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EDWTN BOOTH .\ND THE THEATRE OF REDEMPTION: AN EXPLORATION OF THE EFFECTS OF JOHN WTLKES BOOTH'S ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHANI LINCOLN ON EDWIN BOOTH'S ACTING STYLE

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Michael L. Mauldin, M. A.

$

The Ohio State University 2000

Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Alan Woods, Adviser

Professor Anthonv Hill Adviser Professor Joy Reilly Theatre Graduate Program UMI Number; 9994905

Copyright 2000 by Mauldin, Michael L.

All rights reserved.

UMI

UMI Microform 9994905 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17. United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O.Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Michael L. Mauldin 2000 ABSTRACT

Edwin Booth is generally regarded to be the preeminent American actor of the nineteenth centurv’. As a representative of theatrical culture of the Gilded Age, he matched Mark Twain and Henry James in literature. Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie in industr\'. and served as a nationalistic archetype corresponding with Henry Irving for the

British and Sarali Bernhardt for the French. Booth's history is ine.vtricably linked with the history of the United States through his familial connection with the assassin of

Abraham Lincoln. Booth's brother John Wilkes Booth. However, acting theorists and theatre historians have failed to posit a connection between the assassination and a distinct shift in Edwin Booth's acting style from empathie realism to an intellectual dialectic. By applying sociosemiotic methodology and a psychohistoric approach, an anecdotal thick history emerges which demonstrates Edwin Booth decidedly shifted his acting style shortly following the assassination and his new techniques suggest he was motivated by a belief in theatre's efficacy corresponding to Nietzsche's formula for redemptive healing through the tragic effect.

Edwin Booth's initial stylistic approach to acting was a reaction against the

Heroic style practiced by his father Junius Brutus Booth. Based on his own more reflective disposition and his physical attributes. Booth adhered to a realist style which

11 was becoming critically popular in antebellum America. His closest associates encouraged him to pursue this style while instilling in him a sense of patriotic representation and moral imperative in his acting. He was identified with other actors of the realist school, and had achieved national recognition as a practitioner of this style by the mid 1860s.

Following the assassination. Booth developed an acting style identified as overtly poetic, intellectual and emotionally distanced, concretizing his performance theories in

the building of Booth's Theatre in New York in 1869. From that period until his

retirement in 1891, Booth did not substantially deviate from his approach which consisted

of positioning himself as author! ity) of the text he was interpreting and maintaining an

opaque technique in his performance which engendered the perception of the character

and the actor sharing an equal status in the fictive space. The public mythology which

had been constructed around Edwin Booth since the assassination supported his

Otherness, fostering a public idolization of the actor which amounted to deification.

Recorded professional and personal impressionistic commentary suggests his

performances had a didactic efficacy which was more strongly generated through the

form of his theatrical presentation than through the content of his theatrical texts. At the

time of his death, it was widely acknowledged that he was the last representative of

American tragic acting, an effect which is defined as the ability to produce a cleansing

affirmation of human existence correlative to Aristotle’s notion of catharsis

111 This work is dedicated to my mother Sara Mauldin and my sister Georgianna Yuijevic.

who have supported me without flinching during my own style shift from that of

professional to academic theatre. I also dedicate this labor of love and toil to Professor

Rhythm McCarthy, who e.xemplifies the best of what those two endeavors truly mean.

Finally, to the babies. Percy and Chloe. who are always happy to see me.

IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 wish to thank my adviser, Alan Woods, tor his patience, suggestions, and support throughout this process. As I have begun to teach students of my own. I can see the profound influence he has had on my thinking, and for that I am grateful.

I thank Ray Wemmiinger of the Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection at The

Players for his insight, conversation, assistance in accessing the collection, and his delightful company during many hours spent in that blessed environment. I would also like to thank the research assistants of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre

Research Institute of The Ohio State University for their indefatigable devotion to the preser\ ation of our heritage.

I am grateful to the faculty, staff and students of the Department of Theatre and

Dance at Southwest Missouri State University, especially Dr. Robert Bradley and Gloria

Reed.

Finally. I would like to thank Edwin Booth for being. VTTA

December 17. 1957 ...... Bom - Panama City. Florida

1993 ...... M.A. Performance Studies. New York

University

1980 - 1993 ...... Professional actor/director in New York

1997 - present ...... Assistant Professor of Theatre

History.Criticism and Literature. Southwest

Missouri State University

PUBUCATIONS

Michael Mauldin. “The Uncertain Path to Discovery: An Examination of

Averroes' Concept of Uncertainty as a Catalyst for Effective .Audience Engagement.”

Theatre Studies. 42 ( 1997).

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Theatre

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

V ita ...... vi

Chapter I ...... 1

Chapter 2 ...... 70

Chapter 3 ...... 152

Chapter 4 ...... 205

Chapter 5 ...... 325

Bibliography...... 408

Vll CRAPTER 1

Edwin Booth is generally regarded to be the most popular American actor of the last half of the nineteenth century. As a representative of theatrical culture of the Gilded

Age. he matches Mark Twain and Henry James in literature. Henry Ford and Andrew

Carnegie in industry, and John L. Sullivan in sports. .As a nationalistic archetype,

Americans regarded him as their international representative, corresponding to Henry

Irv ing for the British and Sarah Bernhardt for the French.'

The purpose of this study is to suggest that the acting style of Edwin Booth was directly affected by his brother's assassination of President Lincoln, manifesting in an intellectual, emotionally distant approach to his roles which engendered critical thinking rather than empathie identification from his audience.

Most scholars agree that Booth's earliest acting style was probably based on the style to which his father adhered. This was a fiery, athletic, and audience-rousing presentation in which actors made their "points" in a scene, and theatrical bravura often carried more weight than dramatic logic. As is the case with almost every period of change in acting style, this style was a reaction against the premeditated, beautifully

spoken examples created by Garrick and Kemble in the eighteenth century. Although

‘L. Terry Oggel. Edwin Booth: A Bio-Bibliographv (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992)44-45. 50-5 C

1 logically replicating his father’s example when he was thrust on stage in his mid-teens.

Booth soon became known for a more intellectual, reflective approach to his characterizations. This may have had more to do with his own personality traits informing his stage creations than with any conscious decision on the young actor's part to break the tradition of his elders.

By the late 1850s, Booth seemed to be on the path to developing a new approach to his acting style, leading to what would eventually be termed realistic acting. His tutelage under the critic Adam Badeau awakened a world of museums and portrait galleries, theatrical biographies, histories, and critical works (particularly William

Hazlitt) to the burgeoning star. Shortly after, in the early 1860's, his first wife Mary

Devlin proved a valuable collaborator and critic in Booth's effort to achieve historical accuracy and realism. However, Lincoln's assassination appears to have marked a turning point in the approach Booth took to theatre in general and characterization in particular, and the relevance of this extraordinary event seems to have been largely ignored in commentary about his acting.

Following his year-long retirement immediately after the assassination. Booth appears to have shifted his attention from a real to an ideal approach in acting, based on an apparently newfound belief that theatre possessed redemptive and morally enlightening powers for the audience. The designs for his productions at the Winter

Garden and Booth's Theatre, which he oversaw in meticulous detail, veered away from

his earlier notions of historical accuracy of set and costume. His 1871 production of

Julius Caesar emphasized "attainment of right and splendid dramatic effect, rather than scrupulous observance of historical exactitude" providing a “stately and beautiful setting for this superb tragedy."' In a succinctly telling phrase, William Winter describes the effect of one scene as having the “perfectly poetical illusion of reality."’ which aptly fits

Booth's approach to theatre, as well as his life, following the assassination.

Although he was characterized as shy and quiet even as a young boy. after 1865

Booth grew progressively withdrawn, until by the 1880's he seemed actually afraid of anyone but intimate acquaintances.'' His energies, artistic and intellectual, were consumed and exercised within the world of the theatre, to which he devoted his study with almost scientific precision. He neither resumed his early pursuit of reality on stage, nor reverted to the externalized approach of his father's generation, but seems to have been engaged in the creation of an ideal, a perfection of character and production brought about (in his opinion) by nearly religiously zealous practitioners which could uplift and transform the audience. Even though he scrupulously avoided mention of his brother's crime, or even his name, this fervent avoidance belies his intense preoccupation with the incident. It seems probable that his emergence from a year's self-imposed exile onto a redemptive theatrical quest, beginning with his spectacular mountings at the Winter

Garden, building of Booth's Theatre, arduous compilation of published promptbooks of his plays, and exhausting touring schedule of remote locations throughout America (even

■William Winter. Shakespeare on the Stage. First Series (New York: Moffat, Yard &Co.. 1911)581-82.

’Winter 583.

■'Katherine Goodale, Behind the Scenes W ith Edwin Booth (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1931) 41. after attaining financial fortune), was more than simply coincidence. I believe that Booth felt responsible for purging the nation of his brother's infection, that his hospital was the theatre and his instruments his acting. Only when critical opinion began to associate him with the newly defined "old school." thereby diminishing his perceived effectiveness, did

Booth abandon the stage at the age of 58 and cocoon himself in a fabricated safe haven.

The Players.

The effort to evaluate and compare the stage performance of an actor whose career existed prior to the advent of sound, film, and video recording is an exercise in conjecture. Even if the documentation provided by professional critics is used, it must be realized that the body of this information is based in subjective opinion, rather than objective analysis. The ambiguous nature ot this testimony has not been ameliorated by

technical advances whicii enable the preservation of stage performances. One needs only

to review the journalistic critical debate waged over contemporary actors' character

portrayals to understand that, at best, the critical literature constitutes an interpretation of

an interpretation: the existence of a permanent record of a performance may lessen, but

cannot eradicate the ephemeral nature of a stage portrayal.

In order to examine Edwin Booth's change in acting style, it is imperative to

review previous studies of the actor and his historical context. Although it is unlikely that

a statistical comparison has been done, it is conceivable that the body of literature

concerning Edwin Booth rivals and may exceed that which has been produced in

connection with any other actor. Booth once commented to Otis Skinner, I suppose that more has been vvrinen about me. both bad and good, than about most anybody else connected with the theatre in this country. There has been plenty of praise but just as much abuse. I've learned to care very little about it either way. The web of my life, as Shakespeare said, is of a mingled yam, good and ill together.'^

In his 1992 compendium Edwin Booth: A Bio-Bibliographv. L. Tern.' Oggel has identified and catalogued 1028 sources referencing Booth. This collection is made even more impressive in that it includes only major references by or about him, excluding verse, fiction, film and television, general histories, encyclopedias, reviews, newspaper items, and particularly the plethora of material about his brother. John Wilkes Booth."

Given the amount and diversity of literature available on Edwin Booth, selected sources will be identified which have directly impacted the course of this snidy.

Until recently, nineteenth century .American theatre, and American acting particularly, has not been the subject of extensive scholarly research. For a period of nearly thirty years, the standard reference for the period was provided by Garff B. Wilson, who, in his 1966 survey A History of .American Acting, categorizes Booth as a representative of the “Classic School,'* placing him as the most eminent representative of that school in the company of Lawrence Barrett, James Murdoch, E. L. Davenport,

George C. Vandenhoff, Charles W. Couldock, Joseph Haworth, and Steele MacKaye.

Wilson states that Booth was “universally acknowledged to be America's greatest tragic actor," and identifies the major premise of Booth's artistic creed as

■Quoted in Otis Skinner, The Last Tragedian: Booth Tells His Own Storv (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939) v.

Oggel 3. his belief that art should interpret, exalt, ennoble. He felt, like Sir Joshua Resnolds (who had influenced the Kemblesi. that art should appear natural and illusionistic but not by copying all the literal details of life or by exalting the drab and the commonplace. Art should reveal the higher reality, the universal essence of people and problems. It should achieve naturalness by interpreting and elevating nature.

Garff exhibits the dominant view of acting from his own period by remarking that Booth sonieiinica "depended too much on thinking himself into the proper mood of his role. If he could not summon the necessary emotion, his acting could be cold and formal; when thoroughly aroused, he could enthrall his audience with the beauty and tire of his performance.’"* This observation is based on the assumption that Booth intended to summon the "necessary emotion ” for his parts, in accordance with an empathie identification with the role as characterized by a Stanislavskian/Freudian approach.

However, in concluding his section on Bootli. Wilson states. "Acting, to him, was not entertainment. It was the revelation of the beauty and wisdom contained in great dramatic poems.”" This evaluation, while Wilson does not provide information or

opinion on how this was achieved, succinctly describes the philosophy and effect evinced

by Booth in the second half of his career. Wilson also provides useful comparisons to the

"Heroic School" as typified by Edwin Forrest and the elder Booth, as well as

developments approaching realism, although he attributes most of the latter to the advent

of electronic media, identifvina realistically inclined actors such as Matilda Heron and

Garff B. Wilson, A History of American Acting (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1966)74.

'^Wilson 77.

"Wilson 79. Julia Marlowe as representatives of either the “School of Emotionalism” or the

“Personality School.”

.•\nother useful, if somewhat generalized, survey of nineteenth century American

theatre is found in Howard Taubman's 1965 The Making of the American Theatre.

Taubman is effective in connecting American political and social thought with shifts in

popular acting style, and he makes particular use of the dramatic criticism of Whitman

and Poe to illuminate antebellum theatrical taste. He identifies Edwin Forrest as the actor

for whom the countrs had "manifested its nationalistic satisfaction in the

accomplishments of a native son.""’ and traces a theatrical shift toward realism "of a sort”

beginning in the mid 1850s." Taubman gives Edwin Booth surprisingly little attention,

linking him to a movement in which the "personality of the players rather than their plays

dominated the second half of the nineteenth century."*’ He describes Booth as having

"sensitive and affecting nuances of [his] reading" and credits him with working to

"establish high standards" in erecting Booth’s Tl«eatre." In concluding his section on

Booth, however, Taubman states. "If the American theatre has a patron saint among its

actors, it is Booth."*''

'"Howard Taubman. The Making of the American Theatre (New York: Coward McCann, 1965)98.

"Taubman 102-117.

‘■Taubman 118.

‘‘Taubman 119.

‘■'Taubman 120. Charles Shattuck's two volume Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the

Hallams to Edwin Booth ( 1976) and Shakespeare on the American Stage: From Booth and Barrett to Sothem and Marlowe ( 1987) place Edwin Booth at the chronological midpoint between the boisterous rant of the Heroic school represented by Forrest and the elder Booth and the encroaching naturalistic method represented by Drew and Ir\ ing.

Both volumes are well documented and contain numerous illustrations of photographs, paintings, drawings and designs of actors and theatres. Shattuck cites substantially from contemporary reviewers and other commentary, and these books serve as an e.vcellent historical overview for Shakespearean performance in America from its inception through the end of the twentieth century. Arthur Colby Sprague wrote three books which detail traditional "business" in Shakespearean productions: Shakespeare and the .Actors: Tlte

Stage Business in His Plavs ( 1660-1905) was written in 1945. Shakespearean Plavers and

Performances was written in 1953 and includes a descriptive chapter on Edwin Booth’s lago and Shakespeare's Plavs Today: Some Customs and Conventions of the Stage, was written in 1970 with J. C. Trewin and traces many twentieth century traditions in

Shakespearean performance to their nineteenth century origins. Sprague's studies of business, blocking, costume, and props provides a plausible account of the genesis

behind many traditions in the performance history of the American Shakespearean canon.

A Studv of the Drama. Brander Matthews' 1910 exploration of theories of

characterization, motivation, delivery and presentation, is of value mainly for its view of

Edwin Booth as a representative of the “old style,” by the this professor of dramatic

8 literature at Columbia Universit\'. Matthews mentions Edwin Booth infrequently, but one illuminating reference is to his Othello, in which he and Ircing "made the situations subordinate to the poetiy they felt in the hero; they diminished the violence of the plot as far as possible and bathed the performance in melancholy beauty."''' Although Esther

Dunn's 1939 Shakespeare in .A.merica. is more anecdotal than scholarly, it recounts many stories about actors and acting companies in early America in a style which suggests a written oral history of theatrical tradition in America which had been handed down over generations. Helene Wickham Koon's 1989 How Shakespeare Won the West: Plavers and Perfomiances in .America’s Gold Rush. 1849 - 1865 is a concise account of the immense popularity of Shakespearean touring productions on the frontier during the Gold

Rush period of 1849-1865. Koon devotes a chapter to the Booth family, positing that while they did not introduce Shakespeare to the frontier, they raised the level of audience expectation by the quality of their performances."' She also posits the theory that Edwin

Booth's "Hundred Nights of Hamlet" was instrumental in initiating the disappearance of the stock system, launching a series of long runs, and the cultural phenomenon of actors being identified with single plays and characters.' Koon vividly describes the various playing venues which the companies were forced to adopt when a theatre was not

‘■Brander Matthews, A Studv of the Drama (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1910)168.

""Helene Wickham Koon, How Shakespeare Won the West: Plavers and Performances in America’s Gold Rush. 1849 - 1865 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 1989)74.

' Koon 159. available, and explores idiosyncratic theatrical trends such as the popularity of Charlotte

Cushman’s breeches roles and the child sister team, the Batemans, in their performance of

Richard III and Romeo and Juliet.

The three-part series, Shakespeare on the Stage, written by William Winter from

1911 to 1916, arranges actor’s performances by character and play to facilitate comparative study. Winter enables the reader to follow the development of cultural perceptions of character and acting style from the Elizabethan period through the beginning of the twentieth century. Winter provides several lengthy descriptions of

Edwin Booth's portrayals, many of them immediately preceded by descriptions of those by Junius Brutus Booth. The narrative is engaging, although Winter’s obvious bias toward Booth should be kept in mind. Similar ly. Donald Mullin s 1983 Victorian Actors and Actresses in Review: A Dictionary of Contemporain' Views of Representative British and American .Actors and Actresses, 1837 - 1901 follows this pattern in categorizing its entries by actor. The book is composed of contemporary journalist reviews of the performers, and the section on Edwin Booth allows for an overview of the debate which began to appear towards the end of his career over whether he was an innovator or a representative of the “old school.”

More recent examinations of nineteenth century American theatre have emerged

which approach the theatre from the standpoint of cultural studies and aid in a deeper

understanding of the theatre within its political, social, and economic contexts. Bruce A.

McConachie’s 1992 Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820 -

1870 provides a Marxist reading of American popular theatre as a reflection of the

10 Jacksonian ideal of the American working class revolting against the aristocratic patriarchy, primarily represented in the hero worship accorded to the muscular, distinctly

"American” acting of Edwin Forrest. McConachie provides extensive research and interpretation focusing on antebellum theatre as a reflection of the tensions between economic and social classes, and. accordingly, sees the shift toward elitist art following the war as testament of the bourgeoisie belief that "educating the urban poor to appreciate business-class culture might help to keep the lid on the volcano and perhaps even diffuse some of its disruptive pressure.”"^ McConachie frames Booth as an actor "sanctified by the American bourgeoisie”'"* and attributes his critical popularity in the press as stemming from the belief that "stars who uplifted their art also insured themselves [the critics] of wide popularity, since they assumed that theatregoers of all classes would respond to idealized depictions of bourgeois morality.”'" While exhaustively researched and astutely interpreted in a Marxist reading. McConachie effectively dismisses the possibility that actors of the period possessed any efficacy on aesthetic grounds, and their value is seen in

largely commodified terms.

Rosemary K. Bank's 1997 study of antebellum theatre Theatre Culture in

America. 1825 - 1860 connects the theatre and other liminal venues of performance with

America's construction of its self image, linking archetypal theatrical figures such as

‘"Bruce A. McConachie. Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society. 1820 - 1870 (Iowa City: U of Iowa P. 1992) 234.

’’McConachie 239.

•"McConachie 137.

11 "Mose" the "Bower\ B’hoy” with the diverging cultures in America brought about by industrialization and the expansion to the western frontier. Of particular interest to this study is Bank's assertion that the theatre and its actors "could quickly become foci for nationalist sentiments, disputes in taste, antiabolitionism, or other issues with which they were casually, directly, or coincidentally connected."'’ She also examines the shared space between actor and audience, illustrating audience participation in the fictive world w ith an example of a Bow ery Theatre audience examining the kingly regalia on stage

while Junius Brutus Booth portrayed Richard HI.- Bank's study deepens the reader's

understanding of the s\mbiotic connection between the theatre and its surroundings, and

is particularly insightful in describing the blurred distinctions among the societv' at large,

the world of the audience, and tlie fictive space of the stage for antebellum theatre.

Lawrence Levine's 1988 Hi shbrow /Low brow : The Emergence of Cultural

Hierarchy in America traces the development of a distinct bifurcation between "high" and

"low" art in late-nineteenth century' America, and his opening chapter on Shakespeare is a

compelling study of the transformation of the playwright and his productions from a

popular to elitist form. The figure of Edwin Booth plays a predominate part in this

transformation, although Levine does not state whether he feels he was a leader or a

follower of the phenomenon. The book is meticulously annotated, with an excellent

"Works Cited" section. Levine provides an example of the respective representatives of

■‘Rosemary K. Bank. Theatre Culture in America. 1825 - 1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1997) 115.

“ Bank 84.

12 the two sides of the dichotomy, relating a parody of Hamlet begun by Edwin Booth's

friend. Mark Twain, which was never finished despite Edwin Booth’s encouragement.^

Levine's theories are useful for this study as they suggest a possible breakdown in

familiar class distinctions caused by the national calamity of the Civil War, when

traditional binaries such as slave/freeman, gentry/merchant, and landowner/vagrant were

no longer as firmly marked. Similarly, Neil Harris' 1990 Cultural Excursions posits that

the demarcation between popular and elite art in nineteenth century America was

indicative of a national trend toward specialization in education and industry, with critical

discourse about art reflective of a privatized language which could only be accessed by a

particular economic class.

There are only two books which focus exclusively on an examination of Edwin

Booth's acting style. Charles Shattuck's 1969 The Hamlet of Edwin Booth focuses on

Booth in his most famous role from 1853 to 1891. Shattuck bases his study on Edwin

Booth's promptbooks, promptbook studies by other academics, Edwin Booth's

annotations for collaborations with Winter and Furness. Charles With am's scene designs,

and Charles Clarke's detailed descriptions of the 1870 performances of Hamlet at Booth's

Theatre. Shattuck also utilizes journalistic reviews from America and abroad, as well as

offering theoretical support from contemporary dramatic critics. Shattuck traces Booth's

early development under the influence of Adam Badeau and Mary Devlin Booth.

Shattuck's primary attention is on documenting the physical descriptions of Booth's

^Lawrence Levine, Hishbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America ( 1988; Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990) 74.

13 blocking and gestures, as well as vocal delivery as indicated in Clarke’s copious notes.

The other study of Booth’s acting style is in Edwin Booth’s Performances: The Marv

Isabella Stone Commentaries, published in 1990 and edited with commentary by Daniel

J. Wateimeier. Watermeier annotates references in the document when necessary, but

keeps his editorial commentary to a minimum, preferring to allow Stone’s descriptive

narrative of Booth’s acting speak for itself. The focus is again aimed at attempting to

capture Booth’s physical gesture and appearance on stage, although Stone does comment

a few times on the affect that Booth’s acting had on her.

Available biographies of Edwin Booth merit some degree of healthy suspicion, as

they are generally of questionable schoUtrly value or reflect an obvious bias on the part of

the writer. To date, there does not yet exist a scholarly, in-depth biography of Edwin

Booth on a par with such substantive works as Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde or

William Bittner's Poe. This seems particularly strange given the enormous amount of

primary sources available and the recent surge in scholarly interest in late-nineteenth

century America. The the standard biography of Booth remains Eleanor Ruggles’ Prince

of Plavers: Edwin Booth, which was published in 1953 and resembles in format historical

fiction. Most of the source material is drawn from previously published works, which

Ruggles arranges in an engaging format. Ruggles has a penchant for creating scenarios

about events which she would know nothing about, and her prose can be decidedly

"purple,” as in:

He had been struck down twice with too short a time between the blows. He was like some poor insect trodden under by a giant foot, which after a pause creeps forward, is trodden again, and with heroic vitality still feebly

14 stirs its filaments of legs and crawls on mechanically, but with no faith or joy left in its insect existence.'"* (201 ).

The most valuable aspect of the book is that it remains, to date, the most detailed biography of Booth, designed for the general readership, and for that the author's sweeping prose can be forgiven. The first full biography. Life and Art of Edwin Booth. appeared in the year of Edwin Booth’s death, written by his long-time friend, VVilliani

Winter, in 1893. This book is more paean than chronicle, delicately circumventing aspects of Booth's life which caused his friend pain, obliquely referring to the assassination as "sudden calamity,” "hideous experience," and "the crime,”" and completely omitting any reference to Adam Badeau, whose homosexuality and intimate relationship with Edwin Booth may have seemed detrimental to Booth's reputation. The value of this work is in Winter s astute and articulate first-hand critical commentary of the contemporary theatre, his recounting of private notes and chats shared between the two. and his eleven "portraits" of principle characters in Edwin Booth's stock repertoire.

Winter was the pre-eminent dramatic critic of his day. and his observations and comments, while certainly biased, are well-stated and illuminating.

.Although of dubious scholarly merit, Katherine Goodale's 1931 Behind the

Scenes with Edwin Booth, recounts a national tour she made with Edwin Booth during

■■*Eleanor Ruggles, Fhince of Plavers: Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1953)201.

"William Winter. Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: MacMillan & Co., 1893)36.

15 the 1886-87 season when she was known as "Kitty Maloney". She is unabashed in her admiration for him. as is demonstrated in her comment.

I passed by. thinking of him in quite the same way I had been wont to meditate upon the statues of Goethe and Schiller. The geniuses of my childhood's Weimar were no more Olympian to me than was today the figure of Edwin Booth.-" and her references to him arc always in tenus of "Mi. Booth " oi "out Star". What could easily be a cloying account by a star-struck young actress is leavened by the meticulous accounts she relates of his performances, her accomplishment in wooing him from his pathological shyness, and the description she provides of life on the road during the

Booth/Barrett tours. She also provides insight into Edwin Booth's temperament and

\ anity. largely ignored or modified by other biographers, with accounts of having to

subtly convince the aging actor to wear a w ig for Hamlet, and coaxing him out of his

locked railroad car when he discovered a brass band reception had been planned for him

in San Francisco. Perhaps the most telling statement she makes regarding her estimation

of Booth is found on tlie last page of her book. Writing as an elderly woman, she

describes a conversation in which she and her husband ask each other what "perfect

thing" they would wish to re-live in their past: T should say: Let me see Edwin Booth -

in H am let'.'’-'

Other biographies fall into a more overtly sensationalist category and are

represented by Stanley Kimmel's 1940 The Mad Booths of Mary land. Gene Smith's 1992

-"Goodale 11.

^Goodale 317.

16 American Gothic: The Storv of America's Legendan' Theatrical Family - Junius. Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth, and Richard Lockridge’s 1932 Darling of Misfortune: Edwin

Booth. 1833 - 1893. Smith's work is a retelling of Kimmel's account of the “cursed”

Booth family, including the presentation of evidence that John Wilkes Booth was secretly

married and had a daughter. With their combination of strange-but-true coincidences

such as Ford's Theatre collapsing at the moment Edwin Booth was buried and gossip

surrounding the Booth family, they provide an aggregate impression of the popular

mythology attached to the Booths, especially as a consequence of John Wilkes’

assassination of Lincoln. Lockridge's primarv contribution is in his access to previously

unpublished letters due to his access to the Booth collection as a member of The Players.

Stephen M. Archer's 1992 study of Booth's father. Junius Brutus Booth:

Theatrical Prometheus. Is a meticulously researched and documented examination of the

elder Booth’s life and career, and gives a loving yet objective portrait of the founder of

the family theatrical dynasty. Archer cites extensively from letters, journals, and

newspaper articles, and has made significant discoveries about the elder Booth's career in

England before he made the move to America in 1821. While he supports his belief that

Junius Brutus Booth was an alcoholic and suffered from some type of mental

derangement, he has painstakingly separated what he feels are spurious accounts of his

behavior from those that seem plausible. This work contains useful material taken from

Edwin's recollections about his father, much of which was previously unpublished.

The eldest Booth sister. Asia Booth Clarke, wrote a memoir of John Wilkes Booth

which was posthumously published in 1938 under the title The Unlocked Book: A

17 Memoir of John Wilkes Booth bv His Sister. The book was republished in 1996 as John

Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir bv Asia Booth Clarke edited and with commentary by

Terry Alford. Clarke recounts governmental and public reaction against the Booth family following the assassination, and corroborates indications in letters from Edwin and John

Wilkes that the two brothers did not discuss political issues with each other due to their divergent sympathies. In the republished edition. .Alford provides annotations to Clarke’s narrative, and includes previously unpublished material such as transcriptions of interv iews with Junius Brutus Booth. Jr.. Joseph Booth, and John Sleeper Clarke by

Federal agents after the assassination. Gordon Samples’ 1982 Lust for Fame: The Stage

Career of John Wilkes Booth is a well documented and researched account of John

Wilkes Booth's acting career. Samples discounts the popular notion that John Wilkes

Booth was mad. and that he was a "hack” actor, providing critical contemporary commentary that, had he lived, he may well hav e rivaled Edwin Booth as a star of the

American Shakespearean stage. This discounts the perception that Wilkes may have

assassinated Lincoln as a means of attracting attention to himself in comparing his career

with Edwin’s. Samples reports that as late as a week before the assassination. Edwin and

Wilkes were planning a second benefit performance for the "Shakespeare Statue Fund.”

although no mention that the play or plays that were under consideration is given. The

press commentary about his performances identify him as the South’s favorite actor, and

also connect his acting style with that of his father. John Wilkes Booth’s collected letters

and journal entries have been published in "Right or Wrong. God Judge Me”: The

Writings of John Wilkes Booth, edited by John Rhodehamel and Louis Taper and

18 published in 1997. Although the political motivations behind the assassination are not the focus of this study, the collection indicates that Wilkes' assassination was politically motivated based on his view of the North's subjugation of the South and Lincoln's stance as a traitor to constitutional process. His letters support that he and Edwin Booth had a cordial if somewhat formal relationship and that both had agreed not to discuss political issues due to their ideological differences. His last journal entries in the collection, written during his week of hiding following the assassination, illuminate the public mythology which had been constructed around him almost immediately after his crime, and his reactions to the newspaper accounts of him which he read during his escape attempt.

In searching for support among Booth's correspondence, the amount of material from which to draw is rich. Otis Skinner mentions in The Last Tragedian: Booth Tells

His Own Storv. T know few men who left such an incredible mass of letters. How he

found time to pen them all the Lord knows! He rarely received a letter requiring an

answer that de did not send some kind of reply in his own hand; if it were to a friend he

never failed."’’* Skinner was working with the correspondence collection at The Players

for his book to be published in 1939, and his manipulation of the collection reveals as

much of the compiler as they do the subject. Perhaps most obvious is Skinner's apparent

dislike for Laurence Barrett, Booth’s close friend and business partner for the successful

Booth-Barrett joint star tours, which were largely a financial and critical success.

Skinner, in describing the “virtues" of Barrett as a “self-made man." lists qualities such as

^Skinner 10.

19 suspicion, jealousy, egotism and hot-headedness.He describes Barrett's impersonation of the "lean and hungry” Cassius as "outstanding—he was bom for he part.”^'' Skinner's portrayal of Booth is loving and sympathetic, and the selected letters are calculated to present him in that light. His greatest original contribution is the often cited story of

Edwin Booth's receiving and destruction of John Wilkes Booth's theatrical trunk eight years following the assassination.'''

carefully selected and edited collection of correspondence appeared in 1894, the year after Booth's death, compiled by his daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman under the title Edwin Booth: Recollections bv his Daughter and Letters to Her and to His Friends.

Grossman expurgates almost all negative commentary and profanity by her father in order to paint a semi-divine portrait. For example, Grossman She includes Edwin Booth's comment about a letter he received from her future husband. Ignatius Grossman, with

Booth stating, "his letter is full of a true, manly, loving sentiment that I would have my daughter's husband feel for her ad for her father, and I am happy in the conviction that it is the sincere and genuine expression of a manly love.'*" Grossman does not include a

later letter in which Booth says he must "sell this house & get rid of Boothden' as soon as possible, in order to support my son-(of a b—h) in-law, who does nothing but spend

■'^Skinner 130.

'^Skinner 131.

^‘Skinner 143-47.

^'Edwin Booth, letter to Edwina Booth, 14 April 1885, in Edwina Booth Grossman, Edwin Booth: Recollections bv his Daughter and Letters to Her and His Friends (New York, The Century Co., 1894) 55.

20 money, smile, & liv e on his wife's father. A jolly old home is mine — would you not rather have your child in heaven -? I would. Particularly if I knew that her husband was in Hell where he belongs!"” Grossman provides minimal commentary in the body of the letters, usually only appearing when there is a reference which may need clarification for the reader, although she does make some illuminating comments regarding his opinions of many of the roles he played. One comment of particular note is her statement that she found it difficult to “disassociate him from the character of Hamlet, it seemed so entirely a part of him self."”

Daniel J. Watermeier's 1971 Between .Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin

Booth and William Winter is comprised of the correspondence between Edwin Booth and his friend, William Winter, from their first acquaintance in the 1860s to Edwin Booth's death in 1893. It provides useful documentation of Edwin Booth's opinions of actors and the theatre in general, and is particularly useful to this study for its series of letters written by Edwin Booth in which he reflects on his plaving of many of his most popular roles, such as Hamlet, Lear, Shylock, Overreach, lago, and Bertuccio. These reflections were written as part of an ongoing, long-distance discussion between the two in preparation for a series of promptbooks they would jointly produce, to be sold in theatre lobbies during

Edwin Booth's performances. Watermeier includes extensive annotation to the letters,

explaining references to names, dates, and performances, as well as editorial opinion.

These letters provide much support for the change in Edwin Booth's acting style and his

” Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, 17 July 1886, The Players.

^Grossman 2-3.

21 growing disaffection with the theatre as he neared the end of his life. Another comprehensive collection of letters is found in The Letters and Notebooks of Marv

Devlin Booth edited by L. Terry Oggel and published in 1992. This collection evinces the influence that Edwin Booth's young wife had on his acting. Unfortunately, these extant letters are probably only a fraction of the correspondence which passed between them, for Edwin Booth followed the custom of the time and destroyed any correspondence which he felt might betray their intimacy.'"' The reader has the opportunity to follow her development into a remarkable maturity, and especially her aggressive campaign to replace Adam Badeau as Booth's chief critic, tutor, and inspiration.

Two books provide letters and other documentation relative to institutions founded at Booth's behest or with his assistance. John Tebbel's 1989 A Certain Club:

One Hundred Years of The Plavers contains specific and previously unpublished material documenting Edwin Booth’s wish to establish a club where actors could mingle with representatives of other professions. The first two chapters of the book, “Edwin Booth and His Dream” and "Booth at the Club" are the only ones which relate to this project

since the second chapter ends with Edwin Booth's death. Louis M. Simon's A History of

the Actors' Fund of .America contains letters in support of and speeches given by Edwin

Booth to raise interest in this charitable institution for actors.

'^L. Terry Oggel, The Letters and Notebooks of Marv Devlin Booth (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992) .xvi.

n For information concerning the effects of the assassination, David B.

Chesebrough’s 1994 “No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow: Northern Protestant Ministers and the

Assassination of Lincoln and Thomas Reed Turner's 1982 Beware the People Weeping:

Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln survey public opinion, acts of violence, and attendant mythologies in the wake of Lincoln's murder. Albert Furtwangler posits in Assassin On Stage: Brutus. Hamlet, and the Death of Lincoln (1991) that Edwin

Booth's Hamlet was an answer to John Wilkes Booth's Brutus, and that the tragic persona of Lincoln indelibly affected the public persona of both Booth brothers. .Although

Furtwangler's attention is focused on specific stage business in Booth's performances, he

suggests that the assassination changed the American conception of tragedy, and he

builds a strong case for the linkage in public perception among Lincoln, Edwin, and John

Wilkes Booth. For a study of shifted national ethos consequent to the assassination,

James Oliver Robertson's 1980 American Mvth, American Reality examines the

assassination as a turning point in .American self perception, while Lloyd Lewis' 1941

Mvths After Lincoln is particularly illustrative of the reasons for constructing a

mythology around the martyred president and his assassin.

The amount and variety of literature surrounding Edwin Booth is astonishing, and

while he purposely excluded himself from public discussion of politics, social reform, or

anything outside the parameters of the theatre, he become a symbol and archetype for his

age. Booth's history is forever linked with one of the most important events in the history

of the nation, yet the literature concerning him infers no causal linkage between that event

and his theatrical practice.

23 For the purpose of examining Edwin Booth’s approach to his craft, and the possible motivations for a shift in that approach, the term "style” has been chosen as a nominative, although the difficulties of such a task are recognized in Douglas A.

Russell's statement, "the term is a treacherous one - vague and meaning different things to different people."’'' It is also recognized, as Richard Lockridge states.

When an actor dies he dies all over. His memory, as his contemporaries follow him. becomes a name - a name with two dates. [. ..] an actor works in the perishable gestures of the body; the instantly dead inflections of the voice. He leaves, as one editor said of Booth - as if it were his special failing - ‘nothing but the memory of his own shining achievements.' Booth left as much as any actor; more than most. And. by the time those who watched him play are dead, he will be a name only.'

Given these observations, "acting style." for the purposes of this study, will be defined as the application of a set of theatrical conventions utilized by an actor in the creation of a character from a dramatic text. To determine and categorize Booth's acting style, focus will be given to its observable elements as reflected in critical and personal discourse describing his movement, stage business, gesture, make up. costume, setting, and as much as can be objectively determined, vocal delivery. Since the best that can be achieved in determining this is in an anecdotal thick description gathered from an aggregate commentary reflecting an impressionistic response, semiotic methodologies will be employed as demonstrated in Jean Alter's A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre and Susan

Bennett's Theatre Audiences; A Theory of Production and Reception, both published in

^"Douglas A. Russell. Period Stvle for the Theatre ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1987) .xv.

^^Lockridge 333.

24 1990, for their explication of the decoding and interpretive processes in which audiences receive theatrical performances.

The second component in examining Booth's shift in acting style will be based in determining his possible motivations or intentions for such a shift. Peter Loewenberg has validated this method of inquiry by recognizing the convergences between the methodologies employed in historiography and psychoanalysis which lead to an interpretation of history based on the "dynamic interaction of character, society, and human thought and action."'^ Questioning the "knowability of the past and the autonomy of the historian’s organizing faculties,"''* Loewenberg supports the construction of motivation in the historical subject on the basis that the pursuits of objectivity and empathy in dealing with issues of motivation are

committed to the theory of overdetermination. It would be a poor historian who would maintain that a major historical even had only once cause. We must necessarily look to many levels of causation and appraise the significance of each. [. . .] Thus both disciplines seek multiple explanations for single phenomena; both disciplines follow the law of the conservancy of evidence. No detail is so minor that it can be ignored, no deviant case is so trivial that it may be overlooked. This distinguishes history and psychoanalysis from the social and natural sciences that seek to fit or subsume individual events under general covering laws of behavior. The epistemological problem is identical for the historian and the psychoanalyst. They must both reconstruct, or re-create in their minds, the life of their subjects."”’

’’’Peter Loewenberg, Decoding the Past: The Psvchohistorical Approach (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1996) 14.

■'T-oewenberg 12.

■“’Loewenberg 16.

25 This methodology is particularly apt as a support in the attempt to posit likely motivations behind a shift in technical application in such an elusive field as theatrical performance.

