoln?

“The Rivalry” comes to the Emelin at 8 p.m. Friday and at 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday.

Dowling & Co. have been touring Corwin’s play for a year now, a year that marks the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth.

The three-person cast includes Christian Kauffmann as Abraham Lincoln, Peter Cormican as “The Little Giant” Stephen Douglas and Mary Linda Rapelye as Douglas’ wife, Adele, who narrates the two-act performance.

“Every word in it is taken from something written at the time,” Dowling says. “There’s no invention of language.”

“They would speak for three hours at a time during the debates,” Dowling says, adding that Corwin, who is now 99 years old “edited brilliantly. I think we do six debates in two hours.”

The debates were far-reaching, touching on the topics of the day, and went a long way to developing Lincoln into a national figure and, three years later, the president.

Corwin’s genius, Dowling says, is his ability to make the debates theatrical within the confines of the language, drawing on the humor and the relationship the two men had. In the end, he says, the character of Douglas is redeemed as a worthy adversary, not a villain.

When he first read the script, during the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Dowling says he saw strong contemporary parallels for the story.

Dowling, a Dubliner who came to America decades ago from a lifetime position in the National Theater of Ireland, says “The Rivalry” reminds him of the America that drew him here.

“I want every young person to see this, I want every American to see this, those who love America and those who might have fallen out of love with America these last eight years,” he says.

Dowling says he resisted the notion of casting famous actors in the roles, particularly of Lincoln, because he wanted audiences to accept the actor playing him immediately, without seeing a celebrity and thinking “Wow! He’s really good at playing Lincoln,” he says.

With Kauffmann, there’s no disconnect, no transition into accepting him as the future president.

Dowling wanted look-alikes, people immediately believable in the roles.

“You really get the feeling that for two hours you’re living with Lincoln and Douglas,” he says. “And that’s why wherever we go, people want to get photographs with each of the actors.”

Kauffmann, the director says, “brings Lincoln’s person — his physique, philosophy and attitude — right on stage with him.”

“I wouldn’t exchange them for anything except the originals,” says director Dowling.

The Vincent Dowling Theatre Company presents Norman Corwin’s “The Rivalry,” at the Emelin Theatre, 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck. $40. Group discounts. 914-698-0098. www.emelin.org.

Photo by Peter Williams: The cast of “The Rivalry,” this week at the Emelin Theatre, is, from left: Peter Cormican, Mary Linda Rapelye and Christian Kauffmann.