While the observable reactions to Booth's techniques may be easier to quantify, it is also necessary to explore and qualify his deterministic reasons for changing his techniques in order understand his symbiotic relationship with antebellum and post Civil War America.

Perhaps one of the best examples of Booth's antebellum acting style is found in a comparison offered by George William Cunis in 1863. On the same evening, he saw

Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth in Shakespearean productions at different theatres.

Forrest, he concluded, represented "the muscular school: the brawny art; the biceps aesthetics: the tragic calves: the bovine drama: rant, roar, and rigmarole:" although he

■‘move[d] his world nightly [. . .] There were a great many young women around us crying [...] They were not refined nor intellectual women. But they cried good hearty tears." He found Booth to be "pale, thin, intellectual, with long black hair and dark eyes,

Shakespeare's lago was perhaps never more articulately represented [.. .] all that we saw of Booth was admirable."^' Even though an obvious preference is implied, Curtis' succinct observ ations contain useful examples of verbalizing the difference between styles employed by his subjects. By this comparison, he characterizes Forrest as a representative of the earlier “bombastic" style, and Booth as a representative of the encroaching "realistic" stvle.

■“William Curtis, "Editor's Easy Chair,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine 28 (December 1863) 131-33.

26 It is impossible to evaluate the work of Edwin Booth, or perhaps any other actor, without an understanding of the social, political, economic, and philosophic context in which he existed. So predominate was Booth in the social and cultural milieu of his time that, as Oggel points out. "He was a touchstone for his age [...] and because almost no tlgure represents late-nineteenth century America better than Booth, any study of him becomes, synecdochically. a study of his age."'*' While a full investigation of the nineteenth century .American cultural scene is far beyond the scope or intention of this study. I would like to recognize a major shift in the treatment and perception of the arts in this society, a transformation of art into culture, for which Booth was an undeniable archetype.

In the last half of the nineteenth century. America shifted its perception of art from a popular, democratic communal experience to a sharply defined and stringently categorized medium. Artistic performance and display, primarily represented in the venues of theatre, opera, and museum exhibits, was assigned a designation corresponding

to the social status thought appropriate for its intended audience. This laid the foundation

for a series of binary classifications which are still evident in present-day arts discoiu’se:

popular/legitimate, amateur/professional, corrupted/pure. and. as most clearly delineated

by Lawrence W. Levine, highbrow/lowbrow.

Fundamental to this metamorphosis is the linkage of "art" and "culture" as an

interchangeable reference. As Neil Harris points out. "Until the nineteenth century

changed its meaning, culture was more an activity than a state of being: it represented

■*-Oggel xii.

27 growth or nourishment and could be applied to almost anything.” Harris continues to explain that, following this Victorian transformation of the term, "people were defined as cultured according to their interest or proficiency in certain traditional areas: music, painting, architecture, belles leitres."^' Culture moved from being an attribute that everxone possessed, regardless of their social or intellectual standing, to a destination achieved by following a proscribed path of education, training, and taste. To understand this distinction, we need only to examine the images invoked when we describe someone as a "cultured person”; this designation generally conjures specific classifications relative to that person's style of dress, demeanor, speaking, preferred form of entertainment, economic status, and intellectual capacity.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the audience for a theatre or

musical performance, museum exhibit, or other public entertainment was a virtual

microcosm of the area’s population. In the theatre distinctions among the audience were

primarily based on ticket prices according to location in the theatre:

the pit (orchestra), the boxes, and the gallery (balcony).[. ..] In the boxes sat, as one spectator put it, the dandies, and people of the first respectability and fashion.' The gallery was inhabited largely by those (apprentices, servants, poor workingmen) who could not afford better seats or by those (Negroes and often prostitutes) who were not allowed to sit elsewhere. The pit was dominated by what were rather vaguely called the 'middling classes'-a mixed multitude' that some contemporaries praised as the 'honest folks' or 'the sterling part of the audience.'^

^^Neil Harris, Cultural Excursions (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990) 14.

■^Lawxence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchv in America (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990) 24.

28 Many writers of the period, particularly European visitors, commented on the diverse social construction of the American audience with varying degrees of approval or disgust. Despite their differing perspectives, however, these writers make evident the fact that all entertainment was popular in nature, and that the uniquely American ideal that

"every man must have his say” prevailed. Audiences were active participants with the entertainers, and in many instances, particularly scenes of battle, the audience "leaped onto the benches beside themselves with elation and cheered on the fight with wild, joyous whoops: "Hi-hi! Hi-hi! Hi-hi!’”'*^

Correlating with this diversity in the audience, it was common for an evening in the theatre to consist of musical entertainment, a five-act Shakespearean play, a short farce, minstrel acts, animal acts, and feats of magic and juggling. It was not unusual for an audience to enter the theatre at 7:00 p.m. and leave as late as midnight or 1:00 a.m. the following morning. Similarly, orchestral concerts included works by "high" composers such as Beethoven and Mozart along with renditions of polkas, waltzes and patriotic songs such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia." Museums, such as the Columbian

Museum in Boston, also reflected this eclectic mix by including in their exhibits waxworks, statuary, weapons, relics, lectures, "sensational scientific demonstrations,” and performances such as "Signor Hellene, the one-man band, who appeared in Peale's museum simultaneously playing the viola, Turkish cymbals, tenor drum, Pandean pipes,

and Chinese bells.”"^

■‘^Ruggles 37.

'^Levine 149.

29 However, in the veins following the Civil War, entertainment events began to become more specialized, with a strong emphasis on preserving the artistic integrity of playwrights, composers, and other artistic creators. The interpolation of popular songs into operas disappeared, and the previously accepted revisions of Shakespeare by such writers as Colley Cibber and Nahum Tate were looked upon as a desecration.

.-kt the same time, theatres, concert halls, and museums were built to house

specific forms of entertainment and display designed to cater to a specific clientele.

Edwin Booth s building of the magnificent Booth's Theatre in 1869 typified this

movement to dedicate a structure for the presentation of "high" art. .Artists were likewise

expected to devote themselves to a particular classification of performance; in the early

1880's. Henry Lee Higginson founded the Boston Symphony with the stipulation that its

musicians perform only for that organization, which was dedicated to the works of

Beethoven. Mozart. W agner, and other acceptably lofty composers."*

This combined movement to preserve original form and to build structures to

house that form inexorably led to the structuring of a ratified discourse in which to

discuss and analyze that form. Much of this can be seen as an exponent of the

"undemocratization" process of the American university system, moving from the

philosophy of a public gathering place for the dissemination of knowledge to a place

where information is reserved for those members of the inner circle."***

^ Harris 21.

^Robert Baron and Nicholas R. Spitzer. ed.. Pubhc Folklore (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. 1992)248-49.

30 As the distinction between "amateur” and "professional” became more defined, largely based on structured, academic training of artists and critics, an exctuStonary language system developed to discuss the various disciplines in a way which effectively prevented understanding by the layperson. This "sacrilization" of culture created tangible lines of demarcation which separated art forms and their viewers. Although this might be attributed to the influx of immigrants into America, the problems of anonymity within large urban settings, a widening gap separating economic status, and other factors, it is clear that the structuring of art into a cultural hierarchy can be traced to the post-Civil

War period. It seems possible, then, that some of the need for such structure rose from the virtual destruction of traditional American life by the calamitous effects of the war and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. America experienced a fracture in the national mirror, previously reflecting a unified illusion of equality and harmony while never abandoning the notion of individual taste and preference. In other words, the honeymoon of the American Revolution was over.

This companmentalization was not limited to the arts, having similar movements in business, industry, and education, and served as an initial step in restoring order to the chaos occurring during the painful process of Reconstruction. By classification of the arts, its participants, and observers, the society began to redefine itself in comprehensible terms, creating a new class system, within which members could identify themselves by parameters which replaced the shattered requisites of the antebellum period. Al±ough by no means limited to these distinctions, the former bifurcations of landowner/merchant and freeman/slave gave way to adherents of Shakespeare/vaudeville and

31 Beethoven/Sousa. In this transformation from ait to culture. .American society created a new caste system in which the traditional national schizophrenia of diversity and exclusion could be maintained.

On a personal and professional level, his brother's crime had immediate and permanent consequences on Booth's life. He learned of the assassination when his valet.

James Brown, awakened him in the early hours of .April 15 in his room in Boston, where he was appearing in The Iron Chest. He later commented that, as soon as he read the headline. "My mind accepted the fact at once. It was just as if I had been struck on the head with a hammer.""^'' Shortly after, in a letter to his friend. Adam Badeau, Booth relates. "Oh. how little did I dream...when on Friday night I was as Sir Edward Mortimer exclaiming. ‘Where is my honor now'? Mountains of shame are piled upon me!” that I

was not acting but uttering the fearful truth."^’ Later that morning, the theatre manager,

Henry Jarrett delivered a message to Booth stating:

.A fearful calamity is upon us. The President of the United States has fallen by the hand of an assassin and. I am shocked to say, suspicion points to one nearly related to you as the perpetrator of this horrid deed. God grant it may not prove so. With this knowledge and out of respect to the anguish which will fill the public mind as soon as the appalling fact shall be fully revealed. I have concluded to close the Boston Theatre until further notice.

To which Edwin replied:

^"^In Gene Smith. American Gothic: The Storv of America's Legendary Theatrical Family - Junius. Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth (New York: Simon & Schuster. 1992) 172.

Skinner 140.

32 With deepest sorrow and great agitation. I thank you for relieving me from my engagement with yourself and the public. The news of the morning has made me wretched indeed, not only because 1 have received unhappy tidings of the suspicion of a brother’s crime, but because a good man and a most justly honored and patriotic ruler has fallen in an hour of national joy by the hand of an assassin. The memory of the thousands who have fallen in our countiw's defense cannot be forgotten by me even in this, the most distressing day of my life. And I most sincerely pray that the victories we have already won may stay the brand of war and the tide of loyal blood. While mourning, in common with all other loyal heart<. the death of the President. I am oppressed by a private woe not to be expressed in words. But whatever calamity my befall me or mine, my country, one and indestructible, has my warmest devotion.

Booth remained in isolation in the weeks following the assassination. Members of his family were subjected to having their possessions searched by Federal officers, and his brother. Junius, and brother-in-law. John Sleeper Clark, were incarcerated for a period. His friend William Bispham relates that "Nothing but the love poured out for him by his friends saved him from madness. For days his sanity hung in the balance."'’" It was not simply a matter of decorum which kept Booth isolated from the public view. A letter,

dated May 1. 1865, and signed "Outraged humanity" stated:

Sir. you are advised to leave this City and this country forthwith. Your life will be the penalty if you tarry hear [sic] 48 hours longer. Revolvers are already loaded with which to shoot you down. You are a Traitor to this government. [...] Herein you have due warning. Lose no time in arranging for your departure. We hate the name of Booth. Leave quick or remember.-^

'’'In Richard Lockridge. Edwin Booth. Darling of Misfortune: 1833-1893 (New York: The Century Co.. 1932) 152-53.

-"Lockridge 158.

■^The Players.

33 Because of this and other indications of threatened harm. Booth remained “cooped up [..

.] going out only occasionally in the evening.” feeling his "position is such a delicate one that I am obliged to use the utmost caution."^

In an "Apology to the Nation," published in the nation's newspapers in the week between the assassination and his brother's capture. Booth announced his intentions to retire from the stage:

When a nation is overwhelmed with sorrow by a great public calamity, the mention of private grief would under ordinary' circumstance be an intrusion, but under those by which I am surrounded, I feel sure that a word from me will not be so regarded by you.

It has pleased God to lay at the door of my afflicted family the life blood of our deser\ edly popular President. Crushed to very earth by this dreadful event, I am yet but too sensible that other mourners are in the land. To them, to you one and all, go forth our deep, unutterable sympathy; our abhorrence and detestation of this most foul and atrocious crime.

For my mother and sister, my two remaining brothers and my poor self, there is nothing to be said except that we are thus placed without any agency of our own. For our loyalty as dutiful, though humble, citizens as well as for our consistent and, as we had some reason to believe, successful efforts to elevate our name personally and professionally, we appeal to the record of the past.

For our present position we are not responsible. For the fumre—alas ! I shall struggle on in my retirement bearing a heavy heart, an oppressed memory and a wounded name—dreadful burdens—to my too welcome grave.’’'

Booth remained in retirement and virtual quarantine for nearly a year, until public

support and demands for his appearance convinced him to play Hamlet at the Winter

-^Edwin Booth, letter to Emma F. Cary, 6 May 1865, in Grossman 172.

’^The Flayers.

34 Garden on January 3, 1866. He also felt compelled to return to the stage for practical reasons:

were it not for means, I would not do so. public sympathy notwithstanding: but I have huge debts to pay, a family to care for, a love for the grand and beautiful in art, to boot, to gratify, and hence my sudden resolve to abandon the heavy, aching gloom of my little red room, where I have sat so long chewing my heart in solitude, for the excitement of the only trade for which God has fitted me."

Booth's return was met by an audience which, upon making him out in the opening tableau on the play "leaped to their feet and cheered and cheered: not a single person was left sitting down. From gallery to pit the house was white with waving handkerchiefs” at which “Booth trembled in his carved chair: his head drooped onto his breast. After several minutes of this pandemonium, he slowly stood up and bowed very deep. His eyes were swimming with tears.'"

However, not everyone was as forgiving. Amid the general feiwor of Booth's return, the

New York Herald spoke in the spectral voice that would haunt Booth for the rest of his life:

Is the Assassination of Caesar to be Performed?—The public must be surprised to learn that a Booth is to appear on the New York stage the coming week. We know not which is the most worthy of condemnations, the heartless cupidity of the foreign manager [Stuart, the theatre manager, was Irish], who has no real sympathy with this country or the feelings of the American people, in bringing out this actor at the present time, or the shocking bad taste of the actor himself in appearing. Will he appear as the assassin of Caesar? That would be. perhaps, the most suitable character and the most sensational one to answer the manager's purpose. Shame

^^Edwin Booth, letter to Mrs. Richard F. Cary, 20 December 1865, in Grossman 174-75.

Ruggles 206.

35 upon such indecent and reckless disregard of propriety and the sentiments of the American people! Can the sinking fortunes of this foreign manager be sustained in no other way than by such an indecent violation of propriety? The blood of our martyred President is not yet dry in the memory of the people, and the very name of the assassin is appalling to the public mind; still a Booth is advertised to appear before a New York audience!"'''

Despite the public outpouring of forgiveness and acceptance. Booth avoided any mention or reference to his brother for the rest of his life, yet his shadow hovered unwavering over him. with reminders occurring continually until his death. On a

Christmas night at The Players, he was recounting memories of his childhood when he inadvertently let slip his brother's name. In the silence that ensued. Booth "lowered his head and began to cry.”'''

During a tour of the South in 1876. the Louisville Courier-Journal published side-by-side articles; on one hand was a paean to Booth, praising his "noble line [.. .] more royal than that which kingly nothings are heir, for whom the populace shout.” on the other an article entitled "Graves of the Booths." which mentioned his father as "a slave to the demon alcohol” and described the assassination and capture of John Wilkes.

"the recreant, renegade son of a great actor" whose bones "mouldered” in Greenmount

Cemetery in Baltimore. Booth wTote to his friend. William Winter, of the "ghoul-feast":

Except in Phi la. I never find in the North or East any reference made to these miserable affairs—wh. shd. in decency & charity have been long ago forgotten. But all through the South—from Balto. to this place I have been greeted with disgraceful anecdotes [...] and the flaunting in my face of buried cerements—raked up by these hyenas. Every little piddling village

'®In Lockridge 168-69.

'"Smith 15.

36 has stabbed me through & through, wherefore—I know not; it certainly is the most heartless, uncalled for brutality! [...] this one shameless, devilish act of the press has destroyed all pleasant remembrances I might have borne on this trip through life. I sincerely hope I shall not be invited South again. If ever you have a chance to shame them on this subject I wish you wd."“

On December 5. 1881. the day of his opening of a four week run at the Park

Theatre in Boston, the "Herald" ran an article about John Wilkes. Again. Booth writes

Winter:

today I have read—in Monday Herald's a 3 column article about John [.. .] Of course it will be copied far & near & I shall be credited with the appearance of the articles-coming, as they do. Just as I begin my engt.—It is enough to drive me to hell at once![.. .]Can it be stopped?[...] I feel like throwing up the sponge & not acting at all[...] If it is continued God knows w hat I'll do—for these two articles have kept me awake o'nights & were it not for my girl I believe I should quit the town & let the d—ned theatre go to pot!"'

Even in Germany, w hile touring In 1883. Booth found mention of his brother in newspaper articles connected with his appearances:

I sent you one [newspaper] a day oi two after to shew how I am compelled to taste the bitter dregs of my cup of nectar: The first mention of me in Germany made the same reference and scarcely a month has passed since that d—nable event without my seeing some allusion to it in connection with my name. It's a delicious top- off to my recent successes !°"

During his American tour in the late 1880's, Katherine Goodale recalls an incident in his private train car. the "David Garrick":

"tdw in Booth, letter to William Winter, 14 March 1876, in Daniel J. Watermeier. ed.. Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971) 58-59.

"‘Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, 6 December 1881, in Watermeier 198.

"'Edwdn Booth, letter to William Winter, 1 May 1883, in Watermeier 246.

37 Mr. Booth, in telling of the Booth children, was so carried away that his eyes filled with tears—merry ones, too. I, alas, forgot, and asked: How many brothers and sisters did you have, Mr. Booth?' I hated myself for my thoughtlessness. Any word of mine now could not but make the situation worse. I left it to him—and Mr. Booth took care of it. It made my throat ache that many another forgetful one may have schooled him for such handling. He smoked on a bit, then said unemotionally; I forget the lot of us. I’ll name them — you count them for me! Junius Brutus — after my father, of course — Rosalie, Henrv', Mary, Frederick, Elizabeth — 1 come in here -- Asia, ice -- how many is that?"

'Nine, Mr. Booth.'

'What big families they used to raise!' — he smoked on.

There were ten Booth children, and the name of Wilkes was not spoken. Indeed, I well knew it would not be. It was his manner of avoidance, rather than the avoidance itself, that I thanked him from within my heart-for sparing me as I had not spared him. Here was drama! He had no brother by the name of John Wilkes Booth."'

The longest extant comment by Edwin about his brother is in a letter to Nahum

Capen, dated July 28, 1881, in response to infonnation for a scholarly article. The letter was not made public until his daughter published her Recollections in 1894, the year following her father's death:

I can give you very little information regarding my brother John. I seldom saw him since his early boyhood in Baltimore. He was a rattle-pated fellow, filled with Quixotic notions. While at the farm in Maryland he would charge on horseback through the woods, 'spouting' heroic speeches with a lance in his hand, a relic of the Mexican war, given to father by some soldier who had served under Taylor. We regarded him as a good-hearted, harmless, though wild- brained boy, and used to laugh at his patriotic froth whenever secession was discussed. That he was insane on that one point, no one who knew him well can doubt. \\Tien I told him that I had voted for Lincoln's reelection he expressed deep regret, and declared his belief that Lincoln would be made king of America; and this, I believe, drove him beyond the limits of reason. I asked him once why

^^Goodale 95-96.

38 he did not join the Confederate army. To which he replied: T promised mother I would keep out of the quarrel, if possible, and I am sorry that I said so.' Knowing my sentiments, he avoided me, rarely visiting my house, except to see his mother, when political topics were not touched upon, ac least in my presence. He was of a gentle, loving disposition, very boyish and full of fun,—his mother’s darling,—and his deed and death crushed her spirit. He possessed rare dramatic talent, and would have made a brilliant mark in the theatrical world. This is positively all that I know about him, having left him a mere schoolboy when I went with my lather lu California in 1852. On niy return in '56 we were bepaiated by professional engagements, which kept him mostly in the South, while I was employed in the Eastern and Northern States.

1 do not believe any of the wild, romantic stories published in the papers concerning him: but of course he may have been engaged in political matters of which I know nothing. All his theatrical friends speak of him as a poor, crazy boy, and such his family think of him.

I am sorry I can afford you no further light on the subject."^

.Although Furtwangler views this letter as a signifier that Edwin was trying to disassociate himself from John in terms of an older style of acting, linking terms such as

"wild," "Quixotic," and "crazy" with the early descriptions of Kean, the elder Booth, and

Forrest,”'’ it also seems to carry a deeper, more profound significance, fundamental to

Edwin's view of his brother and the assassination. Even though he consciously knew that he could never escape the connection of the Booth name with the death of Lincoln, he seemed to be engaged in a lifetime attempt to eradicate, on some sub-conscious level, evidence that the act ever occurred. He went so far as to honor a request for theatre tickets from Boston Corbett, the man who claimed to have fired the shot that fatallv

”^Edwin Booth, letter to Nahum Capen, 28 July 1881, in Grossman 227-28.

”■ Albert Furtwangler, Assassin on Stage: Brutus, Hamlet, and the Death of Lincoln (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991) 54.

39 wounded John in the Garrett family bam in Maryland, and to pay for the rebuilding of the bam, destroyed in the fire set by Federal officers to force his brother out.'^

One act of Booth's, in particular, indicates his desire to obliterate the memory of his brother, and perhaps the associated guilt he felt by bearing the same name. The incident has all the theatrical trappings of a stage ceremony, yet it was done in private, with only Edwin and Garrie Davidson, the old property man at Booth's Theatre, in attendance. It is related by Otis Skinner as told to him by Davidson, and took place in the basement of the theatre at 3 o'clock in the moming. in 1873.

Apparently. John had forwarded his theatrical trunk, containing costumes, wigs, props, etc.. to his friend John McCullough some time shortly prior to the assassination.

McCullough, never implicated with any knowledge of John's plans, conveyed the trunk with him to Canada and abandoned it there when public outrage grew in the States against anyone who might have been associated even faintly with the plot. Edwin learned of its existence, and spent eight years tracking it. finally having it returned by the actor McKee

Rankin, who was engaged in the provinces. Here follows a truncated version of what

Skinner assures the reader are Davidson's "own words":

Mr. Booth had a suite of rooms over the stage where most of his hours of business were spent. On leaving his dressing room this night, about twelve o'clock, he gave me orders to wake him at three in the moming.[.. . Upon waking him] I helped him into his coat.

‘\Miere shall I go. Mr. Booth?' I asked.

‘To the fumace room,’ he answered.

^Stanley tCimmel, The Mad Booths of Marvland ( 1940: New York: Dover. 1969) 57.

40 I led the way across the black stage and down to the fumace room. [...] Over near the fumace there was a large trunk, like a packing case, tied with ropes. He told me to get an ax. I cut the cords and knocked off the top of the box which was ticket} and old. There lay the costumes of John Wilkes Booth, all must and smelling of camphor[...] on the top of the pile were some swords and wigs. These, after a moment or two, he laid aside on the tmnk cover and commenced taking out the costumes. [. ..] He tumed it about at arm's length as if he were trying to picture his brother's figure in it, and remembering when he had wom it last. Then he handed it to me. ‘Put it in there,' he said, pointing to the heater.[ ...11 looked back at him; he was as still as a statue, waiting. [...] I shoved it in.

This process continues; Booth pulling out costume pieces, many of them with "J.W.B." inked on the linings, studying them for a moment, then handing them to Davidson to bum. Davidson identifies specific costumes from Othello. The Hunchback, The Duke's

Motto. Julius Caesar. The Marble Heart, and The Merchant of Venice. At length. Booth draws out a costume which he recognizes to be his father’s, at which "he just sat looking at the costume; then he broke down and cried like child."

"Garrie. it was my father's Richard ITT dress. He wore it in Boston on the first night I went on the stage as Trcsseli”

"Don't you think you ought to save that. Mr. Booth?" I asked.

"No. put it in with the others." he said.

The rest of the contents followed in quick succession, ending with the prop swords, which melted and broke before the fire died down.

He had me knock the tmnk to pieces, and that, with the ropes that bound it, was the finish. We stood watching the snaky rims miming through the ashes, then he told me to shut the fumace door.

"That's all," he said very quietly, "we'll go now. "

41 I looked at my watch. It was nearly six. [...] Whatever feeling he had shown down in the fumace room was gone now. As we were crossing the stage he said, "Thank you, Garrie. You needn’t come."

"Good moming. sir," I replied, but he just nodded, and I stood at the foot of the stairs with my lantem until I heard the door shut in his rooms."

This stor%', if true, correlates with the persistence with which Edwin petitioned the government to return the remains of John's body, which he finally achieved in 1869, and had them buried in an unmarked plot near the Booth family monument in

Greenmount Cemetery. Although a striking act in itself, the story of the destruction and buming of John’s belongings resonates to an earlier act carried out by his father, Junius

Brutus Booth, on the family fami at Belair, Maryland.

The elder Booth was an actor of the "old school,” astounding audiences with studied effects and sheer force of personality. With that stereotypical characteristic of the traveling star, he also had a serious drinking problem and increasingly frequent bouts of mental disorder, both of which were legendary and well-publicized in his lifetime. An aspect of his life that was not known to the general public, nor even to his children it seems, was that while he had raised six children by their mother, the former Mary Ann

Holmes, he had neglected to divorce his first wife in England, Adelaide Dellenov. Nor

" In Skinner 142-47. The account of Edwin Booth buming Wilkes’ trunk remained apocryphal, with no corroborating evidence besides the story related by Otis Skinner. However, the draft of an undelivered speech written by John Wilkes Booth on the "Secession Crisis” of December, 1860, has recently been found in the collection at The Players and was published in "Right or Wrong. God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth, ed. by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper (Urbana: U of Chicago P, 1997). On p. 48, the editors indicate their belief, based on Edwin Booth's handwritten note on the first page of the manuscript, that Wilkes' speech was “deliberately saved, not merely overlooked” during Booth’s buming of his brother’s belongings.

42 was it known that he continued to financially support Adelaide and their son. Richard. If the American Mrs. Booth, Mary Ann, knew of the circumstances concerning his marriage and continued financial support, there is no record. What is recorded, and what was unavoidable for the family to learn, is that .Adelaide sailed from England to America with

Richard in 1847. She and Richard moved into apartments in Baltimore, and she made it a habit to continually and publicly confront and denounce Junius Brutus and Mary Ann

Booth. Eventually she filed for divorce in 1851, citing, among other reasons, that Booth

had abandoned her in London and "had been in the habit of adulterous intercourse from

that time to the present.'"^ She once paraded in front of the Booth farm, calling all the

"Holmes set” children "bastards.”"'' Shortly after this incident, the elder Booth, provoked

into one of his "passions." took an ax to the back of the property, where the family

cemetery was located, and destroyed the headstones of his three deceased children buried

there. " It was as if destroying the tangible evidence could in some way remove the crime

of his adultery.

There is strong indication that a strain of mental unbalance, in varying degrees,

ran through generations of the Booth family after Junius. Besides John's obvious rash act,

Asia (the youngest daughter) showed a hysterical hatred for Edwin's first wife, Mary

Devlin. The oldest daughter Rose, and youngest son Joseph, were almost pathologically

"^Stephen M. Archer, Junius Brutus Booth: Theatrical Prometheus (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP. 1992) 196.

'’"Smith 35.

“Kimmel 64-65.

43 shy and reclusive, and the oldest son Junius, Jr.. followed in his father's bigamous footsteps. A grandchild, Junius Booth HI, killed his wife and himself in 1912. ‘

Edwin, a shy and quiet child who, at the age of sixteen, was saddled with the responsibility of guardianship over his often demented father while touring the country, exhibited a surprising manic side of his personality during the early touring days of his youth after his father’s death. During his apprenticeship, while touring California, Hawaii and Australia, he was often riotous and disorderly, and was frequently fired from theatres for drunkenness. - After the death of his first wife, he recalled his youthful "black heart" and revealed his fear that the tendency was still in him:

I have been full of sin, up to the top of all that dissipation, evil associations and sensuality could lead me to. except, of course, murder, robbing and petty offenses, although the perpetrators of such things have been my companions. I was neglected in my childhood and thrown into all sorts of temptations and evil society. Before I was eighteen I was a drunkard, at twenty a libertine....! was allowed to roam at large, and at an early age and in a wild and almost barbarous country where boys become old men in vice very speedily: but after satiety remorse set in like a despair, and like the devil when he was taken ill I resolved to become a saint and throw off the hoofs and horns. I could not do it. Sin was in me and it consumed me while it was shut up so close, so I let it out and it seemed to rage and bum more fiercely than ever. All the accumulated vices I had acquired in the wilds of California and the still less refined society of Australia seemed to have full sway over me and I yielded to their bestializing voices. I added fuel to the fire until the angel quenched it and made me, if not a man. at least a little worthier than I was. There was one spark, however, left untouched. It was merely covered and it occasionally would ignite [...]! dread lest it get full headway again. Through all the vice. I, of course, suffered tortures, at times bodily pain

‘Archer 227-29.

-Ruggles 73. 89.

44 and mental agony. These in time left me sad mementoes which I must carry to the grave. ^

The exact nature of these "sad mementoes" can only be conjectured. He wrote to his brother Junius that he had contracted a venereal disease.^ of which his bride-to-be may have been aware and had forgiven: "Edwin, dear, forget your past life, which has taught you a

At the very moment of intense emotion, when the spectators were enthralled by his magnetic influence, the tragedian's overwrought brain would take refuge from its own threatening storm beneath the jester's hood. and. while tumed from the audience, he would whisper some silliness or "make a face" [...] it was the very excess of feeling which thus forced his brain back from its utmost verge of reason. Only those who have known the torture of severe mental tension can appreciate the value of that one little step from the sublime to the ridiculous. "

^Undated letter in Skinner 84-85.

■*In Charles H. Shattuck, The Hamlet of Edwin Booth (Urbana: U of Illinois P. 1969)30.

-Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 21 September 1859. letter 14 in Mary Devlin Booth. The Letters and Notebooks of Marv Devlin Booth. L. Terry Oggel, ed., (Westport: Greenwood Press. 1987) 15.

"From Booth's “Some Notes About My Father." [Folger collection] quoted in Archer 234-35.

45 Here he speaks with the voice of familiar knowledge. His letters are peppered with references to mental strain, particularly depression, for the rest of his career:

“nothing of fame or fortune can compensate for the spiritual suffering that one possessing such qualities has to endure. To pass life in a sort of dream where nothing is but what is not,’ a loneliness in the very midst of a constant crowd;" “I am mentally depressed and physically distressed at present;" “You may judge how near madness I’ve been at times;

passing sleepless night after heavy work and not daring to stimulate for fear of falling off

my perch;" ’’ “Perhaps acting mad eveiy night has something to do with it. I once read of

a French actress who went mad after a continued run of an insane character she

personated [.. .] When I am enrapt in a character I am personating there seems to be

another and a distinct individuality, another me. sitting in judgement on myself.”'^" This

comment, made in 1881 and touching on the actor’s relationship to his characters,

indicates a distancing from the characters, the antithesis of what he was attempting to

achieve in his early career. It is plausible to assume that if he truly felt endangered by

becoming too psychically linked to the tragic and often mad characters he portrayed, and

strove to keep a wall between himself and his characters for the protection of his own

Quoted in Skinner 7.

’^Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter. 29 July 1886. in Watermeier 278.

'’Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, received 1 November 1881, in W atermeier 195.

’^‘’Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter. 1881[?], quoted in Winter Life and Art 111.

46 sanity, the effect of this separation could have been evident in the performance itself.

Perhaps this fear provided the nucleus for his shift from the real to the ideal.

As further evidence of his continued mental duress, he was the victim of chronic insomnia, referring to his periods of sleeplessness as his "vulture hours” where

"memories with their flapping wings keep me awake.That Edwin Booth should evidence so many of the classic symptoms of depression, especially as outlined by

William Styron in the chronicle of his own struggle with the disease. Darkness Visible, is not surprising. In addition to the early death of his first wife and the assassination of the

President by his brother, he also endured the loss the magnificent Booth's Theatre, a second marriage to a woman who herself fell into insanity and died, and an assassin's attempt on his life. It is surprising how closely Booth's descriptions of his moods match

StvTon's in his attempt to find a better word than "depression.” mentioning the outdated

"melancholia” and preferring the appropriated "brainstorm.” Styron mentions that, within the "well-known checklist of some of [the] failures and functions” of depression, is a “lamentable near disappearance of [the] voice.” remarking on his own voice's

“strange transformation.”'*' Booth was plagued by vocal problems throughout his career,

including his final performance as Hamlet in 1891, a few weeks following the death of

his friend Lawrence Barrett, during which he was barely audible.'*^

Goodale 149-50.

''-William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (New York: Random House. 1990)48.

^Shattuck 309.

47 It is possible to assume, then, that Edwin Booth had inherited a genetic predisposition to manic-depression from his father, which was augmented by the death of

Mary Devlin Booth, for which he blamed himself, and, less than two years later, virtually crystallized following John Wilkes' assassination of Lincoln. It is during this period that

it seems Booth began to show evidence of. if not madness, at least a fabricated reality that

was borne out through the socially acceptable medium of his an. He cast himself in the

role of not only actor and manager, but also of social reformer.

He built Booth's Theatre as a "Temple to the Muses" where an 1870 production of

Hamlet would not simply entenain. but. according to a pre-production brochure issued

from the theatre, would lift us out of the "narrow sphere of our daily lives into a loftier,

grander region, whose atmosphere perforce shall purify and exalt our souls.Shortly

after the theatre went into dire tlnancial difficulties. Booth explained to William Winter

his purposes behind building the theatre:

I had no desire for gain. My only hope was to establish the pure, legitimate drama in New York, and by my example to incite others, actors and managers, to continue the good work. [. ..] Our object was solely to elevate the tone of our art, without even half an eye to the dollar: for we well knew there were not ‘millions in it." No; we would take our chances of making money outside of New York, and be satisfied with the glory of the good work we would accomplish there.

This idealism was reflected in his approach to acting as well, with his characters

seeming to be the embodiment of virtues and vices (dependent of whether playing Hamlet

'"Charles Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the Hallams to Edwin Booth Vol. I (Washington: Folger, 1976) 143.

'^"Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, 1874, in Winter Life and Art 66.

48 or lago). rather than persons on stage. Indeed. Winter, a long-time friend and influential critic, reflected on the general nature of Booth's theatre philosophy:

He could remember the period[.. .] when the doctrine came up that the true art of acting consists of doing, upon the stage, exactly what people do in actual life. He did not adopt that foolish theory, and. as he looked around upon the actors and writers of the new age. he did not admire its results. [...] He believed that there is a difference between the ideal and the actual. [.. .] He thought that an actor can be natural without being literal, and he believed that the contemporary taste for what is called "nature"-but really is prosaic and spiritless photography—will run its course and expire, and that the community will revert to its old allegiance to romance and beauty.^'’

Winter, never one for understatement, continues to equate Booth's success with his morality:

The facts of Booth's career and the achievements of his art show that his ambition was controlled and directed by moral integrity and by a spirit spontaneously chivalric in the conduct of life.[. . .] That reward comes only to men of a high order of intellect, combined with indomitable energy, patience, and the innate consciousness of power which sustains the mind through trouble, toil, neglect, temporary failure, disappointment, dejection, bereavement the perplexing annoyance of care, the acute knowledge of being misunderstood and misrepresented, the insolence of envy, and the antagonisms and slanders of sleepless malice. All those Edwin Booth had to encounter; and over them all—and in spite of hereditary attributes dangerous to symmetry of character and happiness of life—he rose into triumph

He continues to offer another small indication of this obstacle to "symmetry of character"

he rose to sublime passion, and he overwhelmed the auditor equally with the copious volume of his feeling and the splendour of his artistic utterance. In those moments the fire of his temperament seemed volcanic; and. looking back now to those revelations of his mind, it is not difficult to understand the nervous disturbance and distress with which he was

’^W inter Life and Art 136.

‘^Winter Life and Art 138.

49 long oppressed, the moodiness and stem abstraction to which he was subject, the apathy into which he sometimes drifted, and the comparatively early extinction of his marvelous vitality/'^

It is interesting to note that, even in this beatific eulogy by a devoted friend and public supponer, there is the indication of some emotional disorder, a "nervous disturbance and distress." More important, however, is Winter's equation that the reason

Booth was successful was that he was good, morally as well as artistically. He was not alone in this comparison. Edward H. Sothem stated, "Edwin Booth's genius shone like a good deed in a naughty world.'""' This public perception seemed to be shared by, and

was, perhaps in some way, promoted by its subject. In 1878, Booth wrote to the editor of

the Christian Union in response to an invitation to write an article for that magazine. In

it, he mentions that he has difficulty recommending a play to his family without seeing it

first, and continues to speak of the moral power of theatre for which he implicitly seems

to be the head:

If the management of theatres could be denied to speculators, and placed in the hands of actors who value their reputation and respect their calling, the stage would at least afford healthy recreation, if not, indeed, a wholesome stimulus to the exercise of noble sentiments. But while the theatre is permitted to be a mere shop for gain, — open to every huckster of immoral gim-cracks, — there is no other way to discriminate between the pure and base than through the experience of others.""

'^^Winter Life and Art 138-39.

'^‘'Edward H. Sothem, The Melancholy Tale of “Me” (New York: Scribner, 1918) 333.

''"Edwin Booth, letter to Henry Ward Beecher, printed in The Christian Union (December 1878).

50 Early reviews support the assumption that Booth's initial approach was a replication of the style utilized by the elder Booth. A review from the Boston Transcript in 1857 mentions his Sir Giles Overreach as a performance which "brought back the most vivid recollections of the fire, the vigor, the strong intellectuality which characterized the acting of his lamented father.""' Four years later, the New York Herald remarked about his 1861 performance of Bertuccio in The Fool's Revenge, especially noting Booth's apparent attention to character detail associated with the creation of a realistic portrayal:

.VIr. Booth has made the part of the jester in this play another of those grand dramatic studies which justly entitle him to rank as the greatest actor of his time. Such a minute attention to all the proprieties of the part as he employs in every scene and such terrific intensity of dramatic power as he arose to in the third act have not been seen before by the present generation."’

The moral efficacy which Booth seemed to increasingly feel was inherent in his acting, as well as his early shift to realism, can be seen as stemming in large degree from the influence of his first wife. Mary Devlin. She effectively assumed the role of critic and tutor to the young actor, and her commentary indicates a distinct departure from the

"Histrionic acting" by which the couple felt themselves surrounded."’ She praises Booth

for the "'conversational', colloquial-school you desire to adopt" and finds it to be "the

onlv true one." However, she warns Edwin against going too far in the naturalist mode

"‘Quoted in Shattuck FEEB I

"■Quoted in Lockridge 132.

"’Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 7 June 1859. The Players.

51 unless he might turn his acting into the mundane, as Mary sees exemplified in the

■'commonplace" acting of Matilda Heron."'* In this, she seems to be pre-dating, by more

than a century, John Barton’s notion of the "naturalistic fallacy" when approaching a classic text."’’ Mary began keeping a notebook of critiques on the various roles that

Edwin played, and they combine an interest in both technical and moral improvement in

the theatre. She decried the immorality of the recent trend in realistic "French plays"

such as Camille and Lesbia, and assured Edwin that his "gorgeous Tragedy will have its

sway,” and he would be a vehicle to "change the perverted taste, of the public, by your

truth—and sublimity and you must study for this!""'’ It appears that the moral idealism of

her discourse caused Edwin to see himself as an agent of reform using the vehicle of

theatre, and by the end of his career it was typical to see commentai}' which posited that

Booth's "influence upon the dramatic art, where\ er exerted, was an influence for

good.""'

The evolution of critical commentary upon his work reflects a change in

intentional focus as well. Commentary on Booth's acting before 1865 generally tends to

focus on his portrayal of roles, the distinctions between his characterizations, and points

of similarity or disparity with his father's style. He is often mentioned in connection with

*Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 11 February 1860, letter 30 in Oggel Letters 35.

"^John Barton, Flavins Shakespeare ( 1984; London: Methuen Press, 1990) 18.

"'^Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 24 January 1860, letter 27 in Booth 31.

"^'Winter Life and Art 123

52 adherents to the burgeoning realist approach such as Heron and Fechter, and his approach appears to be one which elicits an empathie response from the audience based on

identification and sympathy. Following the Civil War. and particularly in the 1870s and

1880s, critical discourse of his performances tends toward a more ephemeral description.

with the uses of "ideality." "spirituality." "poetry." and "transcendence" replacing more

prosaic descriptors. While this reflects a shift in critical discursive style, it also indicates

a shift in the acting style of Edwin Bootli. The reaction to Booth’s shift away from

realism was not always favorable, as evidenced by Clement Scott’s commentary in the

Dailv Telegraph on Booth’s portrayal of Hamlet at London’s Princess Theatre in 1880:

The audience was at once fascinated by the clear and measured delivery of Mr. Booth. It was academical and correct to a fault. [. ..] The days of the old classical school are dead and buried, though let no one imagine that the new Hamlet ever bores his audience for five minutes. Mr. Booth is correct, but his manner is wanting in sympathy, in ideality and in persuasion. We are always thinking of the actor, never of the man.'"*

Many critics apply the word "studied" to Booth’s acting style in the last twenty

five years of his career, which appears to accurately reflect Booth’s shift to a distanced

approach to the text and the character that purposely made visible the actor’s technique

and appealed to an intellectual rather than emotional audience response . Booth appears

to have rejected his father’s acting style early in his career, as Adam Badeau’s 1859

commentary indicates in its recognition of Booth’s "new” conception:

His conception of the ghost scene differs widely from any I have seen or read of. Instead of representing Hamlet as overcome by animal fear, as

'^’*In Victorian Actors and Actresses in Review: A Dictionarv of Contemporary Views of Representative British and American Actors and Actresses. 1837 - 1901. Donald MuUin, ed. (Westport: Greenwood Press. 1983) 67-68.

53 most, if not all. actors have done. Booth portrays him awed, of course, at the tremendous visitation, but still more imbued with a tllial and yearning tenderness. The tones of this voice, especially when he falls on his knees to the ghost, and cries out. ‘Father!’ the expression of his face. and. above all. of his eye. embody this new and exquisite conception, and seem to me more affecting even than the Mght of Garrick could have been, which Fielding says made all the spectators also fear. Booth makes them share, instead, his tenderness.*^

Badeau’s obsen ation.s indicate a quieter, more naturalistic approach than that u«ed by

Booth’s peers, and also indicate an empathie identification with the character. Later in his career, when Booth was asked to describe what he felt was the main difference between his father's style of acting and his own. he responded. "The fundamental difference. I would rather not touch on. but the superficial difference lies-perhaps—in my voice. I make less noise.""’*’ Booth’s approach in his early career was smaller, more refined, less bombastic, but not without a traditional emotional appeal. It was not until after the assassination that critical commentary indicates an intellectual remoteness in his portrayals, sometimes even accusing Booth of aloofness or casualness in his playing, which seemed to have focused attention on the dialectic arguments of the texts rather than on the emotional journeys of his characters..

The critic John Clapp, in his 1901 collection of essays entitled Plavers of the

Present, makes observations about Booth's characterizations of lago and Hamlet. The former, especially, seems to indicate a shift from an effort to create a realistically founded character by the young actor to an embodiment of an ideal in the older actor:

'’"’Adam Badeau. The Vagabond (New York. 1859) 190.

""Goodale 232

54 His early lago was a gay. jocund, comfortable villain, malicious rather than malevolent, at his strongest moments suggesting the litheness and swiftness, the grace and ominous beauty, of a leopard, to which, indeed, in attitude and action, he bore a physical resemblance. His last lago showed a vast deepening and broadening of the artist's idea. The subtile [sic] Venetian, still as persuasively frank in speech and manners, as facile and graceful, as before, now threw a shadow of baleful blackness as he walked, was Prince of the Power of the A ir[.. .] and in his soliloquies uttered such a voice of unquenchable anguish and hate as might proceed from the brea

Through his Hamlet [...] there was retained to the last, consciously and deliberately, more of the old-fashioned formality and precision of style than he permitted himself in other impersonations, and the effect was sometimes that of artifice. But Mr. Booth elected to represent Hamlet in a style far less familiar and far more remote from ordinary life than he used for any other character in his large repertory.[ .. .] through its prevailing quality, made constantly prominent by the tragedian's methods, certain definite and necessary results were reached.

Booth, like most tragic actors of the period, kept a standard repertory of characters in stock, and performed these roles throughout his career. He began playing Lear at the age of 19. and his last performance at the age of 58 was as Hamlet. Another comparison of his lago, separated by nearly thirty years, offers indications of the change in his

approach. The first is from an 1860 review in the New York Post:

He is no vulgar, melodramatic villain, full of scowlings and writhings, so transparent in his malice that Othello could not fail to see his motives; he does not go raving up and down, ranting his devilish designs at the top of his voice, in bellowing tones that would indeed have frighted the whole Isle of Cyprus; he is no slouched-hat and dark-lantem scoundrel, proclaiming to the world his intended villainy in a gruff stage whisper, and bearing his character writ upon his visage with all the malignant power that lurks in blackened eyebrows and a burnt-cork scowl.

‘°‘In Mullin 74-75.

'"'In Shattuck Shakespeare, Vol. 1 142,

55 This provides both an indication of the naturally logical approach Booth was attempting, supplying causality for the trust given to lago in the play. The comment also indicates how how many of Booth's contemporain' players probably approached this and similar roles. This critical observation contrasts markedly to Brander Matthews' 1910 commentary on Booth’s later portrayal of the role:

The character which can be seen from only one angle is as thin as a silhouette. It lacks the rotundity of reality.[ ...] lago, for example, was played by Edwin Booth as the steely incarnation of evil, pursuing his malignant purpose with indomitable will. But other actors have chosen to present rather the bluff, hearty, soldierly side of "honest lago," and thus to give greater plausibility to Othello's confidence in him.'"^

Matthews appears to indicate that Booth had subsumed a desire to convey plausibility in an effort to convey a signification of an ephemeral ideal. Alternating responses to his

Shylock offer a similar distinction in Booth's early and later approaches. An 1861 review

of his Shylock in the London Times relates:

Mr. Edwin Booth [. ..] scarcely corresponded to the current prediction that he would prove an actor of the 'fiery, impulsive school.' Those who, on the strength of this intimation, expected that old- fashioned rant which still has its admirers must have been grievously disappointed at witnessing his very steady and well considered performance. [... He is] a judicious actor, gifted with an excellent voice and an expressive countenance, which he turns to good account, he fully merited the hearty applause with which he was received last night.

William Winter, in reflecting on the Shylock of Booth's later career, recalled:

In the street scene his acting was ablaze with delirium that yet was governed and directed. In the trial scene his presentment was marked by

'"'Brander Matthews, A Study of the Drama (New York: The Riverside Press, 1910) 167-68.

""Quoted in Lockridge 101.

56 that awful composure of inherent evil which may be noted in the observant stillness of a deadly reptile, aware of its potency and in no haste, although unalterably determined, to make use of it. In that performance, likewise, as in all Shakespearian perfomaances. Booth spoke the text of the poet with beautiful precision and purity.'"'

While both reviewers comment on Booth’s control and vocal gifts, the former seems to place greater emphasis on the achievement of a realistic character while Winter tends to focus on the study made by Booth to achieve the character.

Throughout his career. Booth is frequently identified as an adherent to both the

"old” and the "new" school of theatrical style. The slipperiness of both terms and the implicit assumption that the readership understood their meanings make it impossible to definitively frame Booth's stylistic approach. Generally, it may be assumed that when nineteenth century critics speak of the ‘new school' or 'naturalism.' it indicates a set of conventions employed to evoke the impression of realism, accompanied by detailed and idiosyncratic stage business and ‘the vivid realization of exactly what emotional state, vocal tone, and bit of behavior was to be called up at every instant in the stage life of a character.'""" "Old school." particularly as it is used in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, seems to indicate anything that did not approach realism, or what Winter lamented as the "prosaic and spiritless photography of nature." The obsessive attention to historical accuracy and detail by Irving, Daly, and Belasco led inexorably to the perception of real life being replicated on stage. Interestingly. Booth is identified with both schools, often in response to the same performance, during his career in the latter

‘"’W inter Life and Art 200.

'""Shattuck Shakespeare Vol. 1 40.

57 part of the centur\'. However, there is no substantive indication that he reverted back to the Heroic style of Forrest and the elder Booth or had adapted to the growing taste for reality on stage epitomized by Fechter and Irving . While the new school appellation may have been applied to him had he continued on the course he apparently followed previous to 1865, the discursive confusion surrounding Booth's postwar acting may have been caused by Booth creating a st\le which was uniquely his, and which did not fall readily into stylistic categories employed by theatrical critics.

If a distinctive change in Booth's acting style began to occur in the period between Edwin Booth's return to the stage in Januaiy', 1866 and his management of

Booth's Theatre in February, 1869, it is suggestive of a change which was precipitated by the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. The effects of the assassination were immediate and long lasting to the .\merican perception of itself, its structure, and its continuation. A New York Times editorial responding to the assassination indicates that, although the war had ended, the sentiments that prompted the devastation of the past five years could easily erupt into further violence:

Every possible atrocity appertains to this rebellion. There is nothing whatever that its leaders have scrupled at. Wholesale massacres and torturings, wholesale starvation of prisoners, firing of great cities, piracies of the cruelest kind, persecution of the most heinous character and of vast extent and finally assassination in high places—whatever is brutal, whatever is fiendish, these men have resorted to. They will leave behind names so black and the memory of deeds so infamous that the execration of the slaveholders' rebellion will be eternal.'"

‘"'Undated article quoted in Lockridge 156.

58 Booth's theatrical labor following the assassination appears to have a decidedly moral imperative, but the moral efficaciousness of his performances seems to have a locus more in his stylistic approach than in the textual content of the plays he produced and in which he acted. Through a series of influences in his early career, particularly those of Adam Badeau and Mar\ Devlin Booth, Edwin Booth saw himself as an iconic representative of an American ideal and a moral reformer both of and through the theatre.

Edwin Booth's connective association with the first assassination of an American president would burden his professional and personal life until he died, and it is reasonable to assume that Booth perceived some responsibility for rectify ing the national crime associated with his name. A public mythology was soon constructed around Edwin

Booth in response to the assassination, and there is indication that Booth was aware of this mythology, contributed to its construction, and may have even believed it. He undoubtedly realized the public perception of him as Hamlet, a moral man weighed down by almost unfathomable griefs, was as great as the public perception linking him forever with the murder of Lincoln. He could utilize both, consciously or not, to effect a theatre of healing based on Nietzsche's formulation of the tragic effect, linking a shift in his acting style to a growing mythology which blurred the distinction between the public's perception of Edwin Booth and the characters he assumed on stage.

His primary stylistic shift was in foregrounding the opacity of his technique in creating a character and reading the text, provoking a distanced, critical and intellectual response from the audience rather than an empathically driven emotional one. The effect that Booth achieved seems to have been unexpectedly (from a contemporary perspective)

59 profound, as is evidenced in Clement Scott’s review of Booth’s Hamlet in London during the 1880 season:

He never makes the blood course through the veins, warms the emotions or touches the sympathies. Our hearts are unreached. Gradually the attention was directed to Hamlet, the actor, not Hamlet, the ideal. [...] The audience was at once fascinated by the clear and measured delivery of Mr. Booth. It was academical and correct to a fault. Not a word of the text escaped anybody or was lost. This was such a novelty that the great tirades and soliloquies received more than their accustomed praise and called down e.xtravagant enthusiasm.

Booth had also begun to fashion himself as the nation’s authoritative voice on the

tragic texts he performed, authenticating the didactic mandates of his performances with

extra-theatrical ephemera. Booth’s Theatre, which Booth built and in which he starred

from 1869 through 1874, provided a tangible exercise in architectural semiotics remind

his audiences of his authoritative frame. After the financial failure of Booth's Theatre, his

letters to William Winter and Howard H. Furness from the mid-1870s to late-1880s are

filled with minutiae concerning authentic costume details, subtle points of line

interpretation, textual editing, and scene design. He and Winter produced a series of

promptbooks for sale in the lobbies of the theatres in which Booth toured, so that the

audience might be allowed to purchase concrete evidence of the scholarship, industry, and

study exercised by Booth in his performances. The changing role of American arts and

audiences after the Civil W ar aided Booth’s effectiveness, particularly as American

audiences were increasingly expected to be

less interactive, less of a public and more of a group of mute receptors. Art was becoming a one-way process: the artist communicating and the

^Clement Scott, London Dailv Telegraph 1880, quoted in Mullin 67.

60 audience receiving. ‘Silence in the face of art.' was becoming the norm and was helping to create audiences without the independence to pit their taste, publicly at least, against those of critics, performers, and artists.'"'"

Booth's art was an art that taught, transformed, and healed. As Shattuck obser\es,

"If the theatre was a school, his performance was an illustrated lecture."The transformative efficacy of Booth’s performances seems to be borne out in the case of

Charles Clarke, who, as Shattuck recounts, was a twenty-one year old playgoer who was evidently profoundly effected by witnessing Booth’s Hamlet in 1870:

I learned the play of Hamlet word for word from beginning to end, until I knew it so tlioroughly that, any person reading off to me four consecutive words in it, I could immediately take up the matter at the end of the four words and recite with absolute accuracy to the end of the scene, act, or play as might be desired. [...] Then 1 went to see Booth. I saw him eight times. [...] I never had a study that I enjoyed more than I did the study of Booth's Hamlet[.. .] never one that repaid me better for the time and attention bestowed [. ..] It increased my faculty of judging character, my power of appreciating art, my understanding of Shakespeare, my understanding of myself.'"

In his meticulous description of Booth's many performances, Clarke provides an

account of the killing of Claudius which strongly indicates the possibility that Booth's

staging and characterization of Hamlet may have been influenced by his brother’s crime:

With his right he plunges the foil through he king's neck twice, saying on the second thrust: ‘Here, thou incestuous, murderous. DAMNED DANE, follow my mother (tone and energy of mad exultation, but the utterance cramped as if coming from overworked lungs or closed lips).’ He throws the Kins off. who falls backward into the arms of those below

"^Levine 194-95.

' "^Shattuck HEB xxiv.

'“Quoted in Shattuck HEB 103-4.

61 He casts up his left hand with the fingers open, looks after the King with a stare of horror, and then reels uncertainly down the steps of the throne with his left hand on his forehead. He drops his foil as he comes down. Horatio receives him in his arms at the foot of the steps....

But the instant that deed is done he shrinks from it. His conscience is outraged. His will is appalled, for it has overdone itself. And so he staggers from the deed, coming down from the throne in a bewildered way, as from a climax that is too high to be maintained. His vigor wains, his resolution vanishes—and not from the effects of the poison only, for he can rally strength to snatch the cup from Horatio. The deed is done; his purpose is fulfilled. But he cannot vindicate himself, cannot assert the justice of his course. He cannot brace himself against the world's criticism.“■

It is difficult to imagine that an audience in 1870 could have been unmindful of the fact that they were seeing an assassination on stage enacted by the brother of the man who shot the president five years previously. Equally difficult is the likelihood that

Booth would have been unaware of this. and. consciously or not. has provided a response to the assassination in contrast to the triumphant "Sic semper tyrannis" shouted by his brother as he leapt to the stage from Lincoln's box.

The following year, in 1871. Booth decided to stage Julius Caesar, during the run of which he played Brutus. Cassius, and Antony. In his portrayal of Brutus, another staged response to the echo of his brother's cry is apparent in the assassination scene of that play:

It is worth noting that for the first time Brutus and Cassius are given characteristic and contrasting action as each confronts the Dictator at the scene's climax. Cassius, imperious and vicious, savours his conquest by pulling Caesar from the throne before he strikes him. then, lest Brutus weaken, he thrusts the dying figure at him. Brutus, on the contrary, has

‘^-Shattuck HEB 278-80.

62 no stomach for violence. Trapped by Cassius' manoeuvre, he stabs with manifest reluctance and turns away in revulsion."'

While these examples refer to specific moments of stage business rather than an overall acting style, they strongly indicate Booth's awareness of his responsibility to show his audiences the consequences of assassination, and thereby provide them with an example.

■A.lthough the reaction which Charles Clarke felt may have been an extreme one.

Clarke was reflective of a general movement which nearly deified Booth. Booth continued to play to capacity houses for the better part of his tours, commanding inflated ticket prices and traveling conditions which assured his privacy. When he was not in costume and makeup he was awkward and uncomfortable:

For one whose sole desire is to shrink into the homely shell of domestic privacy twould be a temble ordeal to stand like a man at a mark with a whole army of wild-eyed McCouchy Lotus-eaters shooting sharp & critical eyes at him.'"

As soon as he "dropped character' and took his bows, he was “haughty of mien. disdainful of glance, supercilious to contemptuousness” and he once locked himself in his train car when he discovered a reception had been planned for him."^ Besides a few long-time friends, he wanted no commerce with people outside of the protective realm of his own constructed environment.

‘"In Furtwangler 139.

‘ ‘''Edwin Booth, letter to William W inter, 14 January 1877. in Watermeier 76.

‘‘^Goodale 58, 245-51.

63 Eventually, he achieved this with the creation of The Players. The club was founded in 1888 as a place whose "object is simply to excite ambition & self respect in those who waste the better part of their nature in happy-go-lucky, Bohemian habits.””'’ It was a private men's club, where actors could mingle with leaders in other professions.

For Booth, it was his own carefully planned and executed safe haven. He bought the property at 16 Grammercy Park, employed Stanford White to remodel it, donated the property to the Club organization, and moved in, keeping rooms on the third floor and rarely venturing out the front door for the next five years of his life.

On summer nights he liked to have supper on the porch in back, then come up to his room and lie on the sofa by an open window, listening to the night sounds below. He slept badly and sometimes sat looking out into the park all night. He called those his vulture hours.' A well-meaning friend asked him why he didn’t travel, and Booth answered, T've been traveling all my life. What I want now is to stay in one place with things I like around me[. . .] Here is my bed. and here is the fire, and here are my books[...]! suppose I shall wear out here.'”

He was correct in his prediction. Shortly after one o'clock in the moming of June

7. 1893, Edwin Bootli died in his bed at The Players while a violent storm raged outside.

His room has been preserved as it was on the night he died. On the wall hangs a photograph closer to his bed than any other in the room. It is a photograph of John

Wilkes Booth.

The purpose of this study an endeavor to connect John Wilkes Booth's

assassination of Abraham Lincoln with Edwin Booth's shift in acting stvle. It will be

”^Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, 8 June 1888, in Watermeier 290.

” John William Tebbel. A Certain Club: One Hundred Years of The Plavers (New York: Wieser & Wieser. 1989) 26.

64 shown that Edwin Booth's acting style changed from an early pursuit in empathie realism to one of heightened poetry and purposefully distanced disassociation from character and text. As Booth's shift appears to have occurred in the years between the assassination and his establishment of Booth's Theatre, it will be posited that the assassination was perceived by Booth to be an action of personal and national consequence, for which he felt himself associatively responsible. Chapter Two will trace Booth's early caieer prior to the assassination and will establish that he was perceived in the press to be an actor of the realist school. His earliest motivation for this is found in a conscious effort to disassociate himself from his father's Heroic style of acting, taking advantage of Edwin

Booth's more introspective, quieter, and contemplative personality and his interest in establishing himself as a theatrical star in his own right. Booth's youthful instincts were refined under the tutelage of the critic Adam Badeau. an advocate for a uniquely

American style of theatrical art which Badeau felt was best exemplified by the realist approach, and Booth was instructed by Badeau to study museums, paintings, and critical writings in order to engender a sense of historical accuracy in the development of his characters. Booth's development was deepened when he met and married Mary Devlin, a young actress who strove and succeeded in replacing Badeau as Booth's theatrical tutor.

Devlin continued to sustain Booth's realistic “colloquial" approach, and instilled in him the perception that he was suited to become .America's premiere theatrical representative, along with the belief that the theatre possessed the power of moral efficacy. Critical reaction to Booth's performances will support the argument that Booth was regarded as a realistic actor, and that the realist style corresponded to the late Jacksonian image of the

65 self-made American, eschewing the overt theatrical effects of the previous generation which had been associated with European affectedness. It will also be shown that the critics were not unanimous in praising Booth's approach, as it was viewed by some to be at variance with the classical texts which he held in his repertory.

Chapter Three will examine the consequences of Lincoln's assassination on three areas of focus; the nation's perception of itself, the status of the acting profession, and

Booth's personal and professional reputation. It will be shown that America's hope for reunification after the war and its faith in the constitutional system was profoundly

shaken by Wilkes' violent circumvention of the democratic process, and through a series

of causal reactions to the assassination the national self perception was irreversibly

altered to one which anticipated a resurgence of anti-Union guerilla assaults and

revitalized a strong anti-South retributive sentiment. Because the assassination was

performed by an actor in a theatre, a vigorous anti theatrical prejudice was unleashed

which revived a Puritan distrust of the profession and threatened to reverse the strides

toward elevating that status of the actor in American society made by such stars as

Forrest. Cushman, and Edwin Booth. Evidence will be drawn from pulpit denunciations

of the theatre, which are seen as valid reflectors of popular opinion, as well as reactions

from within the acting profession as to the consequences of the assassination. Finally, the

effects of the assassination will be examined as to how they specifically related to Edwin

Booth, his family, and the public perception of the Booth name. It will be established that

Edwin Booth had endeavored to change public perception of his family from the public's

awareness of the sordid activities and madness of his father, Junius Brutus Booth, and

66 that the assassination reawakened public examination of the elder Booth's life as explanation for Wilkes' action. Letters from Edwin Booth to his friends following the assassination will be cited, along with commentai"}' from his sister. Asia Booth Clarke, in her memoir about the events surrounding the assassination. It will be shown that Edwin

Booth's perception of himself as an iconic national ideal, his efforts to raise the stitus of the acting profession, and his responsibility to his family name provided motivation to change the deleterious consequences of his brother's crime.

Chapter Four will establish that Booth did change his acting style, and will focus

on the fourth season at Booth's Theatre from 1871- 1872. This season is selected because

it best exemplifies Booth's artistic style as reflected in his management of production

design, season selection, and appearance as star actor in his vehicles. Also, his four

principle Shakespearean revivals of the season. Macbeth. Hamlet ta remounting of his

"new" version which premiered in 1870). Julius Caesar, and Richard IE all have the

theme of political assassination at their thematic centers. Additionally, it was the last

season in which Booth was the guiding artistic impetus for his theatre, since financial

exigencies forced him to begin extensive touring the following year in order to defray the

expenditures of operation. Primarv' evidence of Booth's acting style will be in

impressionistic responses by the press which indicate that Booth had adopted an acting

style and mise-en-scene which was regarded as uniquely his and which engendered a

critical apprehension of the dialectic arguments in the texts through a purposefully poetic,

metaphoric, and distanced reading which foregrounded the dual presence of the actor and

the character occupying a shared space, blurring the distinction between the fictive and

67 the real. Booth’s new approach will be examined through a semiotic frame which will

suggest how his performance methodology, in combination with the settings for his

productions and the design of the theatre itself, produced a critically reflective response to

the philosophic textual meditations on the motivations and consequences of regicide.

Chapter Five will conclude the study with the application of Nietzsche’s theory of

the tragic effect as explicated in The Birth of Tragedv to Booth’s new acting style as a

means of attaining "redemptive healing” through theatrical performance. The public

mythology which had been constructed around Edwin Booth will be examined using

Barthes’ formula of mythological decoding, and it will be suggested that this mythology,

consequent to his association with John Wilkes Booth, transformed him into a

representative of Nietzsche’s archetypal tragic hero whose public suffering is seen as an

exultant validation of existence. Evidence will be presented to support that Booth did not

discemibly change his acting style from that which he introduced at Booth’s Theatre until

he retired from the stage in 1891. It will be suggested that this shift in his acting style

was motivated by Booth’s belief that he could redemptively heal the nation from the

effects of his brother’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and that the efficacy of this

style of tragic performance waned when new social structures were introduced which

replaced those destroyed by the assassination.

It is hoped that this study will provide a new perspective on the career of the most

prominent .American actor of the nineteenth century by examining his acting style as a

consequence of his belief in the efficacious utility of tragic theatre. Critical response

indicates that Booth’s performances were viewed as something beyond simply

68 entertainment or diversion, and it appears that the reasons for the discrete frame in which

Edwin Booth was placed have a primaiv locus in stylistic form rather than textual content. If the conclusions of this study are found to be valid, it may serve as a means to suggest a reempowerment of the actor as an agent for change and reintegrate audiences as active co-participants in the theatrical process. The methodologies of redemptive healing

through the tragic effect with which Edwin Booth appears to have experimented may

sers e as a model for current and future generations of actors, directors, designers and critics who feel impelled to explore the possibility that theatre is a valid vehicle for social

and psychological regeneration.

69 CHAPTER 2

Edwin Booth began his theatrical training under the unofficial tutelage of his fattier,

Junius Brutus Booth. Edwin began touring with his father at the age of fourteen, charged with watching over the erratic actor, whose fits of alcoholism and insanity often prevented him from appearing at the theatre on time, if at all.' The elder Booth is identified by Garff

B. Wilson as an exponent of the "heroic style,” of acting, and was a "fiery, impulsive actor who dazzled his audiences with mighty outbursts of emotion and thrilling vocal displays.”'

Bruce A. McConachie identifies the heroic school as reflective of the Jacksonian culture in antebellum America, in which performances "induced hero worship in their mostly

Jacksonian spectators, a desire for charismatic authority given institutional form in the new conventions of the star network. The yeoman ideology of manly honor, republican independence, and hero worship circulated in other social arenas beyond the theatre, including the public image of President Jackson, the campaign practices of the Democratic party, and the Astor Place theatre riot."^ McConachie associates the elder Booth with Edwin

'Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Plavers: Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1953) 30.

'Garff B. Wilson, A History of American Acting (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1966)72.

'Bruce A. McConachie, Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820- 1870 (Iowa City: University of Iowa P, 1992) 68.

70 Forrest and Charlotte Cushman, whose "charismatic appeal transformed the nature of antebellum audience response." Booth, he continues, "won public acclaim for his fiery vehemence as Richard HI, Macbeth, and Othello," and delivered an "aesthetic shock treatment" to his viewers."*

In his memoir, James E. Murdoch recounts having worked with the elder Booth when

Murdoch was a young actor. Murdoch states that Booth "seemed to have taken for his model the elder Kean." with whom he had a famous rivalry in England, and the two actors shared

"the most intense and impassioned nature, of poetic temperament, and easily excited to the action of the play, and w hen fully aroused, capable of the most fiery and vehement power of expressive utterance."’ Murdoch recounts appearing with Booth in a production of The Iron

Chest, in which Booth played Sir Edward Mortimer and the young Murdock took the part of

Wilford. There is a confrontation scene in which Wilford discovers the mysterious chest, is on the verge of opening it. when he is surprised by the conniving Sir Edward. Murdoch's description of his encounter with the elder Booth gives some indication of the effect he most likely had on his audience as well:

I had proceeded so far as to open the chest, and stooping over the papers, awaited trembling, on my knee, the appointed signal for action. The time seemed an eternity, but it came at last. The heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I turned, and there, with the pistol held to my head, stood Booth, glaring like an infuriated demon. Then for the first time I comprehended the reality of acting. The fury of that passion-flamed face and the magnetism of the rigid clutch upon my arm paralyzed my muscles, while the scintillating gleam of the terrible eyes, like the green and red flashed of an enraged serpent.

^McConachie 75.

’James E. Murdoch. The Stage or Recollections of Actors and Acting from an Experience of Fifty Years (Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart & Co., 1880) 176.

71 fascinated and fixed me spellbound to the spot. A sudden revulsion of feeling caused me to spring from my knees, but, bewildered with fright and with a choking sensation of undefined dread, I fell heavily to the stage, tripping Mr. Booth, who still clutched my shoulder. I brought him down with me, and for a moment we lay prostrate. But suddenly recovering himself, the sprang to his feet, with almost superhuman strength dragging me up, as I clung to his arm in terror. Shaking himself free of my grasp, I sank down again stunned and helpless. I was aroused to consciousness, however, b\ a voice calling on me, in suppressed accents, to rise, and then became aware that Mr. Booth was kneeling at my side. He helped me to my feet, whispering in my ear a few encouraging words, and then dexterously managed, in spite of the accident and my total inability to speak, to continue the scene to its close."

Murdoch's description of the scene with Junius Brutus Booth attests to the actor's vivid theatrical style, as well as his ability to instantly come out of the "moment" to assist the

young actor, indicating that Booth was a adept technician who did not hold to the tenets of

identification with his roles.

In traveling with his father, Edwin seems to have missed the benefit of both a formal

and theatrical education. Writing encouragement to his daughter to pursue her studies many

years later, Edwin admits, "I never went to school there except in dreams," and with a note

of resentment adds, "I have suffered so much from the lack of that which my father could

easily have given me in youth, and which he himself possessed, that I am all the more

anxious you shall escape my punishment in that respect; that you may not, like me, dream

of those advantages which others enjoy through any lack of opportunity or neglect of mine."'

Part of the elder Booth's reticence to train his son in acting mav have stemmed from the

"Murdock 183-84.

Edwin Booth, letter to Edwina Booth, 23 April, 1876, in Edwina Booth Grossman, Edwin Booth: Recollections bv his Daughter ( 1894; New York; The Century Co., 1902) 49-50,

72 father's desire that his son did not pursue a career in the theatre, as Edwin attests to his daughter by saying, i d rather be an obscure farmer, a hayseed from Wayback, or a cabinet­ maker, as my father advised, than the most distinguished man on earth."'^ With little formal academic education, and no theatrical training available other than "practicing, rehearsing and performing a wide range of gradually more demanding roles. obser\ ing experienced actors and 'stars.' taking the occasional supplementary class in dance or fencing, and perhaps an occasional visit to the elocutionist for study of a particular role,'"' Edwin Booth had only his father and other actors as models for his development as an actor.

Junius Brutus Booth died during his return trip from California to his home in

Maryland in 1852, leaving the nineteen year old Edwin in California with his older brother

Junius Brutus, Jr., who had begun his theatrical management career. Edwin followed the expected route of engaging with various stock companies in California and elsewhere, playing a variety of roles and honing his craft. In giving advice to a young actror at the end of his career, he writes. "A frequent change of role, and of the lighter sort, — especially such as one does not like forcing one's self to use the very utmost of his ability in the performance of. — is the training requisite for the mastery of the actor's art. I had seven years' apprenticeship at it, during which most of my labor was in the field of comedy, — ‘walking gentlemen,' burlesque, and low comedy part, — the while my soul was yearning for high tragedy. I did my best with all that I was cast for, however, and the unpleasant experience

'^Edwin Booth, letter to Edwin Booth Grossman, 14 April, 1890, in Grossman 110.

‘'James H. McTeague, Before Stanislavsky: American Professional Acting Schools and Acting Theory. 1875 - 1925 (Metuchen, N. J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1993) xii.

73 did me a world of good.”"’ It is apparent, however, that while the young Edwin Booth mimicked some of his father's “points” in his early roles, his acting displayed a distinct departure from his father's style. Charles Shattuck examined Booth's California reviews by

Ferdinand Ewer which followed Booth's career from 1852 to 1854. Shattuck concludes that, while the younger Booth sometimes echoed his father's style. “The comparisons between

Booth and his father, between Booth and James Stark, make clear that from the first Booth was essaying the quieter, less pointed acting for which he would later be renowned. Above all. the critiques communicate the zeal of a new generation rejecting an old one and creating its own art for its own future.”“ Booth continued to tour, acting in Laura Keene's company on their travels to Hawaii and returning to the States to play in most of the important theatres

in Chicago. Boston. Philadelphia, and other cities wherein a young actor could gamer

attention. Booth opened in New York City at the Memopolitan Theatre on May 4. 1857 in

Richard HI. a role long held as one of his father's crowning achievements. It was not until

his move to New York, and his establishment of himself there as a burgeoning star of some

repute independent from his father's legacy, that Edwin Booth began a systemized study of

his craft. His tutelage was assumed by a young critic named .Adam Badeau. whose place was

later usurped by the young actress Mary Devlin, later Booth's wife. Primarily through their

possessive and ultimately competitive guidance. Edwin Booth began to evince a distinct shift

in his acting style, divesting it of the conventions associated with the Heroic school of his

‘°Edwin Booth, letter to Mr. Thomas. 28 August, 1889, in Grossman 277.

“Charles Shattuck, “Edwin Booth's First Critic,” Theatre Survey VII. 1 (May, 1966)13.

74 father’s generation and assuming a realistic approach that would identify him with an avant garde movement in American acting.

.A.dam Badeau was arguably the first person to influence the young Edwin Booth in a systematic approach to the actor’s artistic education.'" Bom in New York City in 1831 and privately educated in Tarrytown. Badeau became "a young man-about-town, connoisseur of the arts, feuilletonist for the Sunday Times over the signature of'The Vagabond,' and very much an exponent of what Nym Crinkle would one day label sensitive dillentantism.'"'^ He is, however, best known for his later associations with Ulysses S. Grant, becoming, in the words of Grant's biographer William S. McFeely, "the strangest of the strange men who were close to Ulysses Grant. .After joining the Union army, Badeau ser\ ed on the staff of

General Thomas W. Sherman and was wounded at Port Hudson, after which he joined

Grant's staff in 1864. taking part in the Wilderness campaign. He published a three-volume

Military Historv of Ulvsses S. Grant in 1882 and a two-volume collection of sketches and

letters entitled Grant in Peace: From Appomattox to Mount McGregor in 1887. Badeau also

served as consul-general at the American Embassy in London from 1870 to 1881. and at

'"Oggel refers to Badeau as "the most literate, sensitive mind EB had encountered. [...] EB's father excepted, he had the most effect on EB prior to EB's marriage" i Letters x.xiv).

‘^Shattuck. tŒ B 18.

'■*William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1982)497.

75 Havana from 1882 to 1884. afterwards producing "a stinging, if gossipy, book about English society called .Amrocracv in England (New York. 1886)."''

Badeau s relationship with Booth began from an admiring distance almost

immediately after Booth's arrival in New York, during which the young critic observed and

wrote about the young actor in extraordinary terms. Booth began an engagement at William

Burton's Metropolitan Theatre in New York City on May 4.1857. opening as Richard HI (his

father's most famous role) in the midst of Burton's press puffery announcing him as "SON

OF THE GREAT TRAGEDIAN" and "HOPE OF THE LIVING DRAMA." " Shortly after

Booth's opening, including a single performance as Hamlet on May 12. Badeau discussed

Booth's appearances in his Sunday Times essay:

I have been several times, of late, to see the young genius who is playing at Burton's theatre, and have recognized in his performances the indescribable and unattainable influence, winch I confess I seek for in life and art under their various phases; that alone which subdues the educated and the illiterate, the old and the young, the cold and the impulsive. I have felt the power of genius. To be sure, you sometimes have to sit through an act for the sake of one touch, or one point: but when the time comes it is transcendent, it goes straight home, it compensates. Young Booth has the unmistakable fire, the electric spark, the god-like quality, which mankind have agreed to worship. The vein is with him just struck, but there is a mine behind; the workman is raw. and his tools unwonted, but he is young, and all the more interesting just now from his faults: they so evidently spring from inexperience, they are so palpably negative, they are so curable, that they enlist your sympathies, while four or five times in an evening he does something that requires no sympathy, no allowance, no toleration: that commands, controls, overwhelms.'

"Shattuck HEB 18.

‘"Playbills and broadsides for the run are in the collection at The Players.

' Badeau's articles were later printed in Adam Badeau. The Vagabond (New York, 1859) 120-21.

76 While it seems clear that Booth is making the "points" associated with the elder Booth's acting style. Badeau commends the twenty-three year old actor as "handsome, graceful, with a countenance full of a higher beauty than that of outline" and compares Booth’s "impulsive, soul-full nature" as something that "no amount of labor and pains would enable an actor to do, as mark the great and impassable gulf for ever tlxed between such as Booth and the clever, careful students, even (I dare say it) like Wallack and Davenport." In comparing

Booth to the two actors who had been "trained in the intellectual school of Macready,"'^

Badeau concedes that "he [Booth] is unequal while they are finished.. .he is rough and they are smooth," but avows that he prefers "one touch of real feeling, one breath of absolute genius, one spark of enthusiasm before all the finish, all the elaboration, all the study in the world."''' In concluding this paragraph, Badeau seems to delineate his meaning of "study," foregrounding the practice over the appearance of it, and separating himself from the neo-

Romantic "Naturalists" who might feel that artistic inspiration negates artistic preparation:

1 do not, I am sure, inappreciate or undervalue culture, but there is something higher, truer, realer. 1 certainly am far from contemning [sic] care or study, but some things these cannot accomplish: something says to them: "So far shall ye go, and no farther." This is not said of Edwin Booth: there is no Rubicon he may not pass; there are, however, many for him yet to cross. He is undeveloped, chaotic, plastic.'"

‘"Shattuck HEB 19.

'''In a later article, Badeau elaborates by stating, "elocution is not acting, so Mr. Wallack is infinitely inferior to young Booth in essentials." (Badeau, "The National Academy of Design," The Vagabond 152.)

'"Badeau, The Vagabond 122.

77 Even before having met him, Badeau clearly sees Booth as raw material which must be shaped and molded, implicitly casting himself in the role of tutor, having "fallen in love with

Booth’s genius, and[.. ^determined to become Booth's mentor, guide, and friend." ■'

Badeau does not limit himself to an estimation of Booth's artistic accomphshment, but frames the young actor as a representative of a nascent American artistic identity;

He is the type of American art: he symbolizes the dawn, whose first streaks appear in the horizon. Everything in art, here, is yet unformed, but the spirit of God has moved on the water; and there is a struggle, a quickening in the womb, that betokens life, a faint cry that shall yet grow in to an aspiration, a few significant attempts that shall yet be successes. All American art is of this nature, is impulsive, erratic, irregular, but yet full of promise and undeveloped power."

Even when developed, Badeau hypothesizes that American art should not be compared to pre\'ious (European) models, for it will be "turbulent and impassioned. . .not the divinity enthroned on Olympus, but the incarnate one that suffers, and feels, and is tempted."He compares the European composer Thai berg to the American Gottschalk as exemplars which

indicate "the difference between European art, the digest of centuries, and American, the

product of a young people, " the former "calm, collected, Jove-like," the latter "stirring,

electric, .Apollo. " He cites the naturalistic Matilda Heron as an actress who "sets coldness

itself on fire, who forces you to feel though you may not admire," and is "American in her

enthusiastic, excitable style." Stating that in his present America "genius is not generally nor

-‘Shattuck HEB 18.

"Badeau, The Vagabond 122.

^Badeau, The Vagabond 123. The idea of the "divine incarnate" presages the image of Prometheus/Christ relative to the Booth/Hamlet perception in late 19th century critical discourse.

78 sufficiently appreciated. Materialism has too great weight with us," Badeau rhapsodically equates an indigenous increase in appreciation for its artists with its increase in international discourse, wherein:

A keener relish, a livelier interest is awakened for art: its influence spreads, the circles widen daily, like the eddies in a pool. I think I detect an increasing consideration for such things. [. . .] I hope for the day when those whose tastes and faculties arc cultured by study and travel, by intercourse with the gifted, and opportunities of witnessing the best in the various domains of art. will not unnaturally turn from what is American, because it is not perfect: when they will blow every spark of genius into a flame: when they will gladly foster our own art.

In order to set about the accomplishment of this valorization of .American art. even though

"the millennium is not yet arrived," Badeau insists that "we must make haste in what we have to do, so I shall go to see Booth eveiy night next week, and visit the Academy of Design everv’ day."’'

Badeau strongly equates the "new" or American art with the burgeoning movement towards Realism. In the preceding article, he claims, "I am not so disheartened as those who seek for evenness of elaboration, but will not discern true touches of nature," and praises the

American painter Church’s "Niagara" for its "idea of motion.. .the actual feeling you have of the tremble of the fall, of the glancing of the sunbeam, of the tossing of the rapids, of the waving of the rainbow, of the whirling of the foam, of the mad rush of the cataract.. .surely this is akin to the influence which I describe as paramount in American art." Citing

Kingsley's "Two Years Ago," Badeau posits that "art is not only imitation, not only the fruit of labor, neither only the plenary inspiration, but the union, the marriage of the highest nature

’^Badeau, The Vagabond 127.

79 with the last results of culture." Accepting this dictum. Badeau believes that American art, at the present, "possess[es] the inspiration: the culture can be attained," inferring that what he values most is not the execution, but the likeness to nature, the Realist perspective.

His tastes for Realism are reflected in his article "American Playwrights," in which he sees "a new day dawning upon our stage." While qualifying his praise for American

"imitation of French dramas, which has its repulsive features," he feels that they are "at least modem" in that "[t]hey describe modem life-phases of modem life," and uses "the play of

'Fascination,' now or recently acted at Burton's theatre" as an example. Discounting its

"moral tone, upon which I proffer no comment," Badeau finds excellence in the piece because "[i]t mirrors real life, holds up no glass that distorts the features reflected in it, presents no caricature, but pictures society of this day."- Writing of art in a broader context in his article "The National .Academy of Design," Badeau reveals his preference in dialogue by exemplifying the Brontes, who "all lonely in their Haworth parsonage, out of the way of art.. .had learned art's highest teachings from her sister, nature":

they had hit instinctively upon what some arrive not at, after years of labor and study-the knowledge that art is useless save as the utterance of thought, as the expression of feeling, as the embodiment of sentiment.'*’

Given his clear preference for modem plays that reflected contemporary society written in what might be interpreted as utilitarian dialogue, his essay entitled "Edwin Booth " may appear to be an intriguing contradiction. However, upon examining Badeau's description of Booth's acting style, it becomes clear that Badeau found in Booth a vehicle by

^Badeau The Vagabond 128-34.

'^Badeau The Vagabond 151.

80 which poetically heightened dialogue is validated through psychologically supported acting and grounded characterization. In his last article written before making contact with Booth.

Badeau begins his premise by admitting he had confused his preference for modem,

"ordinary" texts with his distaste for what he had seen of contemporary tragic acting;

It has been of late very much the fashion to speak slightingly of tragedy: people of taste and accomplishment decry the stilted walk of the buskin, and prefer the easy gait of the sock. or. at any rate, tragedy must be modem and real: we must have eveiy -day life and every-day people: Camilles and de Varvilles only, it is said, can interest us now-a-days. I confess I have been tinctured with this heresy. I. too. have fancied that the display of passion on the tragic stage was overdone: that the demonstrative performances of Kean and Garrick might have been well enough for Johnson and Addison, and that sort of people; that Mrs. Siddons was all ver\' well, but rather too pompous or too grand: that the stage must represent only ordinary life and ordinarv’ incidents. I have leaned toward realism. Peccavir

He supports his viewpoint as justified "[w]hen you have no great actor to dispel your theories." proving that "mouthing and ranting constitute acting" which make the texts of

Shakespeare unnatural and the characters "ridiculous" and "extravagant." He further contends that there has been no tragedian on the English or American stage by giving a brief description of a few contemporary favorites with telling impressions of their approaches in acting:

Forrest is full of feeling; but he certainly never elevates nor refines by his performances.'^’ His conceptions are not intellectual; the effects he produces are by physical means; his eye is the heyena's, not the eagle’s; he moves, but

' Badeau The Vagabond 186-92.

^As possible evidence of Badeau's influence on Booth, in a letter written to Miss Emma F. Cary on 14 Febmary, 1864, Booth states, "Assured that all I do in this advance carries, even beyond the range of my little world (the theatre), an elevating and refining influence, while in it the effect is good, I begin to feel really happy in my once uneasy sphere of action." [Grossman Edwin Booth 157.]

81 inspires not; horror, rather than sublime terror, is the emotion he excites. Macready was a stately elocutionist, and all the rest have been second-rate. ,\s for the women. Miss Cushman is not the one to disabuse you of these ideas: and Miss Heron is very likely to confirm them. With all her intensity of feeling, with all her power over your nerves, she yet, like Forrest, neither elevates nor refines. She finishes to the coarsest and minutest detail, she has an abundance of womanly instinct, and a great ability to express it, but it is impossible not to feel that there is another and a higher sphere of art than that which she essays.

It is Booth. Badeau says, who has made him "know what tragedy is," opening a "door to another and exquisite delight," and showing him "the possibilities of tragedy." While

Badeau claims ”[t]here is no cold, debasing realism here," his descriptions of Booth's Richard in and Hamlet impressionistically describe a realist approach to the text and appropriateness of characterization and given circumstances in stark juxtaposition to the aforementioned actors. Badeau focuses on the last two acts of Richard HI, in which Booth "walks around, the moody, restless ty rant, or slumbers uneasily and wakens wildly." Badeau compares this to "the tremendous energy of the battle-scene: the rush on and off the stage; the fight with

Richmond on his knees; and the awful writings afterwards, so different from the animal contortions of Mr. Forrest." He concludes that Booth succeeds in creating "the realization of your ideas of the Richard of Shakspeare [sic] —a royal murderer, a kingly monster, a man at once magnificent in intellect and terrible in passions." In short. Badeau describes a performance characterized by control and variance in accordance with the exigencies of the text. His focus is on the character of Richard, rather than the actor portraying him, yet with an actor who does not allow the external idiosyncrasies associated with the burgeoning realist approach to diminish the verisimilitude of a noble character, as evidenced by Badeau's description of Miss Heron, and which would later be associated with Fechter.

82 Badeau felt that Booth's Hamlet demonstrated an originality and conception which the young critic had never witnessed. As an example, he cites the "ghost scene." in which the young Hamlet was not overcome by an animal fear or supernatural dread, as had been done;

but still more imbued with a filial and yearning tenderness. The tones of his voice, especially when he falls on his knees to the ghost, and cries out. "Father!" the expression of his face. and. above all. of his eye. embody this new and exquisite conception, and seem to me more affecting even than the fright of Garrick could have been, which Fielding says made all the spectators also fear. Booth makes them share, instead, his tenderness.""'

The duality of Badeau's commentary on Booth's playing of the ghost scene is unmistakable.

Aesthetically. Booth appears to forego traditional effects which display Hamlet's fear and dread of his father's apparition, effects which could display an actor's histrionic virtuosity and score approving points from the audience. Instead. Booth's focus seems to be on the psychological/emotional relationship with his dead fatlier. eliciting an empathie identification from the audience with the character. On another level. Badeau seems to imply recognition of the similarity between Hamlet and the Ghost and Booth with his own father. Junius

Brutus, whose death four years previous to this performance would doubtless still be in the audience's memory.

\VTiether Booth employed what Stanislavky would later term "Affective Memory"

cannot be known, but the perception of an actor identifying with, rather than performing a

role seems to win Badeau's favor. It is unknown as to whether Badeau was familiar with

Diderot's famous paradox, and while it seems that he would agree with Diderot's contention

Adam Badeau, The Vagabond 190.

83 that the ideal actor "plays it so well that you think he is the person,"^" it seems unlikely that he would agree, at least in his evaluation of Booth, that "great actors.. .are the least sensitive of all creatures.In a later essay. Badeau examines two approaches to acting based on his backstage observations of actors rehearsing their roles and preparing to perform. While he expresses admiration for those actors who can "[i]n the midst of my conversation. . .rush upon the stage, declaiming furiously, and if the scene was short, return and take up his last remark exactly where it had been discontinued." he confesses to "particular amazement" at

"the indifference of the actors to their parts." In contrast Badeau states he has

been with those who identified themselves with their parts. I have been shown to my box by Hamlet in all his trappings and suits of woe. and with all the courteous and princely demeanor that became the Dane. I have talked with Romeo in his dressingroom. when he could not and did not divest himself of his splendid manner or his intense feeling any more than of his doublet and hose’'. [. ..] and I have been with some of these geniuses who were excessively excited, as if by wine, for half the night, after the play. The immense tax upon nerve and brain, as well as the corporeal exertion necessarv' in the playing of great parts, of course makes them strangely unlike the rest of the worid.

He observes that "the palpable presence and influence of genius are not so felt as when it

works on the man [the actor] himself." and concludes by saying, "Nothing in life or art

strikes me as so wonderful."” While he eschewed the opaque conventions which he

’^Denis Diderot. The Paradox of Acting. Walter Herries Pollock, trans. (New York: Hill and Wang. 1957)20.

^‘Diderot 17-18.

”This article was written after Badeau had made his association with Booth, and these references are presumably to him. Badeau refers to Booth as both "Romeo" and "Hamlet" in his essay "A Night With The Booths" (The Vagabond 347-54).

” Badeau. "Behind the Scenes." The Vagabond 189-93.

84 identified with the style of Wallack and Forrest, Badeau valued an actor's study and preparation for his craft, interaction with other artists, and a psychologically close

identification with his roles which foregrounded the character rather than the actor. After

having seen all of Booth's performances at Burton’s Theatre, he was now ready for his

tutelage of the actor to begin.

On June 15, 1857, Badeau wrote a letter of introduction to Booth, enclosing his essay

about the actor and tragic acting. His opening paragraph leaves no doubt as to his estimation

of Booth’s position on the American stage:

At the risk of annoying you with my admiration, I cannot refrain from sending you a copy of what I have said (as the Vagabond) on the subject of Tragedy; and lest through modesty, you should possibly not appreciate the pertinency of the article, I desire most expressly to state that it has entire and direct reference to your performances. Not only was it suggested by them, but whatever I have said in praise of tragedy was written with an eye to your excellencies. The more I think of the series of plays in which you appeared in New York, the more I am convinced that I cannot be mistaken in regard to them. The impression they left is not at all obliterated, but quite as vivid today as on the morrow of any performance. There can be no surer test of genius, and you cannot but be gratified to receive this assurance from one familiar with all the best acting that has been in the country for years. I have studied carefully the genius of Rachel, of Grise, of Forrest, of Wallack, of Miss Hem, and I must say that there are portions and points in yours which have interested and fascinated me quite as permanently and as completely as either of those artists was able to do.^

Badeau states that since the end of Booth’s run in New York, he has pursued a course of

study which has been "altogether dramatic, or dramatico-historical," finding in his research

resemblances to Booth in descriptions of Garrick, Kean, and Siddons, and has "read every

scrap that I could find in print about you." He has studied Shakespeare in order ’’to recall

^Adam Badeau, letter to Edwin Booth, 15 June, 1857, The Players.

85 your look and tones in certain parts, and in others, pardon me. to fancy what you might have said, and done, and looked, and did not." Tempering his praise. Badeau delicately criticizes

Booth (recalling that the same objections were made of Kean) for his weaknesses in elocution, unevenness of conception, and fitfulness of performances. He urges Booth to emulate Miss Hem who is "studying diligently for next fall’s campaign." and promises that

such study will result in "no heights you may not attain, no distinction social or professional

which may not be yours." He offers to exhibit his earnestness "by serving you in any way

in my power." and encourages Booth to write him back to "assure me that you will not

neglect the marvellous [sic] powers with which nature has gifted you." The letter clearly had

an impact, for. as Badeau commented later, "at the end of a week he consented to spend

Sunday with me: and from that time dated a peculiar intimacy." The young critic and actor

spent "days as well as nights together. " during w hich Badeau

used to hunt up books and pictures about the stage, the finest criticisms, the works that illustrated his scenes, the biographies of great actors, and we studied them together. We visited the Astor Library and the Society Library to verify costumes, and every picture or picture-gallery in New York that was accessible.-'

In his introductory letter. Badeau recommends that Booth familiarize himself with

William Hazlitt. who would prove "of incalculable interest and circumstance to you" in his

series of criticisms of the performances of the elder Kean. As Shattuck concurs.’* Hazlitt's

description of Hamlet's character could aptly apply to Booth’s "perfected Hamlet’’’’:

’^Adam Badeau. "Edwin Booth. On and off the Stage. ” McClure’s Magazine. I (August 1893). 259. cited in Shattuck HEB 21-22.

’*Shattuck HEB 22.

86 It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can well be: but he is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility. [. . .] He seems incapable of deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion. [...] At other times, when he is most bound to act. he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and finds some pretense to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again.

He is. as it were, wrapped up in his reflections, and only thinhs aloud. There should be no attempt to impress what he says upon others by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or manner: no talking at his hearers. There should be as much of the gentleman and scholar as possible infused into his part, and as little of the actor. A pensive air of sadness should sit reluctantly upon his brow, but no appearance of fixed gloom. He is full of weakness and melancholy, but there is no harshness in his nature. He is the most amiable of misanthropes. '

While Shattuck cites this passage to demonstrate the emphasis of "quietude over more obvious theatrical excitements" which would typify Booth’s eventual portrayal of the role.

Hazlitt's inferred suggestions regarding the actor's stylistic approach are of primary interest here. His suggestion that there should be "as little of the actor" as possible in the portrayal follows the suggestion that the actor should play the dialogue, presumably referring to the soliloquies, as if he were "thinking aloud." While this should not be equated with fourth- wall naturalism, Hazlitt's suggestion logically prompts an actor to establish realistically motivated circumstances to justify long passages spoken while the character is alone on stage. Rather than using the dialogue to persuade an audience with the character's rhetorical

argument, or impress them with histrionic virtuosity. Hazlitt suggests that the text is the

expression of private thought, essentially exemplifying inner monologue. This is somewhat

- William Hazlitt, "Characters in Shakespear's Plays." The Complete Works. Centenary Edition, ed. P. P. Howe (London, 1930) IV. 232-237. in Shattuck HEB 22.

87 echoed in Badeau's observ ation that "the words first suggest the idea to which the player gives further utterance."'^

As a comparison, a review of the elder Booth's Richard HI twenty five years previously indicates that the performer and audience occupied a shared space, with little or no separation between the actual and fictive world. The performance took place at the

Bower}' Theatre in New York on November 25. 1832. to commemorate Evacuation Day, the anniversary of the British withdrawal from New York:

[Junius Brutus] Booth played in his best style, and was really anxious to make a hit, but the confusion incidental to such a crowd on the stage, occasioned constant and most humorous interruptions. [. . .] the gallery spectators amused themselves by throwing pennies and silver on the stage, which occasioned an immense scrambling among the boys, and they frequently ran between King Richard and Lady Anne to snatch a stray copper. In the tent scene, so solemn and impressive, several curious amateurs went up to the table, took up the crown, poised the heavy sword, and examined all the regalia with great care, while Richard was in agony from the terrible dream; and when the scene changed, discovering the ghosts of King Henrv’, Lady Anne, and children, it was difficult to select them from the crowd, w ho thrust their faces and persons among the royal shadows. The battle of Bosworth-field capped the climax — the audience mingled with tlie soldiers and raced across the stage, to the shouts of the people, the roll of the drums, and bellowing of the trumpets; and when the fight between Richard and Richmond came on, they made a ring round the combatants to see fair play, and kept them at it for nearly a quarter of an hour.”

While the incident may not have been typical, the reviewer concludes the article with no more startled comment than "It was a rare treat, indeed, to the audience." Edwin Booth recounted playing with his father in Brutus toward the end of the elder Booth's career.

^Badeau The Vagabond 291.

^^e w York Mirror 29 December 1832; 206.

88 During the last scene in which Edwin cradled his father's head for their final farewell, an audience member shouted a remark which distracted both actors and audience, however.

Raising his head from off my breast, my father, without lapsing from the stem Roman character of the judge, with a lightning glance toward the fellow, said: "Beware! I am the headsman!" It was like a thunder-shock! all in front and on the stage seemed paralyzed for a few moments, but the applause that followed lasted many minutes; the scene thenceforward proceed without interruption, and ended as it should end in tearful silence/'

Again, while perhaps not describing a typical theatrical experience, the context of Edwin's commentary is not intended to describe any irregularity in the audience/actor relationship, but to evince the great power he saw his father have over an audience. Apparently, the concept of breaking character is not defined by the act of direct address, therefore Hazlitt's notion of spoken interior monologue, later addressed by Stanislavky as "public solitude." is e.xceptional in its contrast.

Shattuck reports that George Sand’s Consuelo was among Badeau’s favorite novels.

Although his support for this claim is unclear, he asserts, "we may be sure that Badeau passed it on to Booth.'"" If this is true, the passage cited by Shattuck illustrates the shift in style through which Badeau was apparently guiding Booth. In the novel, the failed tenor

Anzoleto asks Consuelo. "What are my faults?" The heroine, having risen to the status of prima donna of the Venetian opera replies:

too much boldness, and not sufficient preparation: an energy more feverish than sustained: dramatic effects, which are the work of the will rather than emotion. You were not imbued with the feeling of your part as a whole. You

■^Stephen M. Archer, Junius Brutus Booth: Theatrical Prometheus (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992) 236.

■"Shattuck HEB 24.

89 learned it by fragments. You saw in it only a succession of pieces more or less brilliant, and you did not seize either the gradation, or the development, or the aggregate. In your anxiety to display your fine voice and the facility which you possess in certain respects, you exhibit the whole extent of your powers almost on your entrance upon the scene. On the slightest opportunity you endeavored after effect, and all your effects were alike. [...] They did not see the artist inspired by passion, but the actor laboring for success.'^'

This typifies two aspects that would become constants in critical response to Booth's pre-war performances, reinforced under Badeau s tutorial. First is the ability of the actor to conceive his role as a unified whole, and second is the creation of a character seemingly independent from the personality of the actor. Badeau deems this transformational ability as a "mystery to me," and proclaims that "this marvellous [sic] inspiration that comes down on a man as suddenly and strangely and unaccountably to the actor as to the audience—that transfigures him before your face, like Rachel in "Polyeucte" or young Booth in "Richelieu"—this surpasses in strangeness any other gift vouchsafed to the race. "

In a letter to Booth while the actor was touring, Badeau relates that he "went to see a new tragedian tlte other night in Hamlet," even though he was unwilling to do so because he felt it might "disturb my recollections of your playing." However, feeling it his "duty as a critic to go," Badeau saw a Mr. Sullivan, whom he liked and describes as a "quiet,

scholarly, tasteful, intellectual actor; but has no passion or genius." WTiile Badeau found him

"very interesting," he ultimately dismisses him due to the actor being "so aware of his

points.Even though the actor’s personality ostensibly fit the character of the mourning

■‘‘George Sand, Consuelo, Chapter XIX, in Shattuck HEB 24.

‘ Badeau, "Behind the Scenes" The Vagabond 192.

44 Adam Badeau, letter to Edwin Booth, 24 November 1858, The Players.

90 prince. Badeau continues to instill in Booth the sublimation of the character over the actor, dismissing Sullivan's performance even though he was "very well spoken of next day in the papers."

In the same letter. Badeau tells Booth, "if you were half as anxious for vour success as 1 am. you'd be the greatest actor that I can imagine, before you knew it yourself. In the fourteen months since Badeau s introductory letter, the two had firmly established themselves as mentor and pupil, maintaining a lively correspondence when they were not near each other.'*'’ Badeau reinforces the relationship by teasing:

■*’An indication of Booth's fame is found in an amusing article recounting a scam in Mansfield. Ohio perpetrated by a man claiming to be the "Agent and Dresser' of EDWTN BOOTH, the celebrated tragedian. " Checking himself into the Phoenix Hotel, he was soon surrounded by a local entourage, who "treated him with the utmost civility and hospitality—escorted him through the city—pointed out to him the residences of our prominent citizens-talked of a public dinner-and vied with each other in doing the agreeable." Broadsheets were circulated through town announcing. "MR. BOOTH, who is en route for Cincinnati to fulfill an engagement, and being requested by several citizens of this place, to give them an Entertainment by way of Reading and Recitations, will entertain them for ONE NIGHT ONLY, by reading Shakspeare's Play of JULIUS CAESAR In a style that will meet the approbation of the Clergy. Teacher and Scholar, he will also read the LORD'S PRAYER and St. PAUL'S DEFENCE BEFORE KING AGRIPPA, in which his father was so famous in by-gone days. Admission 25 cents. Doors open at 7. to commence at S o'clock." On the evening of performance, "[t]he rush in the vicinity of the hall became quite enlivening, and the prospects for a full house grew decidedly flattering. The crowd grew clamorous for the opening of the hall." After much delay, inquiries were made, and it was discovered that, "The agent, during the "noise and confusion" deemed it prudent to vamose, forgetting to pay his board bill and several other etceteras contracted for in numerous drinking saloons." - [R. Brinkerhoff, "BOOTHENIAN ENTERTAINMENT-A SELL," editorial, Mansfield, Ohio Herald. 28 April 1858, in Booth's souvenir "Journal Book No. 2," The Players.] Clearly, Booth's fame was sufficient to cause a stir even in this remote Ohio commuai tv.

■**In a letter to Booth dated 7 October 1858, Badeau mentions, "I read some fifty of your letters the other day (I've got them all)." The Players.

91 I sometimes flatter myself that I have an influence with you that will not be for bad. in your career; I know I try to excite such [?] in one; but I suppose the minute I leave you, you forget all you say to me, and mingle [?] mostly with course people, don't go to see Mt. Auburn or statues or pictures, and forget to pack up libraries and all that.

This comment typifies Badeau s educational process for Booth, introducing the young actor

to books, museums, artists and galleries, aligning him with "newest modes of thought and

feeling."^ His entre, largely through Badeau, into the studios of artist friends such as

Eastman Johnson, Thomas Hicks, Emanuel Leutze, Launt Thompson, Jervis McEntee, Albert

Bierstadt, Frederick Church and Sandford Gifford'^'' provided Booth the opportunity to view

works of the avant-garde naturalist painters and sculptors of East coast genteel culture, as

well as observe their modes and methods of creation. In a joking letter to his friend Emma

Car/, Booth reveals his relationship to his characters and hints at the influence he has felt

from his studio artist friends;

I believe you understand how completely I "ain't here" most of the time. It's an awful thing to be somebody else all the time. But I guess I'm better off than many of my artist friends, some of whom (if they are as much in their art as I am) must be bears and owls; others, trees and rocks, while my Gifford and Bierstadt must lose all sense of being save in the painted ripple of a lake, or the peak of a snow-capped mountain.'*''

This letter indicates that Booth has fully embraced Badeau s valorized "transfiguration,"

wherein the actor "must lose all sense of being" through his identification with the role. It

^'Shattuck HEB 24,

^'^Correspondence between these artists and Booth are in the collection of The Players.

■“'Edwin Booth, letter to Miss Emma F, Cary, 10 January 1865, in Grossman Edwin Booth: Recollections by his Daughter (New York: The Century Co, 1902 ) 168,

92 is important to note that Booth uses the term "be" somebody else, rather than "act" somebody else, suggesting a mode of acting which, relative to the style of the day, is natural and experiential rather than performative. Despite Badeau s "Peccavi" it would appear that

Booth had also "leaned toward realism."

Critical reception from this period seems to reflect Booth's move toward a Realist

approach. An article from a Richmond, Virginia newspaper states;

Mr. Booth takes his departure from among us with the warmest wishes of our community for his permanent success and prosperity.-His career hereafter depends solely upon himself. If discretion guides his footsteps, a future of brilliant promise awaits him. naturally, he is endowed with rare gifts; and his professional qualifications are second to none. His enunciation is clear, distinct and musical; his gestures are easy, graceful and natural: and his entire styie is that of an actor who has not only the skill to delineate but the intellect to appreciate the great conceptions he is so often called on to represent.'*^

It is impossible to qualify the unknown writer's use of "natural" in describing Booth,

particularly when he or she includes, "He appears to-night as Richard HI: a role in which the

elder Booth won great reputation, and which is always referred to as the standard by which

to determine the claims of all who attempt the character. The young tragedian personates it

admirably. He will, we doubt not. worthily wear the laurels so gallantly won." Whether the

writer feels that the younger Booth’s Richard is personated admirably because it resembles

the "standard" set by his father is unclear, however the twenty-four year old actor's blending

of skill and intellect was sufficiently successful to impress the writer with his delineation of

the tyrant kins.

N ew spaper article labeled "Richmond, 1858," in Booth’s souvenir "Journal Book No. 2" The Players.

93 Another Richmond article attests to the popularity of the young actor by saying he is

"nightly filling the Marshall [T]heatre with the most appreciative and fashionable audiences," and continues by indicating that Booth's performances evinced an approach which was both popular and unprecedented:

We consider him one of the finest performers now on the American stage, having an originality of conception which is not often perceivable in actors. We are pleased to see that he meets with that encouragement which is due to true genius."'

A Boston columnist of the period presented "an admirable portrait of this gifted and rapidly rising tragedian" commending Booth for his personal modesty and agreeing with the

New York critics in their estimation of his talent. Booth is again associated with another actor, but this time it is not his father with whom he is paired:

Genius is ever aspiring—ever aiming at new conquests. It never rests satisfied with its own achievements. [...] Mr. Edwin Booth and Miss Matilda Heron are prominently before the public at a fortunate period, for earnest and high- toned men are now advocating the stage and rallying the good and truthful to its support."-

The linkage of the two actors is interesting, particularly since none of Booth's portrayals had caused the scandal associated with Heron's "unchaste Camille,"” and seems incongruous of the normally conservative Boston press to use as an example to rally the "good and truthful,"

If it is not the perception of the two actors' morality which causes their bond, it is perhaps found in a similarity of their styles. Garff B. Wilson characterizes Heron as an actress in

51 3 March, 1858, in Booth's souvenir "Journal Book No. 2," The Players.

"-"Edwin Booth Tragedian, " newspaper clipping labeled "Boston," 20 June 1858, in Booth's souvenir "Journal Book No. 2" The Players.

53The' Spirit of the Times, 23 May 1874.

94 whom "the representation of these feelings became realistic and naturalistic. Instead of refining or sentimentalizing their emotional exhibitions, the later actresses reproduced the overt manifestations of passion in detail and with clinical accuracy." He characterizes her

Camille as displaying "visceral emotions of sexual love and physical suffering." and tlie actress "portrayed physical and clinical reactions which were rarely if ever exhibited on the stage of that period."^ Badeau. in addition to the previously mentioned comparison to

Booth, remarks that her Camille caused him "a wrenching and tightening of emotions" which

made criticism impossible due

first of all [to] her naturalness. This first demands applause from the most discerning critic, and ends by provoking cavils. [. . .] Surely naturalness cannot be decried. And yet this is not only her great peculiarity, it is. perhaps, her fault. She is absolutely too natural. She portrays a character exactly as it is. not without one touch of grace not its own. but with every touch of awkwardness belonging to it. She not only adds nothing, but subtracts nothing.-’’

Nothing in journalistic criticism of the period indicates that Booth realized this level of

naturalism, and it would be inconceivable to imagine it given Badeau s influence and his

estimation of Heron's style, but the pairing of the two actors in the Boston critics'

commentary indicates the perception of stylistic similarity between the two.

Badeau s and Booth's relationship began to wane coincidental to Booth's meeting and

eventual engagement to Mary Devlin in 1859. Preceding the engagement. Badeau "fixed on

Booth[.. .]a downright sexual possessiveness." which, as expressed in his letters. Shattuck

^Wilson 122-24.

■^Adam Badeau, in Victorian Actors and Actresses in Review. Donald Mullin, ed., (Westport: Greenwood Press. 1983) 242-43.

95 finds "make troublesome reading."^'’ Gene Smith refers to Badeau as "sexless or asexual or homosexual,"^ William S. McFeely as "probably homosexual, and in a world that accorded him limited license to express himself,"'^ and William Winter av oids any mention of Badeau in his Life and Art of Edwin Booth. From his letters to Booth, it is clear that Badeau was infatuated with the actor, often complimenting him on his beauty."’ expressing jealousy over his acquaintances,"*’ and, given accepted standards, making pointed homosexual jokes."'

How much Booth reciprocated in this relationship is unknown from the extant letters, however there are some indications from Badeau that Booth's friendship may have been more than platonic:

Don’t you taunt me so with the Badeau fever Sir, its quite bad enough to have it without being ridiculed, especially by you. To be sure, you have done your best to cure me. Perhaps you think to laugh me out of it. I don’t know but that my case is improving; as you say: "a load has oppressed my mind for

'"Shattuck HEB 28.

' Gene Smith, .American Gothic (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992) 67.

'"McFeely 497.

"‘’"I vvas talking with a man who drove me around the place yesterday: we passed the theatre; I asked who played here, and who drew best. Booth draws better than any one comes here. Sir.' He wanted to know if I'd ever seen him. I thought I had, once or twice, wasn’t he good looking'? 'Oh! Yes Sir. that’s the man. " - Adam Badeau, letter to Edwin Booth, "Richmond" 15 August 1858 [?], The Players.

"*’"I have a champagne supper dependent on a bet, which you are to decide. Binsie tells me he saw you walking with Briggy the actor; (arm in arm I think.) while you were last in New York. I was sure you did not walk with him. WTiich was right?" - Adam Badeau, letter to Edwin Booth, 24 November 1858, The Players.

"'"So the fellows have gone mad about you in Charleston, not the women; complimentary truly: that's what you get for being so handsome! Wouldn’t you be in demand in Turkey?" - Adam Badeau, letter to Edwin Booth, "New York" 14 April 1858 [?], The Players.

96 (nearly two) years," but of late I don’t think the fits have been so severe, haven't my letters indicated as much for about two weeks past? Its five months tomorrow since I've seen you, that ought to allow one's effervescence to subside, don't you think so? Only you know there are some feelings in your nature, that get rampant [?] when long deprived of their natural meat. I am, however very calm."'

Badeau would include titillating hints in his published articles about his own sexuality and his relationship with Buulli;

Everv once in a while I get a letter directed to "The Vagabond" — sometimes graceful, sometimes flattering, sometimes caustic, sometimes saucy, always piquant. Somebody who read my enthusiastic praise of young Booth's beauty, was sure it was written by a woman; but you couldn't persuade my fair correspondents of this. Do you think they'd waste thoughts and paper on one of their own sex?"'

His article. "A Night With the Booths," recounting an evening spent with the young actor at the abandoned Booth homestead Tudor Hall, is peppered with intriguing innuendo:

We talked away long after our candles had burned out; previous to which I induced Hamlet to read me some funny stories, and when he got tired of reading, to tell me more; so I fell into a doze, with his voice ringing in my ears; and he may tell of having put one auditor to sleep by his monotonous deliver)'. I warrant you. some of his fair admirers would not have slept, so long as he talked, and doubtless they envy me my snooze on his arm. But twas dark, and I couldn't see his eves; besides. I had seen them all dav."^

"'Adam Badeau. letter to Edwin Booth. "New York" 14 April, 1858 [?]. The Players.

"^Badeau "Unknown Correspondents." The Vagabond 166.

"^Badeau, The Vagabond 352.

97 Despite Booth's increasing irritation at Badeau s infatuation,'’’ they continued their

relationship. Badeau consented to help "educate" the young Mary Devlin before their

marriage, was best man at their wedding, and was even invited to Niagara Fails to share the couple's honevTOOon. Although Badeau and Booth's relationship was cooled by a quaiTel in

the mid 1860s. and Badeaus militarv’ career (and infatuation with a young Union soldier)

found them occupying different social worlds, by the late 1870s their friendship was

renewed, and Badeau wrote paeans to Booth following the actor's death in both published

articles and private letters. Although Shattuck questions why Booth would "put up with such

nonsense," he concedes that he did, "and we must adjust our preconception of his character

enough to include that fact."'’'’ Regardless of what the details of their relationship may have

been. Booth's tutelage was soon to be taken over by another.

Mary Devlin was bom May 19. 1840, in Sand Lake, New York, moving with her

family to Troy. New York, in 1848. Her professional stage debut was made in the autumn

of 1853 in a production of The School for Scandal with the Placides. Murdock, Wallack and

Jefferson. Two years later, in 1855. she made her New York debut, and in September of that

year began an association with Joseph Jefferson by joining Henry Jarrett's Baltimore

Museum stock company, which Jefferson managed. The following year, she continued her

connection with Jefferson by joining John Ford's Marshall Theatre stock company ( for which

'’’Several exchanges in their letters indicate a strain in the relationship. See, particularly. Booth's letter to Badeau in which Booth assumes Badeau would have destroyed his letters due to their content, Edwin Booth, letter to Adam Badeau, 27 December 1861, The Players.

'’^Shattuck HEB 29.

98 Jefferson was stage manager) in Richmond. In the meantime, she had performed with Edwin

Forrest and Dion Boucicault in Washington and Richmond, respectively. Her first

appearance with Edwin Booth would be in Richmond, from November 24 through December

12 .1856. She would appear four more times with Booth, as well as further appearances with

Forrest. Charlotte Cushman (in her "farewell" tour ofApnl 26 through May S in Baltimore.

May 31 through June 12 in Boston, and June 21 through July 6, 1859. in New York), before

her retirement from the stage following her engagement to Booth in July of 1859.

Immediately following her engagement. Mary Devlin began a year of seclusion and study,

at Booth's prompting, in Hoboken. New Jersey, and the two were married July 7. 1860. She

accompanied Booth to England for his first foreign tour on .August 20. 1861. and gave birth

to their daughter Edwina in London on December 9 of that year. The family returned to the

United States on August 28. 1862. and Mary Devlin Booth died in Dorchester. Massachusetts

on February 21. 1863."

Mary Devlin Booth's influence on Edwin Booth, personally and professionally, is

recognized "by scholars of late nineteenth century' American theatre history ' and in "[a|ll

modem biographies of E[dwin] B[ooth].""''* Her extant letters and notebooks"'^ reveal

glimpses into Booth's personality and career, and also indicate a growing sense on her part

" Terry L. Oggel. ed.. The Letters and Notebooks of Marv Devlin Booth (Westport: Greenwood Press. 1987) ix-x.

"**Oggel. Letters xiv.

"'^Oggel calculates that of the "nearly 900 letters and three notebooks" Mary Devlin Booth wrote, only "87 letters, less than one-tenth, and two brief, unfinished notebooks" survive. (Letters xvi).

99 of the role she should adopt in guiding his development. As Oggel points out, "That she was herself an actress of considerable e.xperience and that her association with EB occurred during the formative period of his career only enhance her importance." " Shattuck credits

Mary Devlin with being a primary force, along with Badeau. on Edwin’s "Actor's Education" who "[f]er\ently and selflessly. . .devoted herself to the cause of Booth's art and well­ being." ' He notes Mar\ 's increasing influence on Booth, and her gradual weaning away

from him of Badeau s company and tutelage. William Winter, in his idyllic biography of

Booth published the year of the actor's death, concludes his account of the couple's short

marriage with the information that "[h]er grave is at Mount .Auburn, and there — after thirty

years — her idolised husband reposes beside her." Just in case the reader has not

comprehended her influence on him and his devotion to her. Winter makes the argument

more pointedly by reminding the reader of Booth's devotion to his first wife even after

remarrying; "Long after her death, and after his second marriage, her husband placed a

memorial window, of her sake, in the Berkeley Memorial church, near Boothden.' at

Newport." *

"Letters xiv.

’Shattuck. HEB 31.

^William Winter, Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: MacMillan and Co.) 24.

100 Although Booth wrote on the packet of her letters to him, "Dear, dear Soul! I was unworthy so much goodness," ' it can be presumed that he felt fumre generations were unworthy of so much private communication. .As Oggel explains:

Since she pre-deceased EB by many years, all of her letters to him came into his possession; as for her other letters, following her death recipients returned them to EB as a courtesy. Of all these letters. EB rather systematically preserved scveral-oncs which he wished postent)’ to read--and he even annotated a few. He then destroyed the rest, in keeping with the convention of the age. ^

Since none of Booth’s letters to her survive, presumably also destroyed by Booth following her death, this scant epistolary record of their relationship results in the "twentieth century read[ing] only what the nineteenth has consciously allowed it to read." '' However, enough evidence survives to indicate Mary's influence on the young actor in his first flush of national and international recognition, a growing sense of his significance as an artist and as a svmbol of American nationalism, and a decided preference for an acting style at odds with existing popular taste.

In her first extant letter to Booth, written from Buffalo in June. 1859. Mary writes.

Last night I saw for the first time, (and I hope the last) ’Histrionic acting’, such ranting, and tearing, it has never been my misfortune to behold. How you can act, surrounded by such people, is more than I can answer.

”’Ms. note in Booth’s handwriting on collection of letters from Mary Devlin, The Players.

■*Oggel. Letters xvi.

'Oggel, Letters xvi.

^Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, June 1859, The Players.

101 She does not specify what company or production she witnessed, only later in the letter indicating that she was enjoying a "pleasure tour" of the Niagara area at the entreaty of

Joseph Jefferson before joining Mrs. Jefferson the following Saturday in a performance for

Jefferson's benefit. Although the m ention is brief, it is interesting to note that this "Histrionic acting" style was one which Mary, by this time a fairly experienced young actress, had not previously witnessed, particularly in light of the fact that she had performed with Forrest, an actor renowned for his roaring style. It was presumably a local stock company in Buffalo, since her wonder at how Booth could act "surrounded by such people" doubtless refers to his planned booking in Buffalo the following October. In this brief critique, she evidences her distaste for an overt acting style and clearly sides herself as an adherent to the quieter, or at

least less flamboyant acting apparently being developed by the 23 year old Booth.

Her next letter to Booth, written shortly after their engagement in July, 1859. bears evidence of Mary’s determination to assist Booth in fulfilling the prophecy of professional

success which had already been speculated:

I am so happy to day, dear Edwin, and I begin to realize, fully, the indescribable joy, and intense happiness, you in your love and goodness, have bestowed upon me,--ah, I shall so study to deserve it—by giving my whole thoughts, and heart and soul into your loved keeping, my confidence in you, assures me that they will be well guarded and never abused. God bless you, my future ambition, will be to see you, great, and good, and if, devotion of mind, and intellect, but what is still more influencing and absorbing,— affection—can accomplish it you shall be everything, that the world has predicted.

Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth. 17 July 1859, letter 4 of Letters and Notebooks of Marv Devlin Booth, ed. L. Terrv Oggel (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987)5.

102 The following month, shortly after Mar%' had begun her year-long "study" in

Hoboken, she begins to demonstrate practical ways in which her influence on Booth's performances may take effect:

Yesterday I visited the "Dussoldorff Gealler>'" [sic] of Paintings, and found so much to admire one painting especially "Othello"— y o u may have seen it— that which struck me most particularly was the dress, the details I impressed upon mv memor,, that I miaht succest them to vou darlina, when you are preparing to act the part.

Later in the same letter, she worries over Booth's playing schedule for a slated run of Richard ffl in Philadelphia:

I have been thinking seriously, since leaving you. that 'twill be too much for you to play Richard, every night, & sure you will get exhausted, and worn completely down.

While obviously helpful and loving in tone and intent, there is something more to these comments. In them, she begins to take an active role in Booth's preparation for the part of

Othello and in the scheduling of his Richard. Her comment regarding the Othello painting is of particular interest as it begins to supplant Booth's tutelage under Badeau. who had suggested, as part of the young actor's training, that he visit picture galleries in order to study the details of costuming and character for historical authenticity. As will be seen later. Mary consciously strove and eventually succeeded in replacing Badeau as "chief council" to Booth.

The following week, in her letter of August 24. 1869, Mary begins a theme which

will recur throughout her extant correspondence, in which she distinguishes the public from

the private Booth. In veiled sexual reference, owing, no doubt, to conventions of the day

’^A public picture gallery located at 548 Broadway.

^'Wary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth. 16 August 1859, The Players.

103 (naturally, more graphic references may have been made, but have been lost or were destroyed), she claims the private Booth for herself:

I picture to myself, a great-armed-chair you sitting in it—with your great meer chaum’—and me your 'little wife’ upon your knew [sic]—reading, or singing, something pleasing to you:-then. the foot-lights will fade, the cares of your profession be forgotten—and the 'great artist —become a man! Ah Edwin, I shall so strive to make you happy—I love you too fondly, to do aught else— and if I succeed, "mine the joy-" mine the bliss." In the night-when no one sees, or can read our souls, save He who joined them—you will tell to me, your heart's sad story of the past: I will kiss your pale cheek-dearer to me. for the trouble that has robbed it of its hue—and persuade you into forgetfulness.

This last comment is particularly interesting, in that it raises questions regarding what Booth

may have shared with Mary about his past, and what he may have found so troubling about

it. This is a repeated reference in her letters to him, although no specifics are mentioned.

Given her following comment, which follows immediately from the previous segment, it is

likely that Booth had discussed his relationship with his father, notorious for his

undemonstrative relationship with Edwin:

Edwin, I am often inclined to believe in, 'Spiritualism' not in the same way fanatics do, but—HI tell you how I mean,—I feel,—frequently when alone thinking of you-that your father's spirit-, speaks to me, and gives me to see the true nature of his son..

If Edwin had expressed regret over his relationship with the senior Booth, or doubt that he

had found favor in his father's eyes after his years of service to the older actor on his tours,

this is precisely the kind of information which would appeal to the young actor's sense of loss

and estrangement. Mary Devlin presents herself as having been tacitly approved by the elder

Booth bv means of his communication to her, therebv becoming valuable to Edwin as a

“ Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 24[?] August 1859, letter 9 in Oggel Letters, Oggel 11,

104 conduit for his father. Furthermore, she is able to relay the father's approval which had been withheld in his lifetime to the son for whom it was seemingly imperative to receive. She is careful to separate herself from the Spiritualism "fanatics" who were beginning to create a stir among fashionable society in America and Europe, although it may have been her mention of this which abetted Edwin’s involvement in the Spiritualist movement for nearly ten years following her death.Mary's reporting of this communication with the elder Booth may have strengthened her position as advisor to the younger Booth, since it leant her credibility to comment on his acting far beyond her years or e.xperience.

Booth frequently mentions several visits to different mediums in an attempt to contact both Mary and his father after Mary's death. His letters to Joseph Jefferson (a fellow devotee of Spiritualists), Emma Cary, and Badeau mention repeated visits to mediums and instances of contact from her. In a letter to Badeau written two weeks after her death, March 3, 1S63, Booth first mentions his desire for contact: I do need some sign from her, some little breath of wind, nothing more, whispering comfortable words of her. Didn't you tell me once that you saw me standing near you when I was in reality far away? I'll tell you what happened to me two nights before Mary left me. I was in New York, in bed; it was about two in the morning. I was awake: 1 felt a strange puff of air strike my right cheek twice; it startled me so that I was thoroughly aroused. I turned in bed, when I felt the same on the left cheek—two puffs of wind—ghost-kisses, I lay awake wondering what it could mean, when I distinctly heard these words. "Come to me. darling: I am almost frozen." as plainly as I hear this pen scratching over the paper. It made a strange impression on me. the voice was so sad and imploring. When I was in the cars on my way hither, little dreaming that she was so seriously ill. I saw. every time I looked from the car window, Mary dead, with a white cloth tied around her head and chin. [,..] My mother says she saw my father standing by her bedside twice during the first month of his decease; she declared she was awake, and saw him; but he vanished before she had time to speak to him, I. who have ever laughed at such things, now feel mystified, and half believe that such things may be. Surely they can do no harm; for if Mary should come to me. I feel that my soul would become purified. (Edwin Booth, letter to Adam Badeau. 3 March 1863 [The Players] ).

105 In her letter to Booth of September 15.1859. Mary reiterates the division between the artist and the "man," sharing the former with appreciative crowds and claiming the latter for herself. She does not. however, separate herself from Booth's theatrical self, including

herself in that "higher sphere" of Music and Poetry where she feels God has chosen her to

nurture the "divine spark" given to her future husband:

I shall never grow weaiy either of loving and serving you;—in the day, when absent from me think of the heart all yours waiting the approach of your footstep, and with sincere joy clasp your neck;—and at night, when thousands of eyes, look upon you in admiration—my heart will beat faster still-for the felicity will be mine, to take to my breast and calm the, weary Artiste— '.Artiste' no longer-but man. [...] Edwin darling—we must ever dwell above the thunder'.-treading beneath our feet, the black clouds of dissension.-You are too great, ere to descend to discord—I have too high an appreciation of the divine spark'—God has gifted you with and which you entrust to my care— e\ er, to cause you to seek another sphere, from your natural one-where Music, and Poetry—together with your little wife-wili endeavour by her devotion, to make it a charmed one.^'

During her year's seclusion of "study" in preparation to marry Booth, Mary was

frequently visited by Adam Badeau who played the role of confidant, tutor, and fellow

admirer of Edwin Booth. First mentioning Badeau in her letter to Booth of September 21,

1859, Mary discretely acknowledges Badeau s affection for Booth while asserting that his

"friendship" must now be filtered through her own more intimate claim on him:

The door has but closed upon you, and I have hastened to my room to write, what, Mr. Badeau s presence forbade me speaking. .As I anticipated he talked to me seriously and without reserve, but with so much kindness, that I opened my whole heart to him at once.

He has made me feel darling, more truly the responsibility of the precious life and heart, entrusted to mv care,—and gave me advice which shall never

^‘Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 15[?] September 1859, letter 12 in Oggel Letters 13-14.

106 be forgotten or neglected by me: and in the happy, blissful, time to come, when that life' shall be mine forever, his love for you, will I hope be only more closely cemented, by the knoledge [sic] that there is another heart, beating in unison with yours, to whom, his ever)' look, and action for you, will be doubly dear. He like myself, would see you, great and glorious, and with his friendship, my devoted love, added to your own noble soul, twill be happiness unspeakable.

Mary continues the letter by reminding Booth of his past, possibly referring to his venereal disease and her implicit forgiveness of his youthful waywardness. Rather than scold Booth for his coldness, as does Badeau in frequent letters, she purports to understand it is only a facade hiding an interior "goodness." Further, she delicately compares her lack of formal education with the impressive academic credentials of Badeau, reminding Booth of her practical, albeit abandoned, e.xperience on the stage and offering her insight to his service:

Edwin dear, forget your past life, which has taught you, a sad, but withal a useful lesson, and in my bosom, every throb of which, beats for you, find that joy, and repose, that your nature requires—

I know your every feeling and the abundence [sic] of goodness, hidden beneath your seemingly cold exterior.

Everything will I study to charm, and interest you, and although a brilliant education, has never fallen to my lot, I am sufficiently well informed, to appreciate the good, and beautiful—the rest will come, I doubt not. Forget if possible, as I shall that the Stage, ever claimed me as its votary,—and any love I may have had for the Art I transfer to vou—where I shall see my favorite authors made greater by your genious [sic] and talents.*^

Although having already retired from the stage in order to devote herself to Booth,

on October 7,1859, Mary offers him professional business advice regarding the continuation

of his run in the face of lackluster box office sales:

'^^Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 21 September 1859, letter 14 in Oggel Letters 13- 14.

107 Has your business, improved any~I would not play, if I were you—the second week, unless it payed' [sic]. How cheerless and dull it, must be there, those lake cities,^ in the fall season are ever so;-then if the company who support you, are not good, and the audiences slim, you cannot surely feel very happy— never mind Edwin darling—after this season, you shall never have an unhappy moment, if I can prevent it.'"

In her letter to Booth written October 11, 1859, Mary begins to capitalize on Booth's growing annoyance with Badeau's sycophancy. Her reference to Badeau s homosexuality and his attraction to Booth is unmistakable, and she adds a warning that the men's relationship must be altered by Booth:

You must continue to write me of all the pleasant times you have and I enjoy reading them almost as much as if were there. Mr. Bader's [sic] visit will doubtless place some restraint upon you'^^-what a pity he is not like other men—then his friendship would ever be w elcome to you,-you must tutor him, or he will continue through life an intolerable bore—a second Boswell—I fancy that is what he most desires to be.'"

In a second letter written on the same day. Mary mention’s Booth's feeling of estrangement, perhaps a depression which seems to have been a predominant characteristic throughout his life, and equates her companionship to him with a divinely mandated mission to lead him to professional success and personal happiness:

This morning in my walk —I was thinking of the strange being God had given me, to influence and cherish! for you have ever seemed to me like, what Shelly [sic] says of himself—a phantom among men'—"companionless as the

'"Booth performed in Buffalo October 3-14, 1859 at the Metropolitan Theatre.

"^Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 7 October 1859, The Players.

*^Booth performed in Boston October I7-November 12, 1859 at the Howard Athenaeum. Adam Badeau ("Mr. Bader") had planned visiting Booth during his run there.

**'Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 11 October 1859, letter 17 in Oggel Letters 18.

108 last fading storm”—and yet my spirit ever seems lighter, and more joyous when with you—this I can only account for by beleiving [sic] that a mission has been given me to fulfil, and that I shall be rewarded by seeing you rise to be great and happy.^'*

In a letter to Booth written October 13. 1859. Mary Devlin first mentions the impending conflict of the Civil War by joking. "I have written an innumerable quantity [of letters]--! should not be surprised if the postmaster, attributed such a furious correspondence to a conspiracy against the State." .A.s tensions mounted and the war eventually began, it became a recurring reference in her letters, reaching particular significance during Booth's tour of England and Europe in 1861 -62. Her letter continues and toward the end of it. Mary effectively insinuates herself as the replacement "tutor" for Badeau and offers another glimpse into Booth's personality:

You are engaged with studying 'Shake' and have not I presume, opened your french [sic] books-when we are together. I shall not allow them to be neglected. When writing you last evening, the servant was waiting so impatiently for tlie letter-that I was annoyed—and have thought since that I made in it. a wrong quotation: it has worried me ever since—and as I do not wish you to accuse me of negligence. I will correct it here,—"Companionless as the last cloud of the expiring storm—whose thunder is its knell"—did I write it so? I cannot remember. This I said you ever seemed to me!—let me hope to be the sunshine, to follow so close, as to cause all traces of the recent darkness to pass away.^'^

Politics would again enter Mary Devlin's letters after John Wilkes decided to temporarily join the Virginia militia on November 11 to guard against attempts upon the life of John Brown after his capture and incarceration:

’**Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth. 11 October 1859, letter 18 in Oggel Letters 19.

“‘’Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 13 October 1859, letter 19 in Oggel Letters 20.

109 Your news regarding the mad step. John has taken—I confess did not surprise me—if you remember, I told you I thought he would seize the opportunity'. Tis a great pity he has not more sense-but time will teach him— although I fear the discipline is hardly severe enough to sicken him immediately with a "soldier's life." I hope nothing serious will occur there, for that would frighten your mother so-and you being absent too.

While aligning herself politically with Edwin. Mary immediately follows by reinforcing her artistic alignment as well. commenting on the remarkable "sympathy" between the two of them in their simultaneous discovery of "the play of Taylor's.” presumably The Fool's

Revenge, which would become a favorite for both Booth and his audiences.'^’

Mary begins a letter written in December, 1859. rather disingenuously by stating her preference for "little 'rustic' poems" wherein "innocence and love make up the sentiment." hoping to "never cultivate a taste for" the classics, which she leaves to Booth. The pretense. while perhaps charming, is absurd in light of the breadth of her reading mentioned in her letters, much of which she recommends or distills for Booth's use. However, her choice of

"rustic poems" over the classics does sen. e to place her in a favorable comparison to Badeau. steeped as he was in the classics and aesthetic philosophy. Whether conscious or not, her mention of Booth's rather malicious "gift" to Badeau follows directly after the preceding self- deprecation:

How indignant Mr. Badeau will be at the receipt of the firuit-card you sent him—I laughed heartily at the drollness, of the idea; he has not been to see me yet. nor do I expect him, while this cold weathe [sic] lasts.

“^Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 28 November 1859, letter 21 Oggel of Letters 22.

110 Without knowing the precise reference in Booth's letter to her. it is impossible to discern the exact meaning of the "fruit-card" or the nature of the gift, however it seems plausible it is a reference to Marx's observation that Badeau is "not like other men."

Mary ends this letter by again stating her commitment to Booth in his personal and

professional life, and suggests that the two of them are. in fact, linked and affected by her:

I do not dare to pause alone, upon the responsbilities [sic] of the Artist's, and "Man of Genius's wife "—that is a task I am unequal for—but you have given me your tenderest love, and that will strengthen me to make your home circle' at least a charmed one and that will serve to brighten perhaps the higher sphere'.'”

In a letter written December 16. 1859. Mary begins by acknowledging Badeau s

continued connection with Booth, but subtly shifts to place herself in a position of equal, if

not superior, intellectual force with him. There is an indication in her tone that some care

must be taken in her treatment of Badeau. as his friendship and influence over Booth was still

present:

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Badeau called and stayed with me three or four hours, during which time you were never once named of course.

He told me of the alteration he has made in the denuement' [sic] of the 'Fool's Revenge'. I think it might be effective. Why have you never proposed to him the writing of a play, I fancy he has the ambition to do so—I am not so sure about the talent though. He is a good fellow-how that term would schock [sic] him—and a true friend of yours—I had almost begun to think he had forgotten you by not calling to see me. I took advantage of the opportunity to let him see I was not the child' he thought me, told him my knowledge of some of your strange susceptabelities [sic], which rather startled him, I think; he has promised to come soon again.*’’

*”Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, December 1859. letter 22 in Oggel Letters 23-24.

''"Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 16 December 1859, The Players.

I l l On December 28. 1859. Mar\ wrote Booth during his brief stopover tour in

Montgomery-. .Alabama. The engaged couple obviously continued to keep tabs on John

Wilkes' activities, for Mary "grieve[s] for John’s trouble—foolish boy. what can he be thinking of-talk to him Edwin seriouslv. before he destroys his youth." Immediately following. Mary once again characterized Badeau s "inappropriate" affection for Booth. however the tone gradually changes from warning to affectionate tolerance, perhaps indicting

Mary ’s strengthening awareness that she is superseding Badeau as Booth’s primary advisor;

Mr. Badeau paid me a visit yesterday[. H]e had just received a letter from you and from Mr. Howe also, which he read to me; he speaks most kindly of Mr. Booth, he will tell you all about it. so I will not anticipate him. He complains bitterly that you do not write him often enough;-do not neglect him I pray you. You complain that I did not repeat to you. our conversation (Mr. B’s and mine) you must forgive me. I would take great pleasure in doing so. and will, whenever anything occurs that would interest you. You would not care to hear, what was worn at the last grand ball, or how distangue’ [sic] the attendance was at the Opera, and positively he talks of but little else—save vourself. of course and did he confine himself to your merits, and interests, that would be all-sufficient for me—but ’’his only fault is loving thee" and I sometimes feel as though he were a love-sick school girl. I am consoling—for I am sure he is much more inclined that way than I am—although I never do talk ’sensibly’ to you: do not think by this that I am weary of him. on the contrary I value his friendship for ’my Edwin’ very highly—perhaps set a greater price upon it than he does, himself—and his visits afford me a deal of pleasure, for he loves and can talk of you to me. He says he will bid adieu, on your wedding day, that he does not expect your attention after that—I consoled as well as I could the neglected child’.

112 Following this. M an comments on a new play on which Booth had asked Badeau to edit and improve.'^ In a telling comment, Mary cautions Booth against accepting plays which emulate a classical style:

[B]e very careful Edwin in accepting blank-verse peices [sic]. [Y]ou know the day for the statelv and the grand, is passed vary your repertoire, by things more suitable to the present age: people live in the Future now, not in the Past. If a play was written on the manners of a century yet to come, the public would more likely rush to see it.

While Mary makes passing reference in her letters stating her own feeling of inadequacy in

performing "blank verse" and is usually slightly pejorative when she mentions it in

connection with Booth's acting ("I will take your loved head upon my heart. . .to quiet and

rest you. from the tiresome 'blank-verse' at the Theater.'""), the sense in the preceding

passage is rather more focused on content than form. This is her most direct assertion that

Booth "vary" his repertoire to include contemporary works dealing with contemporary

themes. Ironically, as will be seen in following letters, Mary did not approve of the

fashionable "demi-monde" plays of Hugo and Séjour popularized by rising "realistic" actors

like Matilda Heron, but her objections are principally based on moral content rather than

form. She seemingly feels distaste for the "stately and grand" (perhaps a repeat of her dislike

for "histrionic acting" as mentioned in her letter of 7 June), to the point that she cautions

''■Booth had paid Gideon Hiram Hollister $80.00 for a new. blank verse play titled Henry U (Edwin Booth, letter to Hiram Hollister, 2 February 1860, mentioned in Oggel Letters 123). Booth performed the play January 16-19. 1860, at the St. Charles Theatre, new Orleans, but according to letters from Badeau to Booth ( 18 April and 8 May 1859 [The Players] ), Booth had asked Badeau to "fix up" the script. Obviously, at Mary's writing at the end of 1859, Badeau had already taken it upon himself to act as Booth's dramaturg for the play.

'"Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 4 January 1860, The Players.

113 Booth to avoid plays written in the style of the repertoire popularized by his father’s generation. As will be seen shortly, she encourages Edwin to adopt a more naturalistic approach in his acting, which seems to have been the course he was following, based on the approving commentary found in her "Journals" of his performances. Booth never followed her advice to commission or act in plays about the "Future." however he did for a while seek out new scripts to add to his repertoire.’*' Clearly though. Mary is beginning to exert influence on Booth's acting style, and sees herself inexorably linked to Booth's success or failure as an actor:

I hope your success will be complete there, never go—again if you can help it to the small towns you have just left.—I should expect to be scolded and 'snubbed' the whole time if your business was ver>' bad.'*^

In a letter to booth dated January 24. 1860. Mary discusses having seen a production of Lesbia. starring Matilda Heron and James Wallack. Jr. at the Winter Garden Theatre. Her commentary, while focusing on her distaste for the subject of the play, offers evidence of her dislike for plays set in historically remote locales:

Last night I went to the "W. Garden' to see the new play 'Lesbia'.—intensely French—and horribly 'dramatic': the 'scene is laid in Venice'. Wallack plays

'’'In a letter to an unknown correspondent. Booth writes. "When you come to this city [New York] 1 will be happy to see you. and will read yr tragedy carefully, anxiously hoping that it may suit me as 1 am desirous of putting on something out of the old beaten track & trying an original part." Citing Macready's dramaturgical help to Bulwer. Booth tells the aspiring playwright. "I can only judge of it as an acting play, and so far as my abilit}' goes will candidly offer whatever may be requisite for stage representation." [Edwin Booth, letter to "My dear sir." 2 March 1866. from the William Charvat American Fiction Collection. The Ohio State University Libraries.] Both the playwright and tragedy referred to in this letter are unknown, however Booth did not commission or act in new plays for the rest of his career.

‘’^Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth. 28 December 1859, The Players.

114 the Chief [sic] of the 'Council of Ten' as weak old 'Richelieu'—much less impressive in bodv than in mind-and his feaiful mannerisms did not assist the character any. Miss Hemon [sic]-Lesbia-is a spy from tlie Ten'-and is in love with someone else—the daughter of the Chief [sick-as in all such plays— there is a great deal of mystery black cloaks' being worn by everyone—and a continual description of their several families, for the six hundred years past- calling eachother [sic] by long unpronouncable' [sic] Italian names: the scenery was ver\' fine—but the sentiment wretchedly commonplace; Miss Heron acted in her usual 'grotesque' manner; the play is accounted a failure I believe [sic]—and though it may sound unkind in me to say it-I am glad that it is so.

It seems that Mary witnessed at least two conflicting acting styles in this production, neither of which met with her aesthetic approval. Wallack'' apparently demonstrated in his "fearful mannerisms " a stock representation associated with the character from Richelieu, the

Bulwer-L_vtton play which had remained in the repertoire of most tragic actors since at least the previous generation. This is an interesting juxtaposition to Miss Heron, for whom Mary's description of "grotesque" (separated as she does in the letter with quotation marks) seems to indicate a style rather than a qualitative critique. Seemingly, there were at least two representatives of "old" and "new" school acting in this production: Wallack employing stock and traditional mannerisms to indicate character, and Heron engaging in her "naturalistic" acting for which she had become famous. Both, at least in Mary's opinion, amounted to the

fustian of the script being portrayed in a "horribly dramatic" manner."^^

In the section of the letter which immediately follows, Mary voices her disapproval

of the content of this and similar plays. Although it is possible that she is playing the

"Tames William Wallack. Jr., 1818-1873.

"**In an undated letter to Booth, Badeau writes, "I suppose you will be glad to learn that Lesbia (Miss Hem's [sic] new piece, ) was not a success. Her acting and the piece itself are pronounced bad, by every body else I have seen.” [The Players]

115 "proper” lady in order to meet with Edwin's approval, it is far more likely that this is her honest sentiment, in which case Mary argues against immoral conduct on the stage in

Platonic terms of it corrupting rather than uplifting and educating an audience:

'Camilles' Medeas-and Lesbias—are fit only for the French stage: the atmosphere of the courtezan [sic], is unhealthy—and can produce no good! [Sjociety is sufficiently corrupted without being taught immorality from the Stage-v.'here it is seen in its most dangerous and seductive form too! Women without principle or virtue—represented in gold' and 'jewels'—and pearls, and diamonds falling from their lips—enlisting the sympathy of an ignorant audience.

It is worth noting in this section that Mary associates this type of drama with the French, presumably implicating tragedy, and, as she soon indicates. Booth as its representative, as a more fitting representative of American morality and aesthetic. This may be the seed (or at least representative of their developing sentiment) that Booth was an iconic nationalistic representative of America through his art. Clearly. Mary was beginning to instill in Booth a moral mandate in this acting, and she offers herself as teacher, critic, and sustainer:

To see an Art as holv as the Drama-so desecrated-and pervened-is it not outrageous. [H]ow glad I am dear one, that the branch you were fitted for has not been disgraced for though unappreciated now—the day will come, when gorgeous Tragedy' will have its sway! [Y]ou, are held as its only true representative in this day—and you can, if you will, change the perverted taste, of the public, by your truth—and sublimity and you must studv for this! Dear Edwin I will never allow you to droop for a single moment—for I know the power that dwells within your eye—and my ambition is to see you surrounded by greatness—is it not a laudable one? Ah, you do not know how close a critic, I will be of your 'Genious' [sic]-a child, who requires more nursing than the helpless babe, at the Mother's breast!'”

Writing to Booth on February 9, 1860, Mary reiterates her position as personal and

professional counselor in "ask[ing] Heaven[. . .]to strengthen me to make you great and

”Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 24 January I860, letter 27 of Oggel Letters 31.

116 good." to which she assures Booth her divine connection (again, perhaps an allusion to her use of Spiritualism as a means of conduit to the elder Booth) has benefitted him:

I am very presumptous [sic],—erring, and weak as 1 am—to expect my prayers to be answered—and yet I have been favored beyond my hopes;—very little I have craved for myself but all for you—darling-and I am rewarded[.] I see your fame increase—your health being restored,—your beautv preserved—the great soul God gave you, filling with purity and truth.

Mary 's description of her devotion to Booth and the peculiar mixture of secular and sacred imagery continues, echoing an earlier reference to Booth's public/private selves:

No wonder I am proud, and think my self [sic] God's chosen one'-for 'tis not a little thing, to know one's self beloved—and with the assurance of truth like yours! [. . .]! live along for you and your happiness; for well I know, how much you needed a true friend—one who would study to please your nature— and calm your fevered soul! all this, no one but a wife can perform: few think to follow the artist, after the curtain falls'-they bear to their homes the memory, of his matchless form'—his 'voice so musical'—his passionate strains!—they pause not to think, nor is it well they should, save a few-o f the exhausted frame—weary restless brain—the lonelv heart—which succeeds! many there are no doubt, more worthy than I to fullfill [sic] the blissful office of your friend and nurse: but Heaven told you of the yearning of my heart and you have chosen me-shall I be worthy to perform the holy task'? Time will tell! I earnestly pray, that I may be spared until it be fulfilled.'""

If Booth were to eventually think of his career as a religious calling, it can be surmised that

the inspiration for this came from or was at least encouraged by Mary. The public/private

bifurcation is expressed in elegant rhetorical terms, balancing the successful outward public

side of the actor ("matchless form, "voice so musical." and "passionate strains") with the

hidden private side, the terms of which reflect the martyr's or perhaps priest's vocational

sacrifices ("exhausted frame," "weary restless brain." and "lonely heart"). Her "holy task"

to support and succor Booth is then actualized by their belief in the "holiness" of his

‘""Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 9 February 1860, letter 29 in Oggel Letters 33-4.

117 profession, an image which will be later evoked by Booth and those commenting on his acting.

A few days later, writing to Booth on February 11. 1860. Mary functions as Booth's acting critic for his performance in Bulwer-Lvtton's Richelieu, immediately followed by an illuminating comment on Booth's acting and his description of it (the letter from him to which she is responding is. unfortunately, lost):

The improvement you have made in the 'Cardinal' chamied me: you must not forget to tell me of your studies, they interest me alike with the movements of your heart—mv heart—for 'tis mine, you tell me.

The conversational', colloquial-school you desire to adopt—is they only true one Edwin, for the present day! but as you very reasonably add—too much is 'dangerous': for example—Miss Heron—(don't shudder. I will make no comparison) in the beginning of her career—was praised for her 'naturalness'—and deservedly so—and while she used it' in moderation was successful—but now could you see her! she gives you so much of Mrs John Smith'—endeavors—or rather labors to walk so vary commonplace—that tis simply ridiculous—and even her greatest admirers—can find no merit in her now. .Acting, is an imitation of Nature, is it not?—then 'tis Art-and the '.Art' must be seen too-for nature upon the stage would be most ridiculous.

It would seem from this letter that Booth is definitely working for ’naturalness" in his acting.

By the use of quotes. Mary seems to indicate that she is quoting Booth when she terms it

"conversational " and further defines it as "colloquial-school." This is one of the strongest extant indicators that Booth was consciously endeavoring to break away from the predominant acting style of the period and adopting the nascent style of naturalistic realism as represented by Miss Heron. Maiy 's criticism of Heron is not based on her "naturalness" but on what appears to be Heron's (in Mary's opinion) affected or "labored" mannerism to

achieve what could arguably be called a codification of naturalism. Ironically, it could also

be argued that Mary contradicts herself by negatively criticizing Heron's apparent affectation

118 while shortly thereafter advocating that "'Art' must be seen too." Why would Mary excoriate

Heron for opaque convention while encouraging Booth to employ it? Perhaps the answer lies in the nature of the works that the artists were primarily engaged in performing, or it could simply be that Heron was not as graceful as Booth in demonstrating visible "Art" on stage. Regardless. Mary feels compelled to warn Booth against being too "natural" on stage, agreeing with him that it must be kept in moderation while arguing for the presence of the

".A.nist" in the characterization.

Maty ends her letter with another lightly veiled criticism of Badeau, this time

impugning Badeau's critical judgement by calling his "luke-warm praise of Faust" an

"affection—for he praised it loudly to me:-he fancies, that nonchalance' will win your

regard—where anxiety and attention on his part has failed." Even though Mary claims that

she will "like and ever respect him for his unselfish love for you," even admitting that "he

is very talented too," she points out that he is "veiy weak in many, respects" due to the

"goddess ’Fashion." Mary enjoins Booth for them to retain their "primitive nature" so that

they will continue to "enjoy life" and "know nothing of the torment, of the blase'!"

The following day, February 12,1860. Mary writes in contrast to the "tainted by love"

instruction offered by Badeau with her own:

We are now standing—as two individual souls, each responsible for the other! ah, this is something to be thought of well, is it not? Yours, I think I comprehend thoroughly—the voice of Reason, often questions me—if I do not regard you too 'spiritually'?—I prefer to work from such a model then, the greater sculpter [sic] I, if the flesh and blood. I carve is made to equal it!—if I talk this way, you will be apt, to exclaim—"what, my little daughter would

101Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 11 February 1860, letter 30 in Oggel Letters 35- 6.

119 be Master, eh ?" but you know well enough that could never be—I only desire to make y o u free! we. ourselves, are our greatest tyrants, undoubtedly.

Mary positions herself as Booth's instructor, a "sculpter" who will "carve" Booth into an ideal image of her own conception. Again, she links her tutelage to the practical outcome of

Booth’s professional success, admitting that his climb in the theatre will be of benefit to her as well, thus lurthcr rciiilurciiig the link between their personal rind prolessional relationship;

Darling, every day my love for you increases—but for your dear sake. wisdom, must accompany it! if my love is selfish, you will never be great—a part of you belongs to the world! I must remember this, and assist in its 'blossoming'-if I would taste of the ripe fruit—that will prove a rich reward!

Her next few letters deal primarily with social gossip, although she does manage to get a few passing jibes in at Badeau's expense, especially in his following the "goddess

Fashion" in his mourning procedure following his brother's d eath .In her letter to Booth of February 25.1860. Mary makes an interesting reference to the Booth/Hamlet identity meld in saying, ".. .for as you say-or rather Hamlet'—it is all the same however, the readiness is aii'!"iw confusion between Hamlet's and Booth's personality will become increasingly important in the public perception of the actor, particularly following Lincoln's assassination.

Her letter to Booth on May 10. 1860 contains several passages which provide information concerning their relationship to theatre artists. Booth's theatrical mission, the efficacy of his influence on society, and even a dramaturgical comment on his portrayal of

‘“-Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth. 12 February I860, letter 31 in Oggel Letters 36-7.

‘“-Mary Devlin, letters to Edwin Booth. 23 February I860, letter 33 in Oggel Letters 40. and 24/25 February 1860. The Players.

‘“^Mary Devlin, letter to Edwin Booth, 24/25 February I860, The Players.

120 Hamlet. She begins the section by recounting an unpleasant dinner spent at the Jeffersons in the company of George Jordan, a New York actor whom she found to be "the most intolerably vulgar men [sic]. This leads her to reflect, rather comically, on how "things have changed since 'my times’," and continuing with a general assessment of the company of actors:

How ver\' glad I am—that I always held at a proper distance peoples du Theatre'—when I was 'of them'! how few—how very few-leave their tinsled [sic] gew-gaws' for the night—and in their proper places—no, they drag them to their homes, where they lose their charm and show their 'nothingness': I refer, of course, to the generality, now: and am I not right?

This leads to a comparison between the state of the theatrical arts in America as compared with that found in Europe, anticipating their tour of England the following year after their marriage."’’' Included in this comparison is a further mention of their "mission" to seemingly single-handedly improve the condition of the theatre in America:

The society of Artists' in all countries but our own, is said to be more charming than of all other classes—for art, with all. save us, is religion' we shall see this when we go abroad: 'tw ill encourage and assist you, darling—in the mission you are to perform, towards, your 'sinking art' here; and if you will only choose to follow, the course which my judgement, prompts me is the direct and proper one—you will arrive ere long at the end', [sic] you are so nobly fitted for.

After a slight Jab at Badeau, who had apparently counseled Booth to "inculcate a spirit of haughty pride-and a conpemptuous [sic] regard for all those who toil beneath you," Mary

begins to couch Booth in terms of a benevolent ruler, a "worthy C hief who rules his subjects

‘“ In a letter to Booth on 19 March 1860, Mary' refers to Badeau’s enthusiastic approval of Booth's tour: "he [Badeau] seems crazy now, to have you go on the Continent' for a few months: then return to England and play." (Letter 37 in Oggel Letters 46).

121 "benignantly" [sic]. She adroitly constructs this parallel of Booth to the benign ruler in preparation to again mention Booth’s power to influence others through his art as he influences her through his letters:

I wonder if you ever reflect, upon the influence your talents, can bring to bear upon, the good and the evil, of the sphere you move in! I ask no greater proofs, of this-than the notes, and tokens, you used to enclose me now, and then—seemingly absurd, and fit can^e for laughter—hut nau

As will be seen later, many people will comment on the "goodness" of Booth's art, as if his

talent had a moral intention in and of itself. This blending of moral exigency evidenced in

acting skill is apparent in Mary's letters to Booth. There can be little doubt that Mary felt

Booth could influence his society for good through the theatre, and given the exalted position

Mary held in Booth's estimation, particularly following her death, it is logical to assume that

Booth held this belief as well.

Mary's influence could not extend, however, to make Booth study French. In this,

she and Badeau were equally powerless. According to Mary, Badeau had warned her that she

"would not succeed [in teaching Booth French]—he will not listen to the 'abstract'—you will

turn and find him, pondering upon something else." However, Mary threatens to be "the

most arbitrary and tiranical [sic] of 'professers' [sic]" at instructing Booth in French, and,

perhaps as an inducement, mentions a passage in Victor Cousin's Du vrais, du beau, et du

bien for Booth's portrayal of Hamlet:

What a pity you do not read French fluently! but this regret, shall be of short duration—you must acquire it immediately; at least, as soon, as I am permitted to sit by your side, and instruct you!—There is one, single discourse' of Cousin s' that will more than repay you, for your study!—'tis that you are not

122 able, to read and profit by its instructions, ere 'donning' your Hamlet dress again-that I have said, and repeat again—what a misfortune that you do not read the language!"^

In Cousin's lecture, as Shattuck points out, the artist imitates nature, but does not copy it exactly, therefore separating Booth from the Naturalistic school of Heron and Fechter:

In the interests of illusion, theatrical men have taken great pains in these latter times to secure historical accuracy of costume. This is all very well; but it is not the important thing.[...] It is said that the aim of the poet is to excite pity and terror. Yes, but at first in a certain measure; he must mix with them some other sentiment that tempers them, or makes them serve some other end. If the aim of dramatic art were only to excite pity and terror in the highest degree, art would be the powerless rival of nature. [. . .] The first hospital is fuller of pity and terror than all the theatres of the world.'"

While Cousin is clearly arguing against the recreative illusion of realism and a degree of

conceptual idealism on stage, he seems to focus primarily on notions of aesthetic distance,

somewhat echoing Augustine's (and .Aristotle's) explanation of how unpleasant or painful

things can be viewed if framed within an artistically pleasing context.

Mary's extant letters decrease in frequency over the next several months and

resume with some regularity well after their marriage on July 7, I860. While Booth may

have destroyed whatever letters came into his possession from this period, it is also plausible

that Mary's attention to marriage preparation, housekeeping, and adjustments to living with

Booth took her time and attention away from regular correspondence..Also, during the

‘"^Mary Devlin, to Edwin Booth, 10 May I860, letter 38 in Oggel Letters 47-48.

‘"'Quoted in Shattuck HEB 33-34 (translated by O. W. Wright).

‘"“Early married life with Booth seems to have revealed eccentricities in his personality which Mary may not have anticipated. She alludes several times in her letters to his despondency an

123 time shortly after their marriage, Mary began keeping a "Record Book" of Booth’s performances, along with a private journal. Unfortunately, only fragments of her notebooks remain, but they do contain some information regarding her appraisal of Booth's performances and approach to his roles. Critical response from Booth’s four-week engagement at New York’s Winter Garden beginning on November 26. 1860. in which he appeared as Hamlet. Pescara, and Richelieu, indicate an awareness of the actor’s understated, realistic conception of his roles and begin to establish Booth as a representative of this style.

Doubtless. Forrest’s coincidental appearance at Niblo’s Garden provided a convenient opportunity for the press to establish the two actors as contrasting archetypes. Booth’s

Richelieu seems to have been the most popular of his performances, with the "curse of

Rome ” eliciting first "stunned silence. ” after which

The men stood up and gave vent to cheer upon cheer, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and every man in the theatre helped to swell the violence of applause that greeted this unequalled gem of the player’s art.'"^

exactly three months after their marriage, that Mary indicates an adjustment to Booth’s idiosyncracies. Her entry on 6 November 1860. advises. "Morning is a very dangerous time to parley with a husband’s humour-especially the strange being. God has given me to guard; having passions—different from ’the race of men —his moods and dispositions vary, and I must school myself to adopt my conversation and wished to them always." A few days later, on 11 November 1860. Mary follows an elegiac passage praising Booth’s self-taught educations and "intuitive perception ” with an aching sense of isolation from the twenty-seven year old actor: How strange how beautiful he is!—the deference I used to feel towards him.—as fiancee—has with marriage almost entirely given way.—He is strong in individuality—yet at times I feel that I am required to stand alone. At first, this affected me as I imagine a drowning sensation would do—I looked around for something to grasp—; but now I find a resting place when driven to this strait; his nature craves my patience—and fortitude— and twill strengthen me. [The Players]

‘°^The Spirit of the Times. 15 December 1860.

124 It was as Hamlet, however, that the press saw the greatest distinction in the contrasting sty les.

One critic declared that "Mr. Booth is as unlike Mr. Forrest as Mr. Forrest is unlike

Hamlet."’"’ while another commented that Booth was "the first Hamlet for many a day who. in the closet scene, does not consider it necessary to rave and rant at the Queen like a drunken potboy."The critic E. G. P. Wilkins offers the most telling illustration of Booth’s aesthetic shift, echoing Badeau's notion of transformation and Mary’s derision of crowd- pleasing histrionics:

Mr. Booth’s prime quality—and we wish all actors and actresses would note this—is that he appears perfectly unconscious that there is any audience before him. He seems to us to possess the very important power of losing himself in the play.” '

This may indicate evidence that Booth has followed Hazlitt’s injunction to "think aloud" with

"no talking at his hearers. ”

Increasingly. Mary evidences concern over the grovving domestic conflict of the Civil

War. and there are repeated references to the conflict, particularly in relation to England’s view of the war during the Booth’s tour there in 1861-62 and her view of Booth as an iconic representative of the Union. In a letter written sometime in the winter of 1860-61 to Julia

Nash, the small child of Edwin’s New Orleans friends Charles T. and .Adele Nash. Marv

""New York A lbion. S December 1860.

‘" New York Tribune. 27 November 1860.

" -New York H erald. 29 November 1860.

125 closes by saying, "I hope that God will save our Union and keep us fast friends, although it looks so very dark now.""'

Mary's attention to the developments of the Civil War can be seen in her letters from

England while accompanying Booth on his first foreign tour which began August 20, 1861.

Ten days after their arrival in Liverpool, Mary writes from London to Emma F. Cary, sister of Richard and Helen Cary of Boston, friends to both Edwin and Mary who remained closely associated and supportive of Booth following Mary's death. In her letter to Emma Cary dated

August 30, 1861. Mary Booth begins with a short description of her visits to some of the local sights, but soon reveals her concern for the movements of the war and the British impression of the conflict:

The last news that reached us from home', came two days ago-and brought us the defeat of the 'Unionists' and the sad intelligence of General Lyons [sic] death: we hope that this is report' only. The feeling against the North, here in England, is very bitter; they seem to desire that neutrality will be preserved, but at the same time express the strongest hopes, that the "South may get her rights."

In the same letter, Mary anticipates a successful run for Booth in England, which was not the case, and, as will be seen later, his disappointing reception was linked to anti-Unionist sentiment in England with Booth as its representative:

Mr[.j Booth has not appeared' yet the proper season being October—and he will then have the appreciative and genuine audience to play before. An unbounded success has been predicted for him, since our arrival here, on all sides, but he is very ner\'ous and anxious about it himself: if he should fail, the disappointment would almost crush him: I feel confident, however that he will succeed.""*

‘"Mary Booth, to Juha Nash, Winter 1860-61. letter 41 in Oggel Letters 51.

"■*Mary Booth, letter to Emma F. Cary, 30 August 1861, The Players.

126 Booth opened at the Haymarket Theatre on September 30, 1861 as Shylock in The

Merchant of Venice. His engagement there lasted through November 10, and was not the success that Mary and he had wished for. as Mary's letter to Emma Cary on October 1, 1861 indicates:

[S]everal of the morning journals—fortunately of but little account or consideration, to any, save to their editors-came out. in the most unWnd censure of Shylock' at the H aym arket-the part Mr[.] Booth chose for his first appearance not daring, after so long a rest to task his strength with any character, requiring more physical power.

The "Times'— the journal of most consequence, did him some justice but still its praise was 'luke-warm' it however said nothing—it may not recall in the future. This tone of criticism, certainly could not fail to chill, and depress, one so sensitively organized as my dear husband—but he knew there was against him, pre-existing predjudice [sic]—and saw before him a very high-hill to climb; that he will reach its summit, I trust and hope, but he certainly has much to contend against. The enthusiasm of the audience, was unbounded—and as far as he could judge of its pulse—it beat with him, and of course it is the approval of the public—and not that of a few newspaper critics he will strive to win.-Your comment upon 'English nature' I have found true, thus far, in almost every instance: it is astonishing how ignorant they are of the manners of other peoples! There is not a magazine, or periodical of any description, now being published here, which does not contain at least two articles, upon the ‘American Crisis'—and to the great surprise of every honest thinker—written in direct contradiction to truth and facts. N' importe,—time, will I hope remove the sad clouds which now hang over, and threaten us with dissolution—and prove to these Englishers' the fallacy of their darling wish, to see the Union dissolved.

The following day, Mary continues the letter with an addendum to Booth's second evening

as Shylock:

I left my letter unfinished, that I might inclose [sic] a word to you of the impression made upon the public by Shylock's second appearance;—Mr. Booth had more control over himself than on the first night, but the novelty

127 of his position—surrounded as he is by entire strangers-will not, for some little time, wear away, and until it does, he will hardly, 'feel him self."'

While Mary blames her husband's fatigue and his plaving among a cast of unfamiliar actors for the lukewarm reception to his opening, she most severely indicts a prejudicial British press reacting against the implicit representative of American, and more specifically a Union. nationalism.

Not all journalistic response was negative to Booth's Shylock. although it may not have been the resounding success for which the couple was hoping. One writer pointedly reminds the readers that Edwin is the son of an expatriate actor. "Mr. L. Junius Booth, who.

after measuring his strength with the elder Kean in London, found refuge in the United

States, and there acquired a reputation and a fortune. " and seems to take a passing swipe at

the United States' domestic troubles by commenting, "Now that all actors are leaving the

disturbed country. Mr. Booth has thought it expedient to try a fall with the British public, and

accordingly has given it an opportunity of judging of Shylock. " Perhaps the association with

his father, or an assumption that American actors shared a common stylistic aesthetic, may

have prompted the writer to say. "Rumour has reported him to be of'the fiery and impulsive

school. " To the contrary, the reviewer found Booth to be

a careful artist, who eschews rant, discriminates his emphases, and controls his wildest declamation with judgment [sic]. He looks well, and has a good voice, and. though occasionally his physique shows a tendency to give way. can maintain a passion at its height when it is his cue to do so.

The reviewer concludes by saying that the impression Booth left on the audience was "quite

satisfactory." and looks forward "to learn the extent of his powers by further experience of

"^Mary Booth, letter to Emma F. Cary. 1-2 October 1861, The Players.

128 him in other Shakspeaream parts.""" Whether the writer is attempting to distinguish Booth from his father's or his countrvinen's "fiery and impulsive" style of acting is unclear, however

Booth clearly impressed the reviewer with his control and "judgement." It would seem that

Badeau's and Mary's influence toward Realism was strong enough to impress at least some of the critics across tlie Atlantic.

In a letter written three days later. Maty repeats to her friend Emma C. Cushman her assessment of the opening night response, and identifies even more strongly her perception of the struggle between the Union actor and the anti-Unionist British critics:

He opened in 'Shylock'—and made quite as great a success, as we could have wished—with the larger audience assembled—but the next day the morning papers came out most unkindly in their censure—at all of which he snaps his fingers' for really their criticism is not worth the perusal: however I fear he has a hard hill to climb, for there seems to be a pre-existing prejudice against him: of course the press might have been secured, but I am happy to say, Mr[.] Booth has too much dignity of character to buy praise.

In the same letter, she accuses the British of provincialism by saying, "No wonder the

English as so un-progressive, so thoroughly conventional: all that I have met, know a great

deal more of English nature than of human nature," and avows that

My dear baby, my looked for blessing, is to be bom here, however, so I must not be too severe, though I shall never look upon the little darling, as indigeneous [sic] to this soil; no, an American he must be!

After some complaint about the unrelenting foul weather and the scarcity of shopping, she

reiterates the couple's identification with the Union cause:

We are deeply interested in eveiything pertainting [sic] to our country now, and await with anxiety every fresh arrival; I am constantly in ill humour

""Newspaper clipping labeled "1861" in Helen Weston souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

129 with the press here—who agravate [sic] but give no sympathy. There is not a monthly or periodical of any description now being published in London— but contains at least two articles on the "American Crisis"; the writers of which, are not only ignorant on the subject—but deny, with an effrontery unpaiTelled [sic], established and incontestable facts. I can only hope, that the strength of the American people, will soon be so well confirmed by success—that the darling wish, of a vast number on this side of the water, will fall to the ground—and the fallacy of a dissolution of the Union decided upon forever."

The following month, while Edwin Booth was engaged at Manchester's Theatre

Royal. Mary wrote to him from London. Even though the arrival of their first child was imminent, she includes a political statement to her husband which seems to more instruction than commentai"}':

I will send you by this mail—the morning paper; to read a critique upon the 'Strand'—and also a vicious, malignant article ( leader )—upon America. I only hope the North will assert properly her dignity in this last instance—the seizure of Slidell, etc. [sic]-ah! for some great and wise statesman, now! [I]sn't it lamentable what a derth [sic] of genius—in politics—there is in our country now. A Cabinet council of H. M. ministers was called yesterday to look into the case of the San Jacinto-the papers all cry for war to the knife- but of course the heads of the states will act more deliberately."*^

The following January. Mary reasserts her perception of British anti-Unionist sentiment and

Edwin's assumed responsibility as a nationalistic representative;

I will confine myself to the simple expression of rny delight at the happy conclusion of the Trent affair, although the Times' and several other of the leading papers here still continue to misjudge the people and Government of the North—and will insist upon them being all 'unmannerly beasts.' Oh, it is too much to bear, their insults; why, I assure you that every day in their

II" Mary Booth, to Emma C. Cushman. 4 October 1861, letter 46 in Oggel Letters 54-5.

usMary" Booth, to Edwin Booth, 22 November 1861, letter 49 in Oggel Letters 60.

130 preaambles [sic] about town. Mr. Booth and Mr. Graham are attacked upon the question, sometimes in a most rude and uncalled for \vay.“‘’

In the next few months, before their return to tlie United States. Mary continues to reinforce the idea that Edwin is seen, and feasiblely should behave, as an iconic emblem of the United States both personally and artistically. This identification with Unionist ideals is foregrounded in the face of the perceived British identification of Edwin as its personification. .\ sense of mission is clearly evident in Edwin, or at least in Mary's description of him. in a letter to Mary L. Felton where she informs Mrs. Felton that. "We long to return home, but Mr. Booth must accomplish what he came here for; though 'tis difficult for them to overlook. & forgive him for being an American."So strong is Mary's perception of British anti-Unionist sentiment that she predicts difficult times for the incoming opera singer Clara Louise Kellogg, who will have "much to contend against—so if she succeeds, her credit w ill be all the greater. ITtey wisely do not announce her as from

America-for that would surely have ruined her: the feeling is so bitter against the "orrid

Yankees."'-'

Maty parallels her identification of the British politically oppositional stance with an aesthetically oppositional stance. She is as ardent in justifying Edwin's poor critical reception on these grounds as she is in framing them within an anti-Unionist platform, so

"’Mary Booth, to Emma C. Cushman. 13[?] January 1862. letter 50 in Oggel Letters 62.

'-“Mary Booth to Mary L. Felton. 22 March 1862. The Players.

'-‘Mary Booth, to Emma C. Cushman. 12 April 1862, letter 57 in Oggel Letters 75.

131 much so that the lines of discourse seem to blur. While a passing reference to Mrs. Fanny

Kemble as "too theatrical"'" does not distinguish if she is commenting on Mrs. Kemble’s

performance or personal style. Mary Booth goes to some length to identify the dominant

British theatrical presentation style as contrary to that which she and Edwin Booth have

apparently embraced. Writing to Edwin from London while he was performing at the Royal

Amphitheatre in Liverpool. Mary includes news of an article in the London "Telegraph"

which decried "the morbid taste for the sensational’ in Theatricals at present; which for your

comfort darling. I wish I had to send you. [...] All complain of the same bad taste; won’t you

rejoice when the "Boucicault’s ” are ousted’" She further particularizes an account of a

performance of Andrew Macnair’s The Painter of Athens which contained "the most fearful

anachronisms." relating that friends of the playwright had advised him to "Athensanize his

play" and "go to the British Museum, where he could find all the authorities he wanted."'^'

Mary reasserts her usurpation of Badeau’s position as tutor by valorizing Badeau’s early

exhortations for study and research, and anticipates Booth’s critical success in historical

accuracy in his later productions at Booth’s Theatre. She simultaneously positions herself

and Edwin against the British penchant for the "sensational" and anachronistic, qualities

associated with the earlier production style of the Keans. Forrest, and the elder Booth.

In a letter to Emma Carey three weeks later. Mary details the kind of theatrical

sensationalism preferred in the London theatre, and takes an inferred thrust at Charles

'"M ary Booth, to Mary L. Felton, 14 February 1862, letter 51 in Oggel Letters, 64.

'^Mary Booth, letter to Edwin Booth, 2 March 1862, The Players.

132 Fechter, seen by some critics as Booth's first rival on the tragic stage, and about whom more will be said in a later chapter;

Of the many theatre in London only one receives tragedians & there Monsieur Fechter is engaged permenently [sic] The public here have surely eaten of the "insane root"—for the taste for legitimate acting is woefully perverted. The press unanimously protest against the introduction of sensational peices [sic]- -but with no effect: The actor leaps from a precipice, or jumps head-long into the vvater—cc the people go & applaud & enjoy. No doubt they would like it much better if in reality the person should lose his life. If the morbid taste increases nothing less will satisfy them I’m sure.'"^

It is somewhat ironic to note that Mary's placement of blame for Edwin's lack of success has

shifted from the British press to the British public, reversing her position taken after his

lukewarm reception to Shylock shortly after their arrival. However, two months later while

the couple vacationed in Paris before returning to .America, Mary seems to approximate, if

not equate, British anti-legitimate/classical theatre prejudice with British anti-Unionist

sentiment:

At all events Edwin has no thought of acting in England again. Tragedy is dead there. Next season all the old standard Theatres change hands: for there [sic] are all losing money. [. . .] Mr. Booth has no ambition to act for nothing—and to make any money now in England is out of the question. The prejudice against Americans is very great-at this present time.'^

The Theatres are all very badly supported & Tragedy especially-droops her head. Tis much to be regretted that he came here just at the time he did. The predjudice [sic] strong against the 'Yankee'—& the public surfeited with Shakespeare.—He has borne up bravely under his disappointment, however—

‘■■‘Mary Booth, letter to Emma F. Cary, 26 March 1862,The Players.

‘^Mary Booth, letter to Emma C. Cushman, 11 May 1862, letter 58 in Oggel Letters, 78.

133 & the experience has benefitted him wonderfully: so. on the whole, we ought rather to rejoice than complain.

Mary was not alone in her view that Booth’s stay in London was beneficial. Shortly after their return to America, Booth began his autumn season at the Winter Garden in New

York, opening on September 29, 1862 as Hamlet and continuing with alternating performances as Othello, Payne’s Brutus, Shylock, and lago.

As Shattuck points out, "Public and critics.. .welcomed him home. He had been missed; and

the simple fact that he had braved out a season in London boosted his prestige, especially

with the social elite."Critics noted a change in Booth’s performances, particularly

commenting on a new-found simplicity and naturalness in his style. The New York Evening

Post on September 30, 1862. praised Booth for "rendering that which was natural still more

natural ” and William Winter, writing for the New York .Albion on October 4, 1862,

exemplified critical response to Booth:

Time, foreign travel, experience and study have matured his judgment [sic] and polished his style. [. . .] From first to last, he not only does not make points where points are usually made, but he does not make a point at all. He is natural, simple, impressive-winning the honest and earnest admiration of all who honor the dramatic art.

Booth began a month’s engagement at the Boston Theatre on November 24, 1862, where

critical response echoed that which he had received in New York. Booth opened his

engagement in Boston with two nights as Hamlet, engendering positive response for his

‘■^Mary Booth, letter to Mary L. Felton, 13 May 1862, The Players.

‘-'Shatrack, HEB. 47.

134 quieter, more introspective approach. The critic for the Boston Courier on November 25.

1862 noted:

His conception of the character seems riper-more natural—the result of deeper study. There is no claptrap—no false excitement—for the purpose of producing an effect upon the audience; but every word and gesture will bear the closest criticism and most searching analysis.

Likewise. The Boston Post on November 29. 1862. comments on Booth's change fmm the

"point" making style of the elder Booth's generation and by implication releases Booth from the charge of fashioning himself in his father's mold:

He has changed materially, and his stage business in Hamlet is to a great extent refreshingly novel. [. ..] Mr. Booth is no imitator. He acts from, by and through the genius bom in him. and it is to that very impulsiveness of genius he is indebted for certain peculiarities which some people have termed faults. Formerly he was one of the most uneven of the great actors that we had ever seen. Now he is one of the most consistent and steady. He no longer listlessly waits for special points at which great effects may be made, making you forget that you are seeing a brilliant artist, until by some sudden burst he startles you into a recollection of it. but presents a thoroughly complete, if not an unblemished picture.

Although Mary's remaining letters concentrate primarily on domestic affairs and the purchase of their new home in Dorchester. Massachusetts, her scattered remarks about

Booth's professional life clearly evince delight with the critical and financial success that his more natural acting style garnered. Writing during his Boston engagement, she informs friends that "Edwin has made nearly $5,000 in the two weeks. The house yesterday was crowded,"'^ and. "Edwin had an immense crowd last night. He will clear $7000 by this

12S Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard, 7 December 1862, The Players.

135 engag em ent."Beyond basking in her husband's financial success. Mar\' clearly describes

Booth's acting in quasi-religious terms, asking Elizabeth Stoddard to relay a message to

Booth during his brief return to New York to fulfil a performance obligation at the Brooklyn

Academy of Music:

Mrs. Howe has just been telling me how amazed all were by Edwin's performance here [Boston] on Saturday. Fields was thunderstruck by his power. He has been one of the unbelievers, but was con\ erted on Saturday. Tell Edwin this.''"

A few days later, again writing to her friend Stoddard. Mary frames both herself and Booth

in a spiritual/martyr discourse directly relative to his acting:

You know I live with genius: am forced to bear the ills & restlessness of his untaught mind, his undefined purposes: & I know, how dreadful it is to suffer as you & Edwin suffer.'"

Mary mentions in passing Booth's melancholy, which would become a dominant trait

associated with him throughout his life ("It is something accomplished [...] to produce any

pleasurable sensation in him"'"), and reinforces the couple's linkage in pursuing an artist-

martNT's cause:

No doubt, that you will have to suffer the most poignant grief on our accounts, at times; for Edwin—well you know the demon that persues [sic]—a noble, ungovemed spirit like his. He is so gentle, so yealding [sic], so

'■’Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 13 December 1862, letter 68 in Oggel Letters. 88.

'■’'’Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 24 December 1862, The Players.

'■'Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard, 30 December 1862, The Players.

'"Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard, 7 January 1863, The Players.

136 abstemious now: & I advise with him & he promises that the victory shall be his.*’-

While the focus of Mary's mentioning this is clearly an assurance that Booth intends to control his drinking, it is not difficult to imagine the influence that this framing would have on Booth, particularly after her death. Mary positions herself as the guide and focus for his "noble, ungovemed spirit" based on her belief, established early in their relationship, that

Booth is on a Messianic cause to somehow ennoble mankind through his art. His

"genius/suffering" is placed firmly in the discourse of the religiou.s esthete, and favorable audience members are referred to as "converts." Although she sometimes recognizes critical or popular aversion to Booth’s acting as the result of differing theatrical taste, she is more prone to place it in terms of Booth's iconic representation of a national (spiritual) ideal.

Mary's last extant letter to Booth was written to him while he was performing Hamlet at the Winter Garden in New York City. In it. she includes a description of a performance given by John Wilkes Booth, who was engaged at the Boston Museum. She had first seen

John Wilkes act only a few weeks earlier when she and Edwin attended his performance as

Pescara in The Apostate. Mary's impression of the younger Booth was favorable, if tempered

("Last night we went to see J Wilkes B—for the first time. We were very much pleased with

him—but he has a great deal to leam & unlearn"*^), and Edwin's critique, in a letter to his

triend Richard Henry Stoddard, basically reflected her analysis of his brother’s work:

*’’Mary Booth, letter to Elizabeth Stoddard, 19 January 1863, The Players.

'^Mary Booth, letter to Emma C. Cushman, 22 January 1863, letter 83 in Oggel Letters. 101.

137 I saw last night—for the first time—my brother act; he played Pescara-a bloody villain of the deepest red, you know, an admiral of the red. as twas. and he presented him—not underdone, but rare enough for the most fastidious "beef-eater"; Jno. Bull himself Esquire never looked more savagely at us poor "mudsills" than J. Wilkes, himself. Esquire, settle the accounts of last evening. Yet I am happy to state that he is full of the true grit—he has stuff enough in him to make suits for a dozen such player-folk as we are cursed with, and when time and study round his rough edges he’ll bid them all stand apart' like a 'bully boy, with a glass eye'; I am delighted with him and feel the name of Booth to be more oi a hydra than î>nakcs and things ever vvas.'^'

While, or perhaps since. Edwin's evaluation seems to indicate an amused encouragement of

John Wilkes' characteristically spectacular performance style. Mary's critique of his performance a few weeks later is much less forgiving. John Wilkes performed the dual roles of Fabien and Louis in The Corsican Brothers, in which he had become somewhat renowned for his athleticism and use of "all the latest machinery never before equaled upon the stage."'''’ Mary was not impressed by the younger Booth's performance;

Last night we went [...] to see John. He looked badly; for although he had a good costume & was made up well for the part—yet he lacked character. That is one great draw-back to his success. I think-he can't transform himself. The combat was strictly gladitorial — the muscles of his arms — for his sleeves were rolled up— eclipsing everything else besides. 'Look at his arm'— every one exclaimed—& highly delighted the audience seemed at this exhibition. He was more melo-dramatic than I have ever seen him—& no better—if quite so good—as Eddy & a host of others I have seen in the same part.'-'

'^^Gordon Samples. Lust for Fame; The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth (Jefferson. NC; McFarland & Co.. 1982) 97.

'^"Samples 65.

‘^'Mary Booth, letter to Edwin Booth, 12 February 1863. letter 87 in Oggel Letters. 106-7.

138 Mary’s primary criticisms center around John Wilkes' inability to "transform him self beyond the obviously successful external metamorphosis brought about by his costuming and makeup. As if countering Edwin’s positive assessment of his younger brother’s performance, she dispels the "bully boy ” persona as one that may have delighted audiences but lacked character. She seems to remind Edwin that this bravura style is contrary to the goals that they have set themselves to achieve, and her references to the combat scenes as ’’gladiatorial," along with her mentioning John Wilkes' bared, muscled arm, is an unmistakable allusion to attributes connected with Forrest's popular response. In her last extant communication to him, she reminds Booth that this actor-over-character approach is contrary to their aesthetic mission, dismissing it as "melo-dramatic" and inferior to a "host of others ” who have taken on the roles.

It can only be speculation as to what further influence Mary’s dramatic commentary would have had on Booth, for shortly after writing this letter to Booth during his short engagement in New York, she caught a cold which developed into pneumonia, and died in their Dorchester home as Booth was on the train to reach her on February 21, 1863. Her personal and professional influence on him during this period was unquestionable, as he

attests in a letter written two years after her death:

I feel that all my actions have been and are influenced by her whose love is to me the strength and the wisdom of my spirit. Whatever I may do of serious import. I regard it as a performance of a sacred duty I owe to all that is pure and honest in my nature—a duty to the very religion of my heart.’^*

‘^*Edwin Booth, letter to Mrs. Richard F. Cary. 9 February 1865. in Grossman Edwdn Booth 169.

139 Booth resumed acting in the fall of 1863. adding Hugo's Ruy Bias and Bertuccio from

Tom Taylor's The Fool's Revenge to his New York repertoire at the Winter Garden, over which he took management witlt his brother-in-law John Sleeper Clarke and another business partner William Stuart in the summer of 1864. Under Booth's supervision, his scenic artists

John Thorne and Charles Witham implemented his Realist bent by creating scenery "devised with scholarship and taste"to achieve historically accurate details in sets, costumes, and props. He writes to Emma Cary that it is his wish to "bring out several of the Shaksperian

[sic] plays in a superior style," and that "the whole management of the affair is in my hands.

I've been in the scene-room and wardrobe night and day, lately."''*" He writes to Badeau that his production of Hamlet is "being done' in the paint-room, the wardrobe & the property room of the Winter Garden for m e.[...] Every scene, every dress, every chair & table—and nearly all the actors will be new."''*' This production would become the "terrible success"''*■ of his "Hundred Nights' Hamlet, " which would be done, according to an announcement in the Winter Garden playbill:

in a style, it is hoped, combining splendour of production with strict historical correctness. The play has been in active preparation for ± e last three months, and no expense or effort has been spared in the endeavour by a more strictly pictorial arrangement of the ordinary stage resources, and by the fidelity.

'*'YVinter Life and Art 33.

‘'‘"Edwin Booth, letter to Miss Emma F. Cary, 26 August 1864, in Grossman Edwin Booth 164.

‘'“Edwin Booth, letter to Adam Badeau, 14 October, 1864, in Shattuck HEB 54- 55.

'■‘•Edwin Booth, letter to Miss Emma F. Cary, 10 January, 1865, in Grossman Edwin Bootli 167.

140 appropriateness and superior execution of the several means of scenic Illusion, to carry out the spirit of the play into the most minute details, and thus advance the drama as a branch of national literature and art.‘‘‘^

The attention brought about by the unprecedented run of a single play was unparalleled in American theatrical history. Press clippings, no doubt fanned by Stuart's acumen with publicity, exclaimed that Shakespeare's nomination as the "immortal bard" is being proved at the Winter Garden:

,4t the rate at which matters are progressing in that establishment, Hamlet will be got through with about the time the present lessees conclude their lease. We may arrive at Richard the third somewhere about the period of Mr. Lincoln's retirement from office. Of course the management are not to blame for this. They have struck a vein and have to work it. The public are Booth and Hamlet mad.'"^

Press releases from the Winter Garden pronounced. "[a]n .Anglo-Saxon community which manifests a disregard for the teaching of the great dramatist, is renegade not only to its traditions but to the interests of morality itself," claiming that, "his inspirations are second only to those of the Book of Life." If the play has not enjoyed its present popularity in the past, it cannot be blamed on the playwright:

It is so seldom that we have an opportunity of witnessing this noble creation properly presented that it is not surprising it should have fallen into neglect. Mr. Booth has restored it to its full measure of appreciation. His study of the character is marked at once by a profound perception of its beauties and of the points in which his predecessors have failed. Let those who say that they cannot understand Shakspere [sic] (and we are afraid they are many) go and

‘■‘^Playbill dated 25 November 1864, The Players.

‘■“Unlabeled clipping dated "1865." Helen Weston souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

141 see Mr. Booth's Hamlet. If they do not come away converts we will renounce our own faith.

As if to remind the public of the expense and preparation which went into the production, a Winter Garden playbill announced. "The success of this revival is. of course. mainly due to Mr. Booth's popularity; but the superb manner in which the piece has been produced has also a good deal to do with it."''"’ However, in a review written on the occasion of the hundredth performance, the writer for the Evening Post takes exception to the attention

focused on the scenic elements:

The advertisements have told us all that Booth to-night will have played Hamlet a hundred nights consecutively, and have courageously placed beside that statement another, to the effect that the appointments were appropriate and adequate. [...] Few. however, examine the scenery while Booth is on the stage; he possesses the spectators' attention completely, even when he is idle and merely feeding another speaker.'■*

The writer feels "the inherent depravity of stage decoration" makes one "sigh for a bam. or

the golden days of Shakespeare himself, when actors moved in the sumptuous costume of

the time among scenes that merely suggested the situation. " In a valuable description of

Booth's acting, the writer describes the actor's conceptual originality, claiming, "that all the

changes upon his face are such as to illustrate in a most intimate sympathy the inmost

meaning of the situation. " deeming Booth to be "supreme in points that no other actor

‘■‘‘^Winter Garden playbill labeled "1865." in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

‘■"’Winter Garden playbill labeled " 1865." in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

'■‘'Newspaper clipping labeled "March. 1865" in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

142 perhaps has thought of selecting for transcendent efforts." The writer notes the physical manifestation of Booth’s identification with the role during the ghost scene, in which his

"mask of concentrated horror, wet upon forehead and lip with the beads of fright, makes, in combination with the attitude, such a picture for the memory as no one would willingly lose."

In an extraordinary description of Booth's psychological intensity following the play-within- a-play scene, "when the listener feels that the force of the story is in the greatest danger." the reviewer claims:

Mr. Booth triumphantly carries the situation by a piece of action that shows in the clearest manner his piercing and sensitive feeling in art. He represents the revolt of Hamlet's overtasked will in a protracted hysteria, more real, shocking and overpowering than was perhaps ever before carried into the domains of imitation; a delineation upon which we have seen, in other cities, a whole audience hang in positive terror, only half pleased, and not master of their lungs until it was over. But the necessity for such extreme passion is only apparent to the few. Claudius, in the moment of his utmost danger, has escaped, because Hamlet had nearly died.

This description suggests that the impression made from Booth’s acting blurs the distinction between the real and the mimetic, clearly shifting an audience, if his evaluation is to be believed, from their accustomed and comfortable place as distanced spectators. Booth alludes to the psychic strain brought about by the necessary identification with his roles:

"The fact is. I am in a state of crazy.’ Acting such parts night after night is a dreadful drain

upon the nervous system, and affords no rest either to mind or body: so that I am not myself

at any time when under their influence."‘'*** From his comment, it appears that Booth, too.

‘■‘^Edwin Booth, letter to Miss Emma F. Cary, 14 February 1864, in Grossman Edwin Booth 157-58.

143 delineated little distinction between the fictive world of the character and the real world of the actor.

Conceding that, while he feels Booth is capable of successfully performing the role before an audience of learned critics, the Post reviewer judges that Booth has created the

"popular Hamlet" which "agree[s] with the ideal of romance in the modem popular mind."

Still, he agrees that the hundred consecutive performances of Booth's Hamlet is "the great

Shakespearian event of the century." whose "whole vitality [...] has existed in one person.

Edwin Booth."

The critic George William Curtis, in one of his "Editor's Easy Chair " articles for

Harper's Magazine, posits a theoretical explanation of the intrinsically fictive world of the

theatre based on Booth's Hamlet. He begins with a thesis that most theatrical encounters are

unsatisfying because

the difficulty always is that the drama and the actor are at such terrible odds. Theoretically the stage is the mirror of nature. But except in Paris, where indeed the spectator does see at the theatre what he sees outside of it. the life of the stage is as absolutely different from that of the actual world as rouge is from the red of a rose.

Stating, however, that there is "real world that is not actual." he finds that the Active world

of the theatre does not present men and women which one is likely to meet in every day life,

but "appeal[s] to the imagination which contemplates the same human nature under a

hundred aspects of time and condition." Formulating an internal logic within the theatre

wherein "[t]he voice, the gesture, the step" are "harmonious with the "nature" of the stage; a

nature which is never to be found away from it," he recognizes the duality of popular taste

'■'’The Hundredth Night of Hamlet," Evening Post. 22 March. 1865.

144 by obsen ing, "there is always a great relish in the public for whatever is artificial, and there is no question more truly in the key of what is called 'society' than 'Are you fond of nature?"'

He feels that a "really fine actor is as uncommon as a really great dramatic poet." and offers that Booth's Hamlet is comparable to Garrick's Richard m or Kean's Shylock.

Booth, according to Curtis, "[sjuddenly [...] was the fashion; he was more, he was the passion; and it was agreed that he had no rival upon the stage," and comments that the recent Hundred Nights Hamlet was "an incident in Shakespearian history quite unprecedented." He continues that Booth "disturbs the tradition a little" of the popularly idealized view of Hamlet, the "pretematurally tall [figure] in the picture, clad in the long black cloak, with one foot resting upon the earth from the grave, the skull in the hand, and the fine eyes uplifted to the chandelier." based on the portrait of John Kemble in the role.

Curtis says that Kemble "represents the Prince; but he is not identified with him." while

Booth "satisf[iesj the most fastidious imagination that this is Hamlet as he lived in

Shakespeare's world." Curtis continues by attempting to capture the ephemorous nature of

Booth's performance;

His playing throughout has an exquisite tone, like an old picture. The charm of the finest portraits[.. .]is not the drawing nor even the coloring, so much as the nameless, subtle harmony which is called tone. So in Mr. Booth’s Hamlet it is not any particular scene, or passage, or look or movement that conveys the impression; it is the consistency of every part with every other, the pervasive sense of the mind of a true gentleman sadly strained and jarred. Through the whole play the mind is borne on in mournful reverie. It is not so much what he says or does that we observe; for under all. beneath every scene and word and act. we hear what is not audible, the melancholy music of the sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh.

Booth's interior consistency "gives a curious reality to the whole," contrasted to

"[mjost acting [which] is as superficial as the costume of the actor." Apparently, for Curtis,

145 the strength of Booth's portrayal was in the transparency of his technique, for while actors

might "carefully and even exquisitely" study their parts. "I can see how A s. and B's. and C's

poetrv is made [...] but I lose my breath when I read D's. for I can not see how it is done."

Comparing acting with singing, he says that if the music is only in the throat of the singer it

will never reach the heart of the hearer, but if it is in the singer's soul "the hearer is not so

much conscious of the beautiful voice as of the essence of it. so to speak. " Curtis reckons

that Booth's conception of Hamlet is that of "a morbid mind, conscious of its power to master

the mystery of life, which in its details baffles and overwhelms him." He feels that Hamlet's

tragedy, as portrayed by Booth, is found in the psychological struggle of a mind which loves

and celebrates the complexity of life, but is at the same time bound to destroy another life.

a life dear to his mother. For Curtis. "[t]his explains the fascination which the idea of his

uncle's death always exercises upon his mind, and also his inability to do more than dream

and doubt over the action." .A,s an example. Curtis cites Booth's behavior in the closet scene.

after stabbing Polonius behind the arras:

For an instant the possibility of what he has done sweeps over his mind. Always the victim of complex emotions, the instinctive satisfaction of knowing the act done is mingled with the old familiar horror of the doom to which he may have consigned his uncle. With sword uplifted, and a vague terror both of hope and fear in this face and tone. Hamlet does not slide rapidly back and hurriedly exclaim. 'Is it the king?' but tottering with emotion he asks slowly, in an appalling staccato. Is-it-the-king?’

146 For Curtis, Booth "utterly destroys the old traditions," and "[t]he cumulative sadness of the play was never so palpable as in Mr. Booth's acting. It is a spell from which you can not escape."'""

.A.fter closing Hamlet at the Winter Garden. Booth moved to the Boston Theatre for a limited run. His performances were favorably, if not enthusiastically received, with repeated references in the Boston press to the audiences’ lack of enthusiasm and apathy. The critic for The Advertiser remarked on his opening night of Hamlet drawing "to the Boston

Theatre last night one of the largest audiences ever within its walls; every seat was sold beforehand, and as the hour of performance approached even ladies were glad to take their chance among the hundreds who had to content themselves with the standing room afforded by lobbies and doorways. " The critic observes that the audience was e.xtremely interested

"though not very enthusiastic" over what may have been Booth’s experimentation in oppositional line reading and naturalistic staging. The critic mentions that Booth "now reads the line. I’ll speak to it though hell itself should gape/And bid me hold my peace,’ with a choked, weary, broken utterance, although the sentiment is about as plucky a one as a man could speak. ” In what clearly seemed an extraordinary breaking of conventional staging, the critic says that Booth "stands long with his back fully turned upon the audience, when there is not just cause for his so doing, while Horatio relates his observation of the Ghost, the

situation absolutely losing in effect by this virtual extinction of its principal light. ” While

this could indicate carelessness or indolence, as the critic infers in his estimation, it is

‘""George William Curtis, "Editor's Easy Chair, ” Harper’s. April 1865. in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

147 difficult to imagine that Booth would have taken his Boston appearance so casually after his newfound lionizing in New York. It is more likely that Booth used his status as an opportunity to experiment with both staging and interpretation in ways which were not appreciated by the Boston critic. Booth appears to have introduced the use of focused light to approximate a realistic illusion of moonlight in the scene on the battlements, to which the critic strongly objected:

We must, above all. protest against the introduction of the moonlight into Hamlet's scene with the Ghost, as in 'Faust' the rays obligingly illuminated only the spot where the lovers embraced, so now they only gleam on the few square feet which Hamlet occupies, so that through this solemn colloquy he seems to be busy with a sort of serious shadow-dance by way of offset to the sombreness of his interlocutor.'''

Other reviews of Booth's Boston engagement are equally lackluster. One reviewer for his portrayal of Othello notes that Booth is more suited to play lago. but praises Booth's

"smoothness and elegant simplicity of elocution." and the "quarrel scene of Act I. wherein

Mr. Booth was imperative and yet moderate, indignant but not of raging temper." The critic compares the actor supporting Booth to his younger brother:

Mr. Barron's lago was a mild-and-waterish suggestion of Mr. Wilkes Booth, whom he constantly and foolishly imitates in voice, attitude, gesture and carriage. Inasmuch as he was more subdued than in bolder parts, he was less unpleasant; but inasmuch as he represented lago as without subtlety and with much dogmatical disposition to discussion, he was not agreeable. Occasionally, when he condescended to be natural enough to speak his words instead of mouthing them, he did well enough.

151. Mr. Edwin Booth's Reentrv.” Boston Advertiser. 28 March. 1865.

‘'■Unlabeled article dated "1865" in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

148 Whatever lukewarm response Booth's new interpretations may have met with the critics, he, Stuart, and Clarke apparently felt confident enough in their reception to announce plans to rent the Boston Theatre and manage it, as they had done with the Winter Garden and as Booth and Clarke had done with the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. After confirming rumors that the trio had rented the theatre for 516,000 a year, an article advocated that Messrs. Booth and Clarke were "actors of acknowledged genius, familiar with the theatrical taste of the present day, familiar also with the deficiencies of the Boston

Theatre in pre\ ious seasons, and fully equal to meeting one, and remedring the other. They will be cordially welcomed and sustained."''' Unfortunately, their plans would not be

realized, for John Wilkes assassinated the president the following week, as Edwin was

playing Sir Edward Mortimer in The Iron Chest at the Boston Theatre.

In concluding this chapter, it is expedient to quote at length an article written shortly

after Booth's return to the New York stage following the assassination. The writer for The

Nation references ”[t]he return of Mr. Booth to the stage," and states.

It was pleasant to think that he had so far recovered from his gloom that he could appear in his natural guise before the public; it was pleasant to see the public as welcoming their old favorite again; it was pleasant to witness the delight of thousands who found their choicest entertainment in his acting; and pleasant it was also to know that the New York theatre was to have the benefit of his fine character and his great ability.

After an extensive commentary on Booth's portrayal of Hamlet and Richelieu, the writer

explains why Booth will not succeed in his characterizations if he continues to choose parts

from the classical repertory:

‘^^Unlabeled article dated "1865" in Helen Weston's souvenir scrapbook. The Players.

149 We regard it as Mr. Booth's misfortune that he is divided between two widely differing schools of acting—the romantic and the natural. The traditions of his youth, his early observ ation and training, committed him to the romantic or heroic school; his organization, taste, aptitude, perhaps his later study also, incline him to the school of nature. But he seems never to have made a deliberate choice between the two; his favorite plays are romantic; his pet characters are romantic; in his treatment he aims at naturalness; hence the incongruity. Shakespear's [sic] tragedies cannot be acted naturally, for they are entirely out of our "Nature;" and to play them after the old unnatural style of the last century would be simply intolerable. How then can they be played at all? Even Richelieu cannot be acted naturally; for such an episode in French society cannot be reproduced as real to our audiences. There will always remain something that cannot be conveyed by our everyday means of expression, and that must be caricatured by strained action, artificial gesture, and stilted declamation. Mr. Booth does all that man can do; but no man can bring Hamlet or Richelieu into modem life. We think that if he would abandon the endeavor, and devote his very remarkable talents to studies in the school of nature he would achieve triumphs worthy of the greatest artists of the age.'^'*

Booth's progression in acting style can be seen as originating from a tendency to emulate certain traits he cultivated from observing his father during their tours together during Booth's youthful guardianship of him in his teens. It soon became evident, however, that Booth's natural tendency was toward a quieter, more realistic approach, often garnering him unfavorable notices in not meeting the stylistic standard set by his father. .A.fter entering

New York City, his tutelage under Adam Badeau encouraged him to mold himself to

Badeau's ideal of an American art form, eschewing the opaque conventions of his father's generation which Badeau saw as derivative from European models. Badeau valorized the naturalistic acting exemplified by Matilda Heron, and Booth was often mentioned in the press in connection with the actress. After Mary Devlin Booth assumed primary responsibility of his training. Booth further divested himself of overt theatricalism, aiming

‘^"THE ACTING OF MR. EDWIN BOOTH." The Nation 29 May 1866, 395-96.

150 tow ard a colloquial approach coupled with such naturalistic staging as turning his back to the audience and incorporating realistic lighting effects in his productions. Marv’ also fostered in Booth a sense of moral imperative in his performances, along with a mandate that he must be the principal representative of an American nationalistic art. Critical commentary, positive and negative, attests that Booth's approach was seen as revolutionary, and sometimes at odds with the classical literature he chose to present. It is logical to assume that

Booth might have continued, as stated by the curator of the Booth collection at The Players,

Ray Wemmlinger, to become "more naturalistic and realistic [. . .] his great artistic contribution,"''^ had not an act occurred of such magnitude that it would combine Booth's perception of himself as a national representative and moral arbiter into a distinct shift in his acting stvle.

‘■‘'’Quoted in Lama Outerbridge, "Acting legacy of Booth family given center stage by thespians,” Metropolitan Times [Washington] 8 May 1995, C H .

151 CHAPTER 3

John Wükes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln during a performance in

Ford's Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865 had a profound effect on the United States, the perception of theatre in American society, and the career of Edwin Booth. It is not the purpose of this study to exhaustively examine the controversies and findings surrounding the assassination. As assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner points out, excepting efforts to rectify contradictions in reportage and interpretation of data, a review of the literature makes evident that the historiography of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is "so voluminous and complete that no further need for research exists in this area."' A review of the literature does suggest, however, that the effects of the assassination on American theatre, and more particularly on Edwin Booth as the nation's most notable representative of and influence on it, have been strangely neglected. This chapter will examine the assassination's consequent modifications of the nation's perception of itself, theatre, and Edwin Booth.

Further, it will be argued that these perceptual modifications were important enough to alter

Booth's approach to acting and production as a response to them.

The connection between the effects of the assassination and Booth's acting style are based on the foundations established in the previous chapter. The primary import of these

‘Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weening: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1982) xi.

152 foundations is centered in Booth's perception of himself as a nationalistic emblem with the responsibility of representing the country's social and cultural ethos at home and abroad, and his belief that the theatre is an agent for intellectual and moral change for the society at large as well as for the theatre's practitioners. Fundamental to both assumptions is his perception of responsibility to the Booth name, having been framed, largely by press commentary, as the inheritor and perpetuator of this father's theatrical legacy. With these established, the most immediate focus of the effects of the assassination will be centered on the perception of what his brother's act did to the American ethos, the status of the American theatre and actor, and Booth's own status as actor and patriot.

John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln had an immediate and disruptive effect on the United States' perception of itself. In his study of American mythological prototypes, James Oliver Robenson posits, “Lincoln's assassination was the symbolic death of all that Lincoln came to represent to Americans after the Civil War: the frontiersman, the pioneer farmer, and the agrarian world created out of the wilderness."'

Even before the assassination, Robertson suggests, the Civil W ar had developed an ideologic mythos in the American mind as a concretization of a national identity:

Americans fought a Civil War because they believed (Southerners as well as others) with Lincoln that a nation had to be 'all one thing, or all the other.' The nation had been created in the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War was the test of ‘whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.' The nation and its destiny, its independence and its expansion, its mission to the world were challenged and tested in the Civil War."’

■James Oliver Robertson, American Mvth, American Realitv (New York: Hill & Wang, 1980) 160.

^Robertson 86.

153 The Civil War was seen as a necessary crucible in which the ideals of the nation were tested, out of which had come "the vast, effective irresistible organization of the people, the strength, and the agricultural and industrial production of the nation in order to bring to fruition the extension of freedom and equality, the destruction of odious institutions, and the reconstruction of that better society which was the promise of the American nation." The nation's reaffirmed unity was "expressed by Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln came to symbolize for many Americans all the good, important things which came from the Civil

War," chief of which was the perception of "a new birth of freedom and imperishable democracy.'"* Following Jefferson Davis' and his cabinet's departure from Richmond on

.A.pril 2, and Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on .April 9, Lincoln represented an end to the fissure which had threatened to destroy the .American identity and was the symbolic embodiment of new beginnings and reconciliation.

Turner suggests that in contrast to the national atmosphere of relief and celebration which had been in effect since the conflict's resolution, the assassination "produced shock waves among the American people that were to be deep and lasting. The celebration of the war's end ceased and the national mood turned to despair and anger.”" Part of the shift evinced itself in a movement from reconciliation to one of retribution. Before the assassination, the New York Times announced, "the hour of victory is always the hour for clemency - always the hour for the easiest winning of the hearts of the vanquished,”^ while

■‘Robertson 90.

"Turner 18.

^New York Times, 5 April 1865, 4.

154 the Tribune blazoned the motto "'Magnanimity in Triumph” in its headline. The prospect of reunification and reconstruction loomed foremost in the minds of political and social commentators of the period, and while Turner suggests the possibility that some of the conciliatory expressions were an exuberant outbreak to the war's end with an understanding

that harsher realities would most likely set in before long, it is not surprising that "such

feelings of violence and vengeance immediately surfaced after the assassination.”'^ Turner

further suggests that the level of discourse calling for retribution, particularly against what

was a growing perception that Wilkes' crime was backed and provoked by an organized

Confederate conspiracy, was heightened due to a national feeling of betrayal in light of

kindlier sentiments proffered after the war's end:

The nation seemed to experience a feeling of betrayal. It was as if the prodical son had been about to be welcomed home with celebration and the killing of the fatted calf, when suddenly it was discovered that the prodigal not only was not penitent but had suddenly seized a dagger and plunged it into his father's back. Many people felt, with apparent justification, that the assassination might revive the dying Confederacy.*'

Incitements for retribution were mixed into public funeral eulogies as well as

sermons. Schuyler Colfax. Speaker of the House of Representatives, delivered an address

at Bryan Hall in Chicago on April 30, 1865, in which he reminded the audience that the

"fatal shot was fired on the very day when the nation's flag was again unfurled in triumph

over that for in Charleston harbor.” and that it was aimed, "alas, with too sure a hand, at the

New York Tribune. 11 April 1865. 4.

'^Turner 21.

''Turner 22.

155 life of that one man in the Government whose heart was tenderest towards the would be assassins of the nation’s life.” In his address. Colfax clearly links Booth’s crime with a larger plot intimating organization and forethought, by saving, “For, disguise it as some may seek to do, behind the form of the assassin as his finger pulled the fatal trigger, looms up the dark and fiendish Spirit of the Rebellion, which, baffled in its work of assassinating the nation’s life, avenged itself on the life of him who represented the nation’s contest and the nation’s victory.” Booth’s reported cries from the stage of "Sic semper tyrannis” and "The

South is avenged” is seen as connective proof between the "crime and the cause for whose interest it was committed, the authorship of this unparalleled atrocity.” Colfax goes further to remind his audience that the assassination is the opportunity to recall all the horrors and injustices that the Confederate armies committed during the war;

It seems, however, but a natural sequel to the infamous plot to murder him as he passed through Baltimore when first elected; to the brutalities on our dead soldiers at Bull Run, burying them face downwards, and carving up their bones into trinkets: to the piracies on the high seas, and attempts to bum women and children to death in crowded hotels and theaures; to Fort Pillow massacres, and to the systematic and inexpiable starvation of thousands of Union prisoners in their horrid pens'".

Colfax’s address continues to foreground Lincoln’s anticipated benevolence toward the

south, as well as connect the president with images of both Moses and Christ, but nowhere

does it contain a call for forgiveness or forbearance for the assassination. The audience

seems to have been in agreement with his sentiments, for "Notwithstanding the request of

'"In David Brainard Williamson, Illustrated Life. Services, Martvdom. and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States, With a Portrait of President Lincoln, and other DIustrative Engravings of the scene of the Assassination, etc. (Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1865) 261-63.

156 the speaker that the audience would not applaud, it was impossible to restrain them, and Mr.

Colfax was repeatedly interrupted.""

In his oration, the Honorable George Bancroft frames the assassination as a clear threat to the mechanics of the United States' government, since “Neither the office with which he was invested by the approved choice of a mighty people, nor the most simple- hearted kindliness of nature could save him from the fiendish passions of relentless fanaticism." Bancroft makes clear that the assassination should not be viewed as a private act, but as a symbolic attack on the structure and people of the country:

The blow aimed at him, was aimed not at the native of Kentucky, not at the citizen of Illinois, but at the man who, as President, in the executive branch of the government, stood as the representative of every man in the United States. The object of the crime was the life of the whole people. From Maine to the southwest boundary on the Pacific, it makes us one.’"

Bancroft's implication is that the assassination should be seen as an attack on the governmental structure, which, by extension, should be felt by each member of the society.

Henry Ward Beecher was less subtle in ascribing Wilkes' action to forces beyond a private, fanatical act. In his sermon delivered on April 23. 1865, at the Plymouth Street

Church in Brooklyn, attended by an overflowing crowd in which “[tjhousands were turned

away, and hundreds hung about the outer door in the vain hope of hearing,"’^ Beecher

reduces the cause of the war to the question of slavery, holding that “Slavery is itself

barbarous, and the nation which upholds and protects it is likewise barbarous." Beecher

"Williamson 275.

‘"In Williamson 275, 280.

‘^Williamson 281.

157 implies that the assassination is a divine signal to dispel any notion of forgiveness or reconciliation for the south, and maintains that the heinousness of the assassination was a fitting action in that it should "take away from men the last forbearance, the last pity, and fire the soul with invincible determination that the breeding ground of such mischiefs and

monsters shall be utterly and forever destroyed." Beecher maintains that there is no need for

an explicit motivation for Wilkes’ action, since it was unnecessary that "the assassin should

put on paper his belief in slavery." Beecher frames the south as a people devoid of morality

based on its fight for the institution of slavery, and offers evidence by "the treachery of its

leaders to oaths and trusts, their violations of the commonest principles of fidelity, sitting in

Senates, Councils and places of trust, only to betray them; the long general and unparalleled

cruelty to prisoners, without provocation or excuse; [and] their unreasoning malignity and

fierceness." Wilkes is seen as an extension of this depraved system, a person who was “but

the sting of the monster slaveiy which has struck this blow, and as long as this nation lasts,

it will not be forgotten that we have had our ‘Martvr President,’ nor while Heaven holds high

court or Hell rots beneath, will it be forgotten that slavery murdered him." With

Lincoln/Booth established as representatives of the Union/Confederate ethos, Beecher makes

clear that the "blow was aimed at the life of government and of the nation. Lincoln was

slain, but America was meant."''*

Using a similar rhetorical tactic. General Hiram Walbridge, speaking at "Dr.

Dowling's church" in New York, expands the assassination to implicate the Confederate

south and its leaders;

‘•*In Williamson 285-86.

158 It is true a single arm directed the accursed bullet, but the murderous purpose which could conceive such an atrocity could only result from the stifled enmity of that barbaric institution, which for centuries had enslaved millions of he human race, and had inaugurated within the boundaries of the Republic of the United States an oligarchy of crime which fattened on the seat and toil and blood of the victims over which it exercised such material power.

Walbridge maintains that even though Booth may have been captured and killed, "no single death call c.xpiaic tliih great criiiie, >iiice Lincoln is not seen as an individual but as the

"exponent of .American Republican Constitutional Government.” Conversely, Booth is

framed as an emblem and co-conspirator with Confederate forces:

His murderous assassin was the Representative of that accursed Rebellion, and his name will live in immortal execration, as the exponent of the conspiracy which had for its object the overthrow of the Government of the united [sic] States, in order that another government might be formed in this Christian age resting on the basis of human Slavery. Lincoln shall live with Washington in immortal renown, while Booth and Davis shall forever stand in the same record of infamy to provoke the indignation of the virtuous and good.

Just as Washington and Lincoln are linked as representatives of "the genius of free

institution,” Davis and Booth "represent that false civilization which has for its object the

institution of a Government which divided society into classes - which made the interests

of the many subordinate to the interest of the few, and which, while claiming to be a

Government of freedom, was the most grinding, odious, military despotism on earth.”'**

Booth's action is seen as an emblematic representation of and call for retribution against the

entire Confederate system and its governmental and military leaders.

Rumors of governmental conspiracies, incriminating both the Union and Confederate

sides, quickly began to circulate around the country and be reported in the press, and acts of

"’In Williamson 290-91.

159 civil disorder, while not pervasive, were enough to provoke some alarm that the fabric of the country's society was unraveling as a result of the assassination. Generals Grant and

Sherman feared that the assassination would provoke the soldiers from both armies into an

anarchic guerrilla war. and Secretary of War Stanton was widely viewed as having tried to

exercise martial authority over the nation in response to the belief that civil disorder would

overtake the country.'" Confidence in President Johnson was bolstered by the impression

that he would take a less conciliatory stance towards the south than Lincoln had planned, and

during Johnson's impeachment hearings Grant stated. "He [Johnson] seemed to be anxious

to get at the leaders to punish them. He would say that the leaders of the rebellion must be

punished, and that treason must be made odious."' Reports began circulating and were

published that evidence had been uncovered which proved the assassination was part of a

well organized plot to overtake the go\eminent, provoking mass meetings in various parts

of the country in which "order vanished and mobs began chasing "rebel sympathizers.' No

man who had. in other years, spoken his belief in the righteousness of Secession was now

safe. Copperheads, as these citizens were called, hid in their homes or police stations."'®

For many members of the government, military, and private citizenry. Lincoln's assassination

appeared to signal the breakdown of civilization in the United States.

‘"William S. McFeely. Grant: A Biographv (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1982) 226-28.

‘Turner 45-46.

‘®Lloyd Lewis, Mvihs After Lincoln (New York: The Press of the Readers Club, 1941)58.

160 Lincoln's funeral in Washington. D. C. on April 19. 1865. and the subsequent railroad journey transporting the body from Washington and arriving in Springfield, Dlinois on May 4 with stops for public viewing and mourning made in Baltimore. Harrisburg,

Philadelphia. New York. .Albany. SvTacuse. Buffalo. Cleveland. Colum bus. Indianapolis, and

Chicago produced a veritable frenzy of public sorrow. The body was attended by embalmers who would arrange it for display, while the coffin was most often placed on a "raised dais. or inclined plane, the inclination being such that the face of the departed patriot was in view of visitors while passing for two or three minutes."' ' Secretary Stanton gave orders that the body should not have cosmetic improvements, increasing the dramatic effect of the public

viewing. The New York Herald reported the appearance of the body:

The eyes and upper part of the cheeks are still discolored by the effects of the cruel shot which caused his death. It was proposed to remove the discoloration from the face by chemical processes, but the Secretary of War insisted that it was a part of the history of the event, and it should be allowed to remain as an evidence to the thousands who would view the body, when it shall be laid in state, of the death which this marty r to his ideas of justice and right suffered.-"

The fourteen day funeral procession took on a camivalesque atmosphere, with news of the

extravagance with which the funeral was being received whipping city planners into a frenzy

to outdo "anything that any other city had done. Decorations must be larger, crowds bigger,

ceremonies finer, orations more idolatrous. Speakers must exalt the dead man with wilder

phrases, likening him to higher prophets than had any orators before."-' Beginning with the

'W illiam son 239.

■“In Lewis 106.

-'Lewis 124.

161 military funeral in W ashington, D. C., the atmosphere of mourning was tinged, if not entirely confused, with a provocation for vengeance. Williamson comments that while Lincoln's body lay in state in the East Room of the White House, “The echoes of the funeral dirges in the distance seemed like the terrible murmur of the avenging God's wrath at the impiety of the awful crime that brought all here as mourners."-- Along the funeral route back to

Springfield, and especially after its departure from New York, the coffin was rarely "outside the sound of booming guns."' ' Lloyd Lewis estimates that "[s]even million Northerners had looked upon the hearse or the coffin, one million, five hundred thousand having looked upon the dead face. Ninety funeral marches had been composed and played," in the course of which, "Some people took to their beds, sick with nervous woe, and here and there a weak mind gave way under the strain," including a young man by the name of Charles Johnson in

New York who cut his throat with a razor, leaving a message which was widely telegraphed across the counny that he was "going to join Abraham Lincoln."'^ Historians and contemporary commentators have generally foregrounded the national sorrow in the wake of the assassination, but, as Turner observes, "violent deeds and expressions were so much at the heart of public reaction and apparently arose so spontaneously that it is difficult to see how anyone could have controlled them if he had wished. People honestly believed that the

South was involved, and sometimes vengeance was visited upon innocent and guilty aiike.”~'

"Williamson 218.

^ Lewis 125.

-■‘Lewis 129-30.

^Tuner52.

162 Disparate acts of social violence occurred in various regions of the country as a result of the assassination. Former presidents Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce were called out of their homes by mobs who demanded them to make formal declarations of their feelings for Lincoln, instances occurred of citizens who were suspected of pro-Southem leanings being tarred and feathered, shot, or beaten to death with paving stones. Joseph Shaw, the editor of the Westminster ( Main land ) Democrat was shot by a mob because he had published a negative editorial about Lincoln. Reports were made of soldiers shooting anyone who seemed to applaud Lincoln's murder, and groups of released Confederate prisoners frequently had to seek shelter in jails and prisons for protection against mobs.-" In the South, with few exceptions, the assassination was met with reactions of horror and sympathy, although, as Turner points out. while there was genuine sympathy expressed over the act,

"there was an equal amount of fear for the southern position. Since the war was clearly lost, southerners feared the horrible retribution that might be delivered upon them should they be charged with the deed."’’ Many were particularly fearful of the measures that might be taken by President Johnson, who was viewed as much harsher in his sentiments toward reaching conciliation with the South, as Jefferson Davis testified many years after the war by saying,

"For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to

-"Lewis 57-59.

-^Turner 93.

163 moum; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune to the South.""'*

The repercussions of Lincoln's assassination, felt in the attitudinal shift towards reconciliation by Andrew Johnson's consequent presidency, and the aftermaths of the

Military Reconstruction Act. have been argued to have extended well into the remainder of the nineteenth century and beyond. It might be argued that one of the greatest perceptual shifts occurred in the nation's perception of itself as fragmented. As Daniel J. Boorstin comments, "Whatever the crimes, the senseless bitterness, that were visited on the South in the era of reconstruction, they were committed in a vindictive or narrowly provincial spirit.

The triumph of the national emphasis in the federal structure did not carry with it victory of a nationalist philosophy.''’*' Even if, as Boorstin states, the preservation of the "Union" superceded the preservation of the "nation," the consequences of the assassination produced a disjointed view of that identity. David M. Potter observes. "After .April 1865 secession was

dead the Union had been preserved, but for the years that lay ahead, the Union seemed even

more deeply divided than during the slavery controversy when the idea of secession had been

alive."*” Much of the debate over the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment seems to

have been directly linked to Wilkes' murderous act, as debate over its enactment evinced

Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 vols.; New York: D. Appleton, 1912), II. 683.

’T)aniel J. Boorstin, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1958) 131.

^David M. Potter, Division and the Stresses of Reunion, 1845-1876 (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1973) 143.

164 hatred that was "incredibly bitter, as is reflected in the fact that Johnson accused leading

Republicans of conspiring to assassinate him. and some Republicans accused Johnson of ■

involvement in the conspiracy that had led to Lincoln's assassination."^' It would be

simplistic to assert that Lincoln's assassination was the singular cause of what Robertson has

termed America's "Fragmented Image" after 1865,'- as much as it would be erroneous to

maintain that there was a singular national identity prior to that. However, it is plausible to

speculate that the assassination did substantially engender a breakdown in the hope for

peaceful reconciliation and reunification, as well as generate a deep-seated distrust as to the

benevolence of the American government and. by the verv' act of assassination, awaken a

sense of fragility in the constitutional system. Just as the war's end brought about a

collective celebration of peace and hope for the consolidation, the assassination generated

vengeance and partisanship, perhaps fore\ er shattering the possibility of a united States.

The assassination's affect on perception of the institution of the theatre and of its

actors was immediate and debilitating. Even though, prior to the assassination, certain

American actors such as Edwin Forrest (although he was hampered by the scandalous

notoriety of his divorce proceedings ). Charlotte Cushman, and. to some degree. Edwin Booth

had managed to legitimize the acting profession by endowing it with a moral and scholarly

validity, it was still viewed as having degenerate and subversive undertones which were

contrary to the hegemonic Puritan ethos. The rise of the itinerant star system beginning in

the mid 1830s. which made popular successes of Forrest. Cushman, and the elder Booth,

^‘Potter 178.

^■Robertson 224-240.

165 seems to indicate a "double mirror” effect whereby the audiences' adulation of its favorite actor serves to validate the audiences' power to grant popularity and approval, circumventing moral problematics which might normally have been associated with the actors’ lifestyles.

Bruce McConachie explains the adulation of these actor’s charismatic appeal as a uniquely

American occurrence, based on the image of the Jacksonian "self-made man” and the perception of these stars having loosed themselves from the restraining fetters of the stock company system in order to take charge of their own careers:

The confluence of a popular desire for hero worship and the possibilities of new productive relations in the theatre elevated some actors to star status, an attributed social role based more on the relationship between the star and this fans than on qualities intrinsic to the actor. Theatrical stardom had the same economic base and psychosocial dynamics as charismatic political leadership, which also flourished in the nineteenth century . Audiences had respected Betteron and Horace Walpole; they worshipped Forrest and Andrew Jackson.’^

However, even given the popular accolades bestowed on the public's favorite stars, there existed (and perhaps exists) an underlying suspicion of the actor based on the choice of acting as a profession, particularly in a conservative, neoplatonic society.”* Jean .\lter hypothesizes that actors, especially those acting prior to the contemporary shift which frames actors as “mainstream professionals" augmented by professional schools, unions, journals, agents, and other trappings of conservative business, were seen as "an alien tribe whose

loose morals and mores, displayed openly, were judged to be both reprehensible and

” Bruce A. McConachie, Melodramatic Formations: .American Theatre and Society. 1820-1870 (Iowa City: U of Iowa P. 1992) 74.

*'*McConachie links antebellum conservative paternalism with the romantic poetry and philosophies of Schiller and Emerson, contending that the Jacksonian ethos was defined by "popular neoplatonism.” McConachie 42.

166 seductive, and hence dangerous."^' Although sometimes granted celebrity status or conforming to a conservative norm, actors were censured as "agents of corruption," based on the Platonic fear that actors possess the power to move live spectators to an emotional communion that stimulates imitation. Alter continues to argue that even if actors are not seen as corruptors of public morality, the process of acting is suspect "because, under the guise of play, it transgresses the rules of order."’" Actors and both envied and criticized for living vicariously, and yet publicly, different lives in many different social roles. Alter argues that this transgression of fi.xed social roles fosters a suspicion of "harboring an unruly disposition nurtured by their subversive switching of roles on the stage. Their very existence, and professional presence, thus suffice to disturb social complacency, whatever the specific nature of their society."'

The duality of antebellum America's perception of actors is echoed in Rosemary

Bank's commentary on a May 11, 1841 editorial by Horace Greeley in the Tribune. Bank

asserts that while Greeley's contention that theatre workers were largely "libertines and courtezans," resembles much older criticisms of theatre, it also "represents a significant

repositioning of the ‘theatre debate' in the United States in the nineteenth century." Bank

explains the new positioning in terms of the tension existing in the dual treatment and

expectation of the actor:

'^Jean Alter, A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1990)258.

^ Alter 259.

''Alter 260.

167 Aesthetic criticism demanded a larger-than-life stage posture identifiable with Romantic and transcendental views of genius and nature. Charged with uplifting and relaxing the antebellum audience member, yet with being exceptional and always public, actors shared with both stage and company managers a vulnerability yet an aloofness to criticism. On the one hand, as numerous 'theatre riots' in the 1830s and 1840s attest, theatre people and theatre buildings could quickly become foci for nationalistic sentiments, disputes in taste, antiabolitionism, or other issues with which they were casually, directly, or coincidentally connected. [. ..] On the other hand, the nature of theatre as work - with its late hours, higher pay. transience, and visibility - conveyed a prominence and popularity that could as readily excuse as recuse.'*^

In can also be observed that, along with Bank's assessment of the simultaneous culpability and sanctuary granted the antebellum actor, the actor was also granted immunity from

conservative restrictions because of the increased value placed on leisure for its instructive

and diversionary properties in a period, since 1861. when "Americans on both sides felt

dismay at the dissolution of the Union."''' .Anne C. Rose posits that Civil War era Victorian

Americans sought "stimulating and convivial activities in an insistent mood." and while

recognizing the diversionary possibilities of leisure, "Against a troubling background of

spiritual and vocational questions, the Victorians expanded their personal horizons through

play. As important, the elective relations they forged in settings of no obvious practical

utility reveal how much social contacts made deeper perplexities more easily borne." In

this context, it is easier to understand how the assassination of the countrv's emblematic

'^Rosemary K. Bank. Theatre Culture in .America. 1825-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1997) 115.

^^Anne C. Rose. Victorian America and the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1994) 134.

■'«Rose 109.

168 representative of reunification by an actor in a theatre during a performance elicited a sense of betrayal from and vindictiveness toward an institution which had been allowed to prosper through the laissez faire of the citizenry . Albert Furtwangler suggests that the position and decoration of the presidential box, the celebratory nature of the evening, and Booth's murder of Lincoln and wounding of Major Rathbone in the presence of their wives framed the event with an added sense of perversion:

His act suddenly changed a house united in good feeling to a place chaotic with shock, grief, fear, anger, and guilt. It left a sense of violated space. Booth had easily broken into, then almost playfully vaulted out of what was ostentatiously set up as a raised national shrine. He had shot a defenseless Lincoln and stabbed Major Rathbone, and in the act he had brought war right into a cosy little parlor, threatening women in evening clothes and shedding blood before their eyes. The play that night had reached out across the footlights to welcome Lincoln into its particular kind of comedy. For an actor then to leap upon the stage, with Lincoln's blood on his hands was an outrage against the theater, against hospitality, against every expected decency.^'

In this reading, it can be seen that Booth's act changed the nature of the theatrical space from

one of innocent diversion or edifying instruction to betrayal and treason, adding an element

of personal threat since Booth had effectively not only restarted the war but brought it from

the battlefield into the "parlor."

Eyewitness accounts of the assassination and its immediate aftermath convey an

almost surreal blending of the real and the fictive, perhaps adding to the soon perceived

danger to be found in an illusionistic theatrical event. Throughout the narratives, there is the

persistent expression of shock and incredulity that one of the nation's most respected and

■“Albert Furtwangler, Assassin on Stage: Brutus, Hamlet, and the Death of Lincoln (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991) 105-6.

169 recognizable actors had committed such an unprecedented act, owing, at least in part perhaps, to the theatrical setting in which it took place. Secretary Stanton inter\ iewed three witnesses to the assassination while he was attending Lincoln in the Peterson house, across the street from Ford's Theatre. The first account was taken from A. M. S. Crawford, a member of the

Veteran's Reserve, who was seated about five feet from the door of the Presidential box..

Crawford attests.

This murderer came around about the middle of the first scene of the 3*^ act of the play of 'Our American Cousin.' To pass us he had to come around me and then to pass in front of the Captain. I looked up at him four or five times. He attracted my attention. I thought first that he was intoxicated. There was a glare in [his] eye and he was a little over middling [height]. He had a dark slouch hat, a dark coat, jet black hair, dark eyes, a heavy black [moustache], no whiskers and no beard.

After hearing the shot, Crawford entered the box, where Major Rathbone, who was in

attendance with the President and Mrs. Lincoln with his wife, ordered him to secure the door.

.Vfter Stanton asked him whether he had seen the man that jumped from the box, Crawford

replied, “Yes sir. I saw him as he ran across the stage. I saw him as he passed across two

thirds of the stage and out between the scenes. He had a knife in his right hand. As he went

through the scene he threw his hand behind him and the knife was in sight. I think his face

was familiar. The side of his face was towards me. It was the left side of his face. [...] He

very strongly resembled the Booths. What attracted my attention particularly was the glare

in his eve. He did not sav a word that I heard."'*' Craw ford's statement attests that he was

■*'In Timothy S. Good, ed.. We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: U P of Mississippi, 1995) 30.

170 familiar enough with the Booth family to ascertain that there was a familial likeness, even though he was unable to clearly identify the assassin.

Harry' Hawk, also interviewed by Stanton that evening, was on stage playing the leading role of Asa Trenchard when he heard the shot behind him:

I heard something tear and somebody fell and as I looked towards him he came in the direction in which Î was standing and I believe to the best of my knowledge that it was John Wilkes Booth. [...] I am acquainted with Booth. I met him the first time a year ago. I saw him today about one o’clock. Said I, ‘how do you do Mr. Booth.’ and he says how are you Hawk.’ He was sitting on the steps of Ford’s Theatre reading a letter. He had the appearance of being sober at the time. I was never intimate with him. He had no hat won when I saw him on the stage. In my own mind I do not have any doubt that it was Booth. He made some expression when he came on the stage but I did not understand that."*'

Hawk’s testimony is the first to positively identify Booth as the killer, and it is interesting

to note Hawk’s reference to Booth appearing to be "sober" at the time of their afternoon

meeting. This may be the first inference to Booth as a ra\ ing, drunken lunatic, a popular

image of him in later writings, and a clear reference to the received perception of his father.

James P. Ferguson was the last person Stanton interviewed on the assassination night.

Ferguson owned a restaurant directly situated to the north of Ford’s Theatre, and he procured

seats opposite the presidential box when he was told by Mr. Ford that his "favorite" General

Grant would be in attendance at that evening’s performance. After the curtain went up for

the third act of the play, Ferguson relates that he saw

Mr. Booth go to the door leading to the passage of the private box which the President occupied and by the door. In a moment afterwards I was looking with an opera glass to see which the citizen was that was with the President. I then heard the report of the pistol and saw Mrs. Lincoln catch him around

"^In Good 31.

171 the neck. I saw him throw up his right arm at the same time I saw booth with his hand in his side and pull a knife and move between Mrs. Lincoln and a lady in the same box. He put his hands in the cushion of the box and threw his feet right over. As he jumped over he pulled part of a state flag off and had part of it under his feet when he fell on the stage. The very moment he struck he exclaimed 'Sic Semper T>Tannis.'[...] I looked right down at him and he stopped as he said. T have done it,’ and shook the knife. All I know of Mr. Booth is this. I never saw him in my life until about two or three months ago. I have often heard of Wilkes Booth. He himself told me that he vvas born and raised in Baltimore. He is a theatrical man by profession. [.. .] he came today near one or two o'clock in front of my house. I think the President was shot Just about 10 o’clock, just as the curtain went up for the 3"* act. I do not know what became of Booth after he left the stage. There was great excitement. I think there were many persons in the orchestra who might have caught him if they had immediately pursued him.^

A diary entry dated April 15. 1865 . by a man only identified as “Basset" attests to the confusion of the audience following the assassination, as well as being the only account that has Booth shout both “Sic Semper TvTannis" and "Revenge for the South" from the stage. After Booth ran across the stage, wielding his knife. Basset states. “The crowd ascended the stage. The actresses, pale, ran wildly about. Miss Keene, whose benefit night it was. came forward endeavoring to quiet the audience. Several gentlemen climbed to the box. and finally the audience was ordered out." Basset recounts that after Lincoln was removed from the theatre and taken to the Petersen house, "every street was patrolled, every road out of Washington was picketed, and every avenue of escape guarded.'”*^ The suddenness of the event, coupled with the extraordinary nature of a theatrical surrounding and Booth’s impeccable appearance, gave rise to several different readings regarding the incidents. Edwin Bates, writing to his parents on April 15. 1865. reports hearing the shot and

■“In Good 32.

^'In Good 33.

172 seeing “a man [who] jumped from Mr. Lincolns box a distance of 10 or 15 feet upon the stage right before & not more than 10 feet from me. He fell partly upon his side but instantly rose & with a long dagger in hand rushed rapidly across the stage & disappeared before any in the vast house full of people could realise what had occurred.” Bates reports that Booth's appearance led him to assume that he (Booth) was the object of violence, as "[h]e was a fine looking man dressed in a full suit of black & it was my impression at the first instant that some body had fired a pistol at him & he had jumped down upon the stage for safety or had been knocked down." Bates recounts that the incongruity' of the situation and the "man's" brazen and theatrical behavior as he crossed the stage led him to comment to his companion as they exited the theatre that "the man when found would be discovered to be some insane person, that the lowest depths of human depravity even in a rebel of the worst type would not permit to commit such a horrible deed in so bold a manner before thousand of people & where there could be so little chance of escape."^

Bates' companion that evening was Frederick .A.. Sawyer, who also wrote a letter about the evening on April 15, 1865. Sawyer is the first to mention that the play had been interrupted after it had begun by the crow d's reaction to the Lincoln party entering their box, when "cheers from the whole house indicated that some distinguished person had entered the house: it soon became known that Mr Lincoln & his wife & some two or three other persons

had entered the private box[. . .jwhich was draped with the American flag." This

interruption of the evening's progress may have led Sawyer to conclude, as it did other

witnesses, that the pistol shot and subsequent commotion was "a side scene of the play;

■“In Good 34-35.

173 instantly I remembered that there was nothing of this sort in the play, but by the time I had recovered my thought sufficiently to realize that such was not the case, the man had disappeared."^ The impression that Booth’s action was part of an evening’s extraordinary theatrical events is corroborated by Helen DuBarry in a letter to her mother written on April

16. 1865. DuBarry states that after the second scene of the play had begun, "there was a great applause and cheering and our attention was directed to the Dress circle." where they watched the Lincoln party enter their box. Later, as her attention was focused on the play, she heard a pistol shot which caused them to look at the direction of the presidential box

"merely because that was the direction of the sound and supposing it to be part of the performance we all looked again on the stage. Similarly. Spencer Bronson writes to his sister on April 16. 1865. "The curtains arose & the play commenced entitled ‘Our .American

Cousin’ the star performer being Miss Laura Keene. About 8 1/200 [sic] Mr Lincoln & lady accompanied by a single couple entered the house being received by enthusiastic cheers as they took their seats. The play went on & all went smoothly every one being interested in the play. Then suddenly a pistol shot is heard - No one is alarmed for it is believed to part of the play." Bronson also comments on the "tragical attitude" with which Booth drew the dagger and "with his white face towards the crowd he repeated in latin [sic] 'So be it ever to tyrants.

"'In Good 37-38.

"*In Good 53.

"Tn Good 58.

174 Subsequent accounts give further testimony to the impression that the assassination was mistakenly thought to be part of the evening's entertainment. Dr. Charles Sabin Taft wrote an account in April, 1865. which was later published in the February. 1893 Century

Magazine. Dr. Taft mentions the "acclamations of the loyal multitude" who greeted

Lincoln's late entrance to the theatre, and reports that the later shot, while startling everyone in the audience, "was evidently accepted by all as an introductory effect preceding some new situation in the play, several of which had been introduced in the earlier part of the performance." He then describes Booth's appearance as he leapt to the stage, after which he sprung "quickly to his feet with the suppleness of an athlete, he faced the audience for a moment as he brandished in his right hand a long knife, and shouted 'Sic Semper Tyrannis!'

Then, with a rapid stage stride, he crossed the stage and disappeared from view.""’*’ The performative aspect of Booth's appearance is reported in an interview with A. C. Richards, who was chief of police at the time of the assassination, published in the Washington Critic on April 17.1885. Richards recounts that after Booth dropped to the stage, he "then gathered himself up. faced the audience, drew his bowie knife, brandished it above his head, and with theatrical stride - his face all the time to the audience - cried out twice. I think, 'Sic semper tyrannis.' as he crossed the stage diagonally from the box to the rear and disappeared behind

the scenery." Tellingly, when asked whether Booth seemed excited, Richards replied, "No.

He evidently intended that his performance should be a piece of tragic acting. He did his part

coollv and deliberatelv. with no show of undramatic excitement or fear."^‘ In a similar

Good 63.

■‘In Good 101.

175 account, Roeliff Brinkerhoff writes in his autobiography (excerpted in “Tragedy of an Age:

An Eyewitness Account of Lincoln's Assassination. Lincolnian. 1900) that his first impression after the shot "was that it was part of the play." After recounting Booth's leap to the stage, his shout, and brandishing the dagger. Brinkerhoff comments that Booth passed across the stage "with his face to the audience." Supporting the performative nature of the action, he adds. "He did not run. it was a swift stage-walk. and was evidently studied beforehand, like everything else he did. for effect." Brinkerhoff concludes his commentary with an observation that while Booth may have had some political motivations for the assassination, the likelier motivation was one of personal (theatrical) ambition:

It may be that Booth had worked himself into the idea that Mr. Lincoln was a kind of representative tyrant, and that in killing him he was playing the role of Brutus, but I think not. for the entire affair was entirely too stagey, at least for the spirit of Brutus. He w as acting a premeditated part from the beginning to the end. it is true, but it was entirely for stage effect, and for the glorification of the actor. His “sic semper tyrannis' was stagey. His whole attitude and walk before the audience at the theater were stagey. His double- edged gladiatorial dagger had been prepared purposely for stage effect. In fact, it was all a part of a play which was to make John Wilkes Booth immortal in history."'

In another account of the effect that Booth's recognizable theatrical manner had on the audience. Lieutenant William Ennis writes.

While the soliloquy was in progress and the audience engrossed in listening to the actor's words, a pistol shot rang out in the theatre, causing a slight disturbance. Immediately another person was seen on the stage, as a tall man came from the direction of the boxes and with a theatrical stride walked rapidly towards the opposite wings. So intent had been the audience on the actor on the stage that the appearance of a new actor was scarcely realized, and none knew what it meant. [... I] supposed the man was a part of the play. In an instant both the actor and the assassin had disappeared, and it was

--In Good 110-12.

176 learned the actor, seeing the strange man on the stage, carrying a knife in a threatening sort of a way, made good his escape.'^

Further corroboration is supplied by Lieutenant John L. Bolton, a Provost Guard for the city of Washington at the time of the assassination, in an article he wrote for the Norfolk Virginia

Ledger/Letter in 1914. Bolton reports hearing the shot, seeing Booth drop to the stage, after which he "sprang to his feet at once and limped across the stage shouting 'Sic Semper

Tyrannis.' I thought that all of this was a surprise in the play, and so did everyone there that

I conversed with about it afterward.'"'*

Although many of the extant eyewitness accounts of the assassination vary to greater and lesser degrees regarding such details as to what Booth actually uttered and where he uttered it, the manner in which he exited the stage, and the amount of time it took for the audience to respond to the event, the importance of the above citations is in the pervading consensus of the theatrical nature with which Booth framed the assassination in the location of a theatre, in the midst of a theatrical performance, and in the overtly grand theatrical manner with which Booth presented himself to the audience. There seems little doubt that

Booth "played" the part of the assassin with a recognizably stylized deportment, and many of the accounts suggest that his manner of presentation may have confused the audience as

to the reality of the event to the extent that it allowed him to exit the stage and escape the

theatre without apprehension. Part of the audience's confusion between the real and the

fictive would certainly have been produced by the assassination having taken place in a

^^Undated, unlabeled newspaper article in Good 127.

^In Good 136.

177 theatre. As Susan Bennett explains, ‘Traditionally [. . .] the playing space has been contained in an area or building designated as theatre. That designation [...] acts to signal the event staged within as theatrical performance."'" The combination of the theatrical space, the unexpected Interruptions to the play produced by Lincoln's arrival and actors' improvised lines to make contemporaryjokes,^" and Booth's demeanor which seemingly prompted many in the audience to decode his action as performance, undoubtedly led to a temporary inability to differentiate between the real and the fictive. For this audience, and for those who would read and hear of the night's occurrences, it might be concluded that the recognizable conventions of theatre aided in the accomplishment of Lincoln's assassination, and effected a successful escape for his assassin.

There were immediate mob gatherings from which cries of "Bum the theater!" and

"Kill the goddam rebels! Kill the traitors!" emanated.' In Secretary of the Treasury Field's statement, he describes seeing Mrs. Lincoln after receiving news that her husband had died, carried out of the Petersen house in the amis of her son Robert. ,A.s she came to the front door of the house, "she glanced at the theatre opposite, and exclaimed several times, ‘Oh, that dreadful house!* That dreadful house!'"''* Consequent to the assassination, anti theatrical sentiment would swell throughout the countr,'. Asia Booth Clarke, sister to Edwin and John

"Susan Bennett, Theatre .Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (New York: Routledge, 1990) 135.

'^Furtwangler 104-5.

'L ew is 49.

'^"Statements and Affidavits in Relation to the Murder: Mr. Field's Statement," in Williamson 210.

178 Wilkes, remarks in 1877. “It was the moan of the religious people, the one throb of anguish to hero-worshipers, that the President had not gone first to a place of worship or have remained at home on this jubilant occasion. It desecrated his idea to have his end come in a devil's den - a theater - in fact.”"’ The “jubilant occasion” to which Clarke refers was a designated “night of illumination,” for which, as Williamson comments, there was “not a loyal household in the land that had failed to prepare its flags, its portraits of our heroes, and its candles, lamps or bonfires for the glorious occasion.””" Lincoln's choice to attend the theatre on such an occasion, while later viewed as unsavory by some members of the press and clergy, was not unusual, since Lincoln was known for his “fondness for the theater as an entertainment and his liking for homespun humor set him comfortably in the old-fashioned theater of a miscellaneous playbill and the muscular histrionics of Edwin Forrest."”' The frequency with which Lincoln attended theatrical performances is attested to in Williamson's description of "The President's Box" in Ford's Theatre, which could be quickly enlarged by removing a dividing wall between two boxes. Williamson mentions, "Lincoln was always accompanied by a party, which, although limited to personal friends and foreign officials, to whom courtesy required the extension of an invitation, was always sufficiently large to

’“^Asia Booth Clarke, John Wilkes Booth: A Sister's Memoir, Terry Alford, ed. (Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1996. (This is a revised and edited version of Clarke's The Unlocked Book published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1938, sixty years after Asia's death.)

^"Williamson 108,

Furtwangler 74.

179 render more than one box necessary for comfort."'’- Lincoln’s theatrical patronage, and particularly his assassination within its confines, spurred an outpouring of anti theatrical rhetoric and legal actions which would effect the national perception of the profession for years.

Some actions taken against the theatre and its actors are understandable, and in some ways even justified, in the chaotic aftermath of the assassination. General Stanton ordered the closing of Ford's Theatre, and the arrest of all its actors and employees."^ Harry Hawk, who had been on stage as Asa Trenchard when Wilkes jumped from the box and made his escape, attempted to leave Washington in fear for his safety, but could not because the trains had been stopped. He was arrested and kept under SI000 bail to appear as a witness at

Booth’s trial.'’^ A storekeeper near Ford’s Theatre was barely rescued by authorities when a mob had placed a rope around his neck and was preparing to hang him for his speaking up in defense of members of the theatrical profession."' As telegrams and newspaper articles revealed details of the assassination, the entire acting profession became suspect, with raging mobs threatening tar and feathering for anyone connected with the theatre, and "great groups of actors" being connected with the Secessionist cause because one of their own had

^'Williamson 214.

"’Gene Smith, American Gothic: The Storv of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family - Junius. Edwin. And John Wilkes Booth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 171.

"^Turner 25; Good 51.

"'W. J. Ferguson. I Saw Booth Shoot Lincoln (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1930) 58

180 committed the crime in a theatre."" Many of them tried to disassociate themselves from

Wilkes by circulating rumors of his and his family's insanity, following the lead of Edwin

Forrest, who, while in Philadelphia playing Othello, was informed on the morning of April

15 by fellow actor John McCullough that Wilkes had murdered Lincoln. McCullough paced the room repeating, "I don't believe it. I can't believe it," to which Forrest responded, "W ell,

I do. All those God damned Booths are crazy."" The following week, an "indignation meeting" was called by members of the Philadelphia theatrical profession, which John

Sleeper Clark (husband of Asia Booth and imprisoned because of his family relation) could not attend, but wrote to a friend to "Proclaim my entire concurrence with any measure expressive of sympathy for the loss of our lamented President, loyalty to our government, or any other steps the wisdom of the meeting may think proper to take.""" Clara Morris, who

had acted with Wilkes in a production of The Marble Heart, learned of the assassination

while working in John Ellsler's theatre in Columbus, Ohio. The theatre was closed, Morris

states, from police fear that actors and theatres might be the subject of mob violence."'^ Mrs.

John Drew, actress and manager of the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, was told of the

assassination by her son. When told the name of the assassin, her immediate connection was

to Edwin, remarking, "The brother of one so kind." Shortly afterwards, however, she seemed

""Lewis 156-57.

" Richard Moody, Edwin Forrest: First Star of the American Stage (New York: Alfred A. Knoph, I960) 351.

""John Sleeper Clarke, letter to Lewis Baker, 21 April, 1865, in Clarke 129.

"’Clara Morris, "Some Recollections of John Wilkes Booth," McClure's Magazine, XVI(1901) 303.

181 to realize the impact it would have on the perception of actors, for she added, "Will our

profession ever atone?” " It is ambiguous as to whether Mrs. Drew was questioning the

abilitv of her profession to atone for a sense of collective guilt that one of its own would have

committed the crime, or for a predicted sense of shame that would be thrust upon it by the

country.

Some members of the clergy took the opportunity to renew attacks on the theatre for

its immoral influence, most expressing the hope that the theatre would, henceforth, be "made

odious in America.” ‘ As if in anticipation of the clergy's perception of theatre’s immorality

and Lincoln's attendance there. Speaker of the House Colfax, in his address at Bryan Hall

in Chicago on April 30, attempted to justify Lincoln's attendance:

[T]he death-dealing bullet was sped to its mark in a theatre, where, but little over an hour before, he had been welcomed, as he entered, by a crowded audience rising, and with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, honoring him with an ovation of which any one might well be proud. Some regret that he was there at all. But, to all human appearance, he was safer there, by far, than in his own reception-room, where unknown visitors so often entered alone. He found there a temporary respite, occasionally, from the crowds who thronged his anterooms, relaxation from the cares and perplexities which so constantly oppressed him, keeping his mind under the severest tension, like the bent bow, till it almost lost its spring, and, on this fatal night - to be so black an one hereafter in our calendar - going with reluctance, and, as he expressed it to Mr. Ashmun and myself, only because General Grant, who had been advertised with himself to be present, had been compelled to leave the city, and he did not wish to disappoint those who would expect to see him there.'^

™Smith 171.

‘Turner 87.

^In Williamson 265-66.

182 Colfax deftly sidesteps Lincoln’s affinity for the theatre by highlighting the issues of his safety and desire not to disappoint the American people, while offering no defense for the theatre or its members. Henry Ward Beecher, preaching at the Plymouth Street Church in

Brooklyn on .4pril 23. avoids mentioning the theatre at all, preferring to highlight Lincoln’s official duties by saying. “He died watching. He died with armor on. In the midst of hours of labor, in the ver\ heart of patriotic consultations, just returned from camps and council. he was stricken down.” Beecher does, however, infer the theatre’s notorious association. justifies Lincoln’s attendance by framing it in strict military terms:

Nor was the manner of his death more shocking, if we will surround it with higher associations. Have not thousands of soldiers fallen on the field of battle by the bullets of an enemy, and did not he? All soldiers that fall ask to depart in the hour of victory, and at such an hour he fell. There was not a poor drummer boy in all this war. that has fallen, for whom the great heart of Lincoln would not have bled; there is not one private soldier without note or name slain among thousands, and hid in the pit among hundreds, without even the memorial of a separate burial, for whom the President would not have wept. He w as a man from and of the people, and now that he whom might not bear the march, the toil and battle, with these humble citizens, has been called to die by the bullet, as they were, do you not feel that there is a peculiar fitness to his nature and life, that he should in death be joined with them in a final common experience? For myself, when any event is susceptible of a nobler garnishing. I cannot understand the nature or character of those who seek rather to drag it down, degrading and debasing, rather than ennobling and sanctifying it. ^

Beecher transforms the “degrading and debasing” nature of the theatre into an honorable field of battle, obviously in response to objections raised that Lincoln was there at all.

The voices of the clergy, in the form of sermons to their congregation, offer either proscriptive or reflective indications of the mood of the general populace, and are “an

In Williamson 284-85.

183 excellent means of gauging public reaction.” The Reverend Phineas D. Gurley, addressing

a congregation in Washington and commenting on the closure of Ford's Theatre, announced.

"Let it stand for years to come as it now stands, silent, gloomy, forlorn, more like a sepulcher

than a place of amusement, saying to all passerby. 'Here the greatest crime of the ages was

committed by one who was addicted to tragedy and made the stage his home .” Reverend

Justin Dewey Fultin of Boston lamented, "We remember with sorrow the place of his death.

He did not die on Mt. Nebo. with his eyes full of heaven. He was shot in a theatre. We are

sorry for that. It is a poor place to die in. It would not be selected by any of you as the spot

from which you would desire to proceed to the bar of God.” A Detroit minister by the name

of Duffield commented, "Would Mr. Lincoln had fallen elsewhere than at the very gates of

Hell - in the theatre.” '

In his rhetorical examination of the Northern Protestant clergy's response to the

assassination, David B. Chesebrough observes that while sermon responses indicate

discomfort that Lincoln never publically professed his faith or joined a church, they were

more concerned that he was killed in a theatre. Chesebrough notes that L. M. Glover,

minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville. Illinois, in his sermon delivered on

April 26. 1865, summarized the thoughts of many by stating.

■‘Turner 77.

'\A11 quoted in John Hanners, "It Was Plav or Starve”: Acting in the Nineteenth- Centurv .American Popular Theatre (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. 1993) 127.

'’David B. Chesebrough "No Sorrv like Our Sorrow": Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State U P. 1994) 32.

184 I think it my duty, however, to say that in common with many others, I have a regret that, if he was to fall by the hand of an assassin, the event had not occurred elsewhere, in the street, in the council chamber, in the national mansion, or even in the sanctuary of God. And yet my regret does not take the form of expression adopted by some, that being in the theatre he was out of God's jurisdiction and forfeited the divine protection, but that regret is this, that besides the general impropriety of the indulgence for one whose example gives law, and especially while public affairs were so troubled, the fact should have been made by "wicked hands' to serve as the like of destiny, and seized upon as the fatal condition of such universal down-casting and grief. .•\nd yet in all this painful matter there is nothing which a gracious God cannot or which a generous people will not forgive.

In Glover's argument, he infers that many had framed the theatre as being outside the boundaries ofDivine protection, thereby making Lincoln vulnerable to the assassin's bullet.

Some ministers seem to have taken the cue from Colfax's address, cited above, that Lincoln attended the theatre only out of a sense of social or political obligation. Thomas Laurie of the South Evangelical Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, stated, "It is a relief to know that our beloved President went with reluctance to the fatal spot," while George Duffield of

Chicago commented that it was only "through persuasion, he so reluctantly went."'** The

Episcopalian minister Robert Lowry , in his sermon on April 16,1865, rationalized Lincoln's theatre attendance in term s which preclude any motivation based on an enjoyment of theatre:

It cannot be said that the President went to the theatre because he loved to be there. He was not, in the common acceptation of the term, a theatre-goer. It is known that he went with great reluctance. He was in no state of mind to enjoy a scene like that. But the newspapers had announced that the President and General Grant would be there on that evening. The people thronged the house to do honor to the great men who had saved the country. General Grant, who had no time to waste in amusements, left Washington in the evening train, to superintend the removal of his family to Philadelphia. The

In Chesebrough 32-33.

*In Chesebrough 33.

185 President knew that the people would be disappointed, if they saw neither of the faces that they delighted to honor. Weary as he was, he decided to go. He went, not to see a comedy, but to gratify the people. [...] For the people he gave up his life on the night of that Fatal Friday.

There is another consideration. In all the countries of Christendom, the rulers are expected to visit the theatre as an act of state. We may deplore the custom, but it is nevertheless, universal. It is an observance that stretches back through long generations. There is a supposed necessity for it. It is only there that the E.vecutive canreceive the formal acclaims of all classes of citizens.[...] From a religious stand-point. we cannot approve of it. But we must not confound the act of the President, prompted by high considerations of state, with the visit of a private citizen, moved thereunto by the low desire of a mere selfish gratification. ''

Lowry locates the president's theatrical attendance in terms which foreground his martyrdom to the will of the people in going to the theatre in order to satisfy the people's desire to see

him and express their gratitude, and to the nation's acceptance as a viable political entity by

observing longstanding Western state tradition.

Some ministers took tlie opportunity provided by the assassination to reassert their

disapproval for the theatre and its practitioners. E. J. Goodspeed, pastor of the Second

Baptist Church in Chicago, used his sermon on .A.pril 23. 1865. to remind his congregants

that theatres were "royal roads to perdition" in which "men are trained for villainy or

nurtured in vice." In speaking of actors. Goodspeed declared, "There is a taint upon them

which we should shun like the plague." and of Wilkes' particular career and theatrical legacy,

Goodspeed maintained, "Familiar with tragedies where the dagger and poison played

important parts, intoxicated by a vain ambition which the theater fosters, he was ripe for any

crime which might be suggested." Unlike many of his peers in the clergy. Goodspeed seems

Chesebrough 33-34.

186 to attribute Booth's assassination more to his theatrical environment than to a larger Southern conspiracy, at least maintaining that such an environment creates a personality more susceptible to corrupting influences. Goodspeed concludes his sermon with "the expression of a renewed determination to give no encouragement henceforth to theaters."’^’

Thomas Laurie gave a series of sermons based on the assassination, however his sermon on .4pril 23 concentrated on the evils of theatre and actors. Noting the extraordinary surroundings and manner in which the assassination was carried out, Laurie declares.

How could he commit so amazing a crime in so theatrical a way! That one word 'theatrical' explains it all. No other could express such commingled wickedness and insensibility. That stupendous crime was the fitting fruit of an education that, passing by the ordinary manifestations of depravity as too commonplace, brings the soul into contact, and hold it in communion, with all that is most intensely exciting in human crime. And education that, making the heart familiar with the foulest and most bloody deeds, bends the whole energy not to be good, but to put on its seeming. It has nothing to do with goodness, sa\ e to ape its altitudes and steal its words. It teaches a man to pass by genuine piety as beneath regard, and heaps its praises on the clever counterfeit of its most impassioned manifestations.

Laurie echoes Plato's standpoint that the theatre is immoral because of its power to influence

and because actors are engaged in a process of lying. Laurie continues on this theme by

commenting that actors are trained "to counterfeit and win applause by the perfection of

counterfeiting." He positions the theatre in direct opposition to the standards of good

morality by questioning, "which we shall choose for our children - the education of the

theater or of the church: of the book of plays, or the book of God?" He concludes by

bringing up the possibility that Lincoln's theatre attendance might encourage others to attend

as well, but hopes, ultimately, that the disastrous results of that evening would serve as a

^“Tn Chesebrough 34,

187 deterrence to theatergoing.''' In his sermon of April 16. 1865, Frederick Starr. Jr., minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Penn Yan, New York, characterized actors as "the most deprav ed, vicious and unprincipled in society: and [Lincoln] gave his influence and presence, to fill the coffers of those who are the most useless members of the whole community, in contributing anything to the well-being, the prosperity, or the property of the nation." Starr maintains that Lincoln had never been properly informed about the moral depravity of the theatre, but maintains, "had its moral influence and the evil of the example been pointed out to him, that noble, honest, benevolent man would not have yielded to any urgency, or invitation to attend that place."''- Perhaps best summarizing the clergy's, and by associational inference their congregation's, opinion of the theatre, George Junkin, delivering a sermon at the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia on June 1, 1865, declared, "Our theatrical exhibitions are a stench in the nostrils of high Heaven. These dens of pollution, these synagogues of Satan, collect in and around them, the concentrated abomination of all immorality and crime."*'’

In concluding his examination of the clergy's response to the assassination,

Chesebrough asserts.

Several preachers assumed that the assassination was a judgement from God upon a people that was guilty of a great host of sins. In addition to permissiveness, a failure to support capital punishment, and theater going, those sins included drunkenness (alcohol was an instigator in Booth's crime), idolatry ( the people had turned to Lincoln more than they had turned to God),

"‘In Chesebrough 34-35.

*'’In Chesebrough 35.

"’In Chesebrough 103.

188 lack of humility (especially for Northern military victories), dishonoring the Sabbath (some battles in the war had actually taken place on Sunday), dishonesty and greed (there were those who had reaped great profits from the war), gambling, profanity, licentious literature, and infidelity. All these were themes that the ministers had preached on many times in the past, and the assassination provided the opportunity to preach on them again with greater ver\e. immediacy, and authenticity than ever before.'"

The clergy's reaction positions the theatre as both an instrument of immoral instruction for audiences and a breeding ground for immoral citizens in the persons of its actors. While

Lincoln's attendance was either dismissed or excused on the grounds that he was persuaded to go to the theatre under a sense of obligation to the citizenry or was not properly instructed as to the theatre's wickedness, few. if any. ministers attempted to defend the theatre on an instructional or even diversionarx ground. The religious community mirrored the civil community in reinvigorating its ostracization of the theatre, its literature, and its practitioners

. Although the institution of theatre was not outlawed, even though many theatres were closed and several actors were arrested. Wilkes' act serx ed to reawaken a Puritan suspicion against its practice, xvhich its practitioners, as attested by Mrs. Drew, w ould find difficult to

"atone."

The effects of the assassination on the Booth family, and particularly on Edwin Booth as its most famous member, xvere swift and. at the time, devastating. Asia Booth Clarke later wrote of her brother's action. "In time the blow fell on us. a loving, united and devoted family. And in time an enraged and furious Government did us much bitter wrong, and some justice." Her description of the hysteria brought about by the assassination on the normal operations of the legal system mirror the effects it had on the Booths:

'"Chesebrough 103-04.

189 It was like the days of the Bastille in France. Arrests were made suddenly and in the dead of night. No reason or warning given, only let anyone breathe a doubt of the most innocent person and arrest followed swift, and that incarceration meant to wait the law's leisure, innocent or guilty. Detectives, women and men. decoys, and all that vile rabble of human bloodhounds infested the city.*'

Asia Booth Clarke was living in Philadelphia, where her husband John Sleeper Clarke had already been arrested and placed in Old Capitol Prison in Washington with her older brother

Junius, who had returned from an engagement playing lago at Pike's Opera House in

Cincinnati. The Booth's widowed mother. Mary, left Edwin Booth's home in New York where she had been staying, to travel to Philadelphia in order to be with Asia, who was in the late stages of pregnancy and desperately ill.** Asia Clarke's house (an e.xtensive mansion which, she notes, the newspapers now termed “mysteriously built”*'), was repeatedly searched, and all letters were opened and inspected. She reports that a "young official who had a carriage and pair at the door to conduct me to Washington." presumably in order that she would be incarcerated, was only dissuaded from his directive when she persuaded her family doctor to send a telegram to Washington attesting that she was too ill to travel.** Asia

Clarke reports that soon after on old employee of the Walnut Street Theatre by the name of

T. J. Hemphill arrived to deliver the news that Wilkes had been killed, she lay down with her face to the wall, thanking God silently. Shortly afterward, she was sent a newspaper clipping

**Clarke 90-91.

**Smith 214.

*'Clarke9I.

**Clarke 92.

190 given to one of the house serv ants which stated, “on hearing the news Mrs. J. S. Clarke had gone mad. and was at present confined at the asylum at West Philadelphia." She observes that one of the most immediate consequences of the assassination was that

North. East, and West the papers teemed with the most preposterous adventures, and eccentricities, and ill deeds of the vile Booth family. The tongue of every man and woman was free to revile and insult us. Every man's hand was against us. If we had friend^ they cnndnled with us in secret: none ventured near. [...] Those who have passed through such an ordeal - if there are any such - may be quick to forgive, slow to resent; they never relearn to trust in human nature, tliey never resume their old place in the world and they forget only in death.^'’

Despite her subjective stance and even given a perhaps justifiable exaggeration of the circumstances, it is clear that Asia Clarke Booth had reason to believe there was a considerable change in the national perception to the name of Booth.

The eldest Booth brother, Junius Brutus Booth. Jr.. had been engaged at Pike's Opera

House in Cincinnati. He was informed of his brother's crime on the morning of April 15,

when Emil Benlier, the hotel clerk of the Burnet House where Booth was staying, advised

Booth not to go for his morning walk and return to his room. Moments after Booth did so,

Benlier reports that the hotel was entered by a mob of approximately five hundred people

"who would have hanged him in a minute if they could have laid their hands on him."'*’

Booth remained in his rooms until the evening of April 17, when he managed to catch a 10

p.m. train for Philadelphia, where he arrived at midnight on April 19. He informed the U.

S. Marshal of his presence, and on the 25* he was arrested and taken to Washington for

‘‘‘'Clarke 93.

‘“Smith 171-72.

191 prison confinement.'" .\sia records that Junius was arrested at two o'clock in the morning by an officer who “politely put the handcuffs in his own pocket and allowed the prisoner to walk unmanacled."''- Junius responded to a letter, now lost, from his brother Edwin on April

24, in which he advised, “‘Tis a mere matter of time. The grief & shame of this blow will pass away - human pride musts always be liable to fall - but our fall has been heavy. Time is the only cure for our ills & I feel sure Time will bring all things right - that is, as right as have any right to expect."'” In his diary. Junius records on April 27 that he is "kept like a malefactor in a small room & on prison fare, forbid to speak to anyone or see a paper.” Later that day, however, he somehow learned of Wilkes' death, and was kept in close confinement.

He records being joined by John Sleeper Clarke, who was released on May 27, while Junius was "detained till further investigation to see if anything might transpire to implicate me."

He remained in prison during the trial of the assassination conspirators, and was released

after eight weeks on June 22 with the aid of petitions for influential family associates.

Returning to Philadelphia to his waiting mother, brother and sister, he records from June 24

to 28 that he had intended to write a statement to the press, "but found it too true to please

the arbitrary Despotism of military rule. Resolved not to publish till the laws again protect

the Citizen & the Bastille thrown open. I hope to God never again to be [thus] used in a land

having any pretensions to liberty. The history of the U. S. B. [United States Bastille, i.e.. Old

Capitol Prison] would rival its prototype of France & not displace it injustice. But the truth

'*‘1865 diary of Junius B. Booth excerpted in Clarke 124.

''"Clarke 91.

” Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., letter to Edwin Booth, 24 April 1865, The Players.

192 would not be believed & a man would be called a traitor who would tell the truth, so bigotted

[sic] are the mob.'""

The youngest Booth brother. Joseph, due to the apparent coincidence of leaving San

Francisco on .April 13. 1865 en route to New York, was arrested upon his arrival and interrogated by Major General John .A. Dix of the Union Provost's Office. Joseph was 25 years old. and had a history of mental instability, which had prompted Junius to write his brother Edwin in 1862 that he feared Joseph was not insane, but was "a crack that way. which Father in his highest had and which I fear runs more or less through the male portion of our family myself included."'*'' During the Provost's examination. Joseph asserted that he had no involvement in the rebellion and had only two letters from Wilkes in the four years since the brothers had seen one another. .After establishing that Joseph was not connected with the rebellion, had not seen his brother Wilkes in four years, and was not even connected with the family business of theatre except as an occasional utility player, the question is posed, "Have you ever been insane. Mr. Booth?" to which Joseph replied that he had. and had been as recently as his trip from San Francisco to New York, where he was “insane in

Panama.[ . . .] The news made me insane." After further questioning in this line, Joseph reveals that he has been plagued with "melancholy insanity" since the age of "10 or 12" but

“"In Clarke 125-26.

"'In Smith 190.

193 had never been confined for The image of the Booth family’s insanity would become a prominent part of the press and public reaction to them following the assassination.

Stories resurfaced recounting the elder Booth's reputation for drunkenness and insanity. The press especially focused on reprinting lurid details of the scandal attached to

Junius Brutus Booth’s leaving his first wife and son in England in order to begin a new life with a young flower girl named Mary Ann Holmes, the mother of all the American Booth children, thus reflecting on the elder Booth’s immorality and the Booth family’s illegitimacy.

A particularly reprinted story was that of the “first Mrs. Booth" arriving in America to find her wayward husband and his illegitimate family in Main land, where she "haunted the streets and markets of Baltimore, drunken and blasphemous, abusing Junius and Mary .Ann most spiritedly."'^ Anecdotes which were once testament to the "heroic eccentricities" of the elder

Booth that filled his houses with expectant audiences were now recounted in a different light, intimating that the Booths had inherited a congenital insanity from their father. Reports of

Junius Booth’s marital difficulties and eccentric behavior were run with accounts of the

"'love life’ of the nation’s villain [Wilkes], telling with suitable moralistic throwing up of

hands but with all possible detail of the prostitutes he had supported, the mistresses he had

left,’”^^ Asia Booth Clarke recounts that her previously published accounts of growing up

"^Interrogation printed in John C. Brennan, "John Wilkes Booth’s Enigmatic Brother Joseph," Maryland Historical Magazine, vol. 78 (Spring 1983) 26-29,

"''Lewis 136.

"’^Richard Lockridge, Darling of Misfortune, Edwin Booth: 1833 - 1893 ( 1932; New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971) 154,

194 with Wilkes on the Booth homestead in Bel Air were transformed into macabre testaments of proof to Wilkes’ aberrant nature. She states.

The trench, in which a boy and girl [Asia and Wilkes] had dug with unremitting toil through the best time of a summer vacation to find a dead Indian chief and relics, was made to appear as an underground store for secreted arms and ammunition. The Hallowe’en raid, although the custom of the country, was e.xaggerated into ‘frequent robberies of fowls, cattle and grain by which the idle Booth family were sustained, rather than do a ctmke of honest work.’ Our near neighbor vouched for ‘the cruelty of Wilkes, who had destroyed valuable game and marketable fowl, destroyed innocent dogs and wild creatures for sport’ - nothing was safe that come within rang of his gun. He had left for dead a workman whom he had battered with a club. etc.. etc.'**’

The Booth’s family reputation and safety were in peril as a result of the assassination; as

Lockridge remarks. “It was dangerous to be a Booth in 1865.’’"*'

Edwin Booth was performing the part of Sir Edward Mortimer in The Marble Heart

at the Boston Theatre on the night of the assassination. He finished the performance and

retired to his friend Orlando Tompkins’ house in Franklin Square, where he had been staying.

.According to Lockridge. Booth’s dresser rushed into his bedroom early Saturday morning

and told him the news of the assassination and the reports that Wilkes was the assassin.""

Shortly afterward, a letter arrived from Henry C. Jarrett. manager of the Boston Theatre,

arrived. The letter was written from The Parker House. Boston, and is noted above the date

to have been written at “7 O’clock. A. M.“:

"^Clarke 95.

"*T.ockridge 156.

""Lockridge 151.

195 My Dear Sir: A fearful calamity is upon us. The President of the united States has fallen by the hand of an assassin, and I am shocked to say suspicion points to one nearly relate to you as the perpetrator of this horrid deed. God grant it may not prove so! With this knowledge, and out of respect to the anguish which will fill the public mind as soon as the appalling fact shall be fully revealed, I have concluded to close the Boston theatre until further notice. Please signify to me your co-operation in this matter.'"'

Booth responded from the Franklin Square house shortly after receiving Jarrett’s letter;

My Dear Sir: With deepest sorrow and great agitation, I thank you for relieving me from my engagement with yourself and the public. The news of the morning has made me wretched indeed, not only because I have received the unhappy tidings of the suspicions of a brother's crime, but because a good man, and a most justly honoured and patriotic ruler, has fallen, in an hour of national joy, by that hand of an assassin. The memory of the thousands who have fallen in the field, in our country's defense, during this struggle, cannot be forgotten by me, even in this, the most distressing day of my life. And I most sincerely pray that the victories we have already won may stay the brand of war and the tide of loyal blood. While mourning, in common with all other loyal hearts, the death of the President, I am oppressed by a private woe not to be expressed in words. But whatever calamity may befall me and mine, my country, one and indivisible, has my warmest devotion.'"'

It is noteworthy that Booth was capable of writing a letter which was clearly intended as a

public testament to his own patriotism and devotion to both the Union and to Lincoln so soon

after hearing the news of his brother's act. \\Tiether Booth was already aware that his actions

and writings would be a matter of public record, as it turns out that for the most part they

were, the above letters were published in the Boston newspapers, along with a statement of

support from Reverend George H. Hepworth:"^

'"-Winter 272-72.

'"^Winter 272.

"^Hepworth was a Unitarian minister in Boston (Chesebrough 167).

196 As a personal friend of M r. Edwin Booth, I am glad of the opportunity to give the Boston public some idea of his present condition. I need not say that he has won the respect and esteem of all who have had the pleasure of knowing him; and am glad to inform the public that after a thorough search of his trunks and correspondence, nothing has been found which in the slightest degree implicates him in the knowledge that such an act was contemplated.

He has always been a firm and unflinching supporter of the Administration, casting the only vote of his life, last November, for Mr. Lincoln, and standing conspicuously in his profession as a man loyal to the idea and the cause of the North. I have seen him this morning and find him overwhelmed by the greatness of his affliction. The Boston people will give him their sympathy in this the hour of his trial, and cheerfully, as I unasked offer my testimony in his behalf

In the cause of justice I remain, veiy truly.

Hep worth's sense that a call for justice was warranted was not without cause. Other of Booth's friends realized the impending ramifications that W ilkes' action would most likely have on the professional and personal life of Edwin Booth. Parke Godwin wrote to

Booth on April 18, "In this fearful calamity which has fallen upon the nation but upon you with a double severity, I most heartily condole with you. God grant that you may have the fortitude to bear it, and to extract in some way. good out of evil. T hat you're [sic] honor which has been illustrious for [illegible] years, should be so eclipsed is terrible."^ It seemed that Godwin had little doubt that Wilkes' act would negate any honor that Edwin had brought to the Booth name. William Bispham wrote from Philadelphia on April 15 his desire that Booth would take solace in the knowledge that he had friends who "are still those

‘“^Unlabeled clipping noted as “ 1865" in the Helen W eston scrapbook at The Players. Hepworth's salutation is addressed "To the Editor of the "Transcript ," indicating publication in the Boston Transcript. The letter from Jarre tt and Booth's reply were carried by several newspapers across the country.

‘°*Parke Godwin, letter to Edwin Booth, 18 April 1865. T h e Players.

197 around you who would shield you with this love from all earthly sorrow and misfortune.

God bless and comfort you dear Friend. And give you strength to endure this most fearful affliction.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote expressing his desire to help, saying that although the “nation's woe is great; how inexpressible must yours be!” While .A.ldrich wishes that Booth were in New York with his family and friends, he advises him that “I think it best you remain in Boston a little while longer. You could do no good here and it is quieter where you are.”“’^

Booth remained in Boston for a few days, and his letter to Adam Badeau gives some evidence of his perception that both his career and the reputation of his family had been irreversibly destroyed. Booth reminds Badeau “how I have labored since dear Mary was called from me to establish a name that my child and all my friends wd. be proud of; you know how I have always toiled for the comfort & welfare of my family - though in vain, as well you know, how loyal I have been from the first moment of this damned rebellion, and you must feel deeply the agony I bear in being thus blasted in all my hopes.” Booth informs

Badeau that he has remained in Boston “at the advice of friends who thought it necessary that

I shd. be set right before the public.” In a passage that seems uncharacteristically formal given the relationship between the two men. Booth gives what amounts to a loyalty oath by saying. “Abraham Lincoln was my President for in pure admiration of his noble career &

Christian principles I did what I never did before - 1 voted for him! I was two days ago one of the happiest men alive - Grant's magnificent work accomplished[.. .]and sweet Peace

“^William Bispham. letter to Edwin Booth, 15 April 1865. The Players.

“^Quoted in Lockridge 153.

198 turning her radiant face again upon our countr>'.” Returning to a more familiar style. Booth reflects on his performance in The Iron Chest on the night of the assassination, attesting,

"Now what am I? Oh! how little did I dream, my boy, when on Friday night I was as Sir

Edward Mortimer exclaiming, "Where is my honor now?" that I was not acting but uttering the fearful truth.'" Booth reveals his belief that his personal and professional life is unalterably changed by saying, "I have a great deal to tell you of myself & the beautiful plans

I had for the future - all blasted now, but must wait until my mind is more settled. I am half crazy now."'"'' Bispham confirms Booth's mental state during those months following the assassination by writing, "Nothing but the love poured out for him by his friends saved him from madness. His sanity hung in the balance."""

Booth returned to New York on April 18, 1865, and while not subjected to imprisonment, remained in virtual hiding. In her memoir, Asia recalls, "Edwin Booth was surrounded by influential friends, but with an outer guard of spies to note his movements."'"

Although many of Booth's prominent friends did write public and private letters of support, it is logical to assume that it was Badeau's close association with Grant which probably spared Booth from the imprisonment to which other members of his family were subjected.

Even while enjoying a qualified liberty, he was aware of the perceptible public and governmental shift accorded him. Booth wrote on the day that Wilkes' death was announced,

April 27, to the wife of a prominent New York City broker John B. Murray, "Junius' arrest

"^Edwin Booth, letter to Adam Badeau, 16 April 1865, in Clarke 112-13.

‘"’Quoted in Smith 178.

‘"Clarke 91.

199 on suspicion does not trouble me more than the abuse & the added disgrace (if there can be more than what is already heaped upon us ) to our poor house. Pardon me for troubling you

- but I am at a loss what to do - but thought I would seek advice from Mr. Murray before I took any steps in the matter. Whether I had better go on or remain here - I am afraid of obeying my own heart & my head is too confused to guide me.""' On May 6. Booth wrote to his friend Emma Cary , indicating that his virtual house arrest was continuing and revealing a sense of alarm at going out in public:

I've just received y'r letter. I have been in one sense unable to write, but you know, of course, what my condition is. and need no excuses. I have been, by the advice of my friends, 'cooped up’ since I arrived here, going out only occasionally in the evening. My health is good, but I suffer from the want of fresh air and exercise. Poor mother is in Philadelphia, about crushed by her sorrows, and my sister. Mrs. Clarke, is ill and without the least knowledge of her husband, who was taken from her several days ago. with Junius. My position is such a delicate one that I am obliged to use the utmost caution. Hosts of friends are staunch and true to me. here and in Boston. I feel safe. What I am in Phila. and elsewhere I know not. I wish I could see with others’ eyes: all my friends assure me that my name shall be free and that in a little while I may be where I was and what I was: but. alas! it looks dark to me."'

Booth had reason to sense the delicacy of his position, for he would have only recently

received an anonymous letter dated May 1 ,1865. signed “Outraged Humanity." which read,

“Sir you are advised to leave this city and this Country forthwith. Your life will be the

penalty if you tarry heare [sic] 48 hours longer. Revolvers are already [sic] loaded with

" ‘Edwin Booth, letter to Mrs. John B. Murray, 27 April 1865, in Clarke 114.

"■'Edwin Booth, letter to Miss Emma F. Cary, 6 May 1865, in Edwina Booth Grossman, Edwin Booth: Recollections bv His Daughter and Letters to Her and to His Friends (New York: The Century Co.. 1902) 172-73.

200 which to shoot you down. You are a Traitor to this government (or have been until your

Brothers bloody deed). Herein you have due warning. Loose [sic] no time in arranging for your departure. We hate the name of Booth Leave quick or remember [.]”“■*

The press published letters and editorials debating the proper course of action that

Booth should take. The Philadelphia Press expressed its sympathy for him, but suggested

that "henceforth he would never be able to go before the public bearing the name he did.

Perhaps one day he might change it to something else and resume his career.”'*' A

newspaper editorial gives some indication of the public controversy surrounding Edwin

Booth future:

Since the assassination of President Lincoln, a small portion of the press has seen fit to assiduously keep before the public the situation of Mr. Edwin Booth, and to reiterate and enlarge upon a variety of stories as to his retirement from the stage. Before either the murderer or his victim were in their graves, one editor advised Mr. Booth to apply to some legislature for permission to change his name, in obedience to the universal determination of the .American public that no one bearing the name of the assassin should ever again appear on the boards of our theatres. Since that day we have had a constant succession of paragraphs, more or less original in character, on the same subject, culminating in the assertion of an ingenious Washington correspondent that Mr. Stanton has decided to take the tragedian into military custody if he attempts to play another engagement within our national limits.'"'*

The writer continues by commenting on the unfairness of the reports and suggestions,

conceding that while the bulk of the debate has been cruel and unjust. “ it is doubtless fairly

"■‘Anonymous letter to Edwin Booth. 1 May 1865. The Players.

"^Smith 192.

'"’Unlabeled newspaper article noted "1865" in the Helen Weston scrapbook at The Players, presumably from a Boston publication since the Weston family was living in Boston and most of the identified press clippings in the scrapbook are from that city.

201 appreciated at its value by the unoffending object against whom it is aimed, and who can well afford to reply to it as he has thus far done, only with a dignified silence; but it is also very discreditable to our national character, and casts an unfounded aspersion on the popular sense and taste of the country, and in tliat view deserves a few words of rebuke.”

Booth did not maintain his silence on the matter for long. In his "To the People of the United States: My Fellow Citizens" letter, published on the advice of his friend John B.

Murray, Booth asserts his intention to retire from the stage and live a life of seclusion:

When a nation is overwhelmed with sorrow by a great public calamity, the mention of private grief would under ordinary circumstances be an intrusion, but under those by which I am surrounded, I feel sure that a word from me will not be so regarded by you. It has pleased God to lay at the door of my afflicted family the life blood of our deservedly popular President. Crushed to very earth by this dreadful event, I am yet but too sensible that other mourners are in the land. To them, to you one and all. go forth our deep, unutterable sympathy: our abhorrence and detestation of this most foul and atrocious crime. For my mother and sister, my two remaining brothers and my poor self, there is nothing to be said except that we are thus placed without any agency of our own. For our loyalty as dutiful, though humble, citizens as well as for our consistent and. as we had some reason to believe, successful efforts to elevate our name personally and professionally, we appeal to the record of the past. For our present position we are not responsible. For the future - alas! I shall struggle on in my retirement bearing a heavy heart, an oppressed memory and wounded name - dreadful burdens - to my too welcome grave. “

Reaction to Booth's announcement was mixed, although generally sympathetic. The response in Harper's Weekly exemplifies a move to urge him back to the stage, while still recognizing that the name of Booth, and Edwin Booth particularly, is now linked with the national tragedy;

" Edwin Booth, MSS draft. The Players.

202 Surely every generous heart will sympathize with the peculiarly crushing blow which has befallen Mr. Edwin Booth. A gentleman whose retiring courtesy has universally commanded respect—an actor whose genius and success have delighted his country—a citizen whose sole vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln—a man whose character has made hosts of friends-it is a cruel fate which identifies his name with the national sorrow. Don't speak to me of politics.' said he several months since to a friend who differed from him. "for we cannot agree. Abraham Lincoln will be loved and honored hereafter not less than Washington.' Mr. Booth at once, and naturally, withdrew from his present professional engagements. But he should understand that he is not to be ruined by the crimes of any one who bears his name. The powers which he has always so nobly used are not to be lost to us by any offenses by his own. When the bitterness of the hour has somewhat passed, and the event which now afflicts us can be more calmly contemplated, he will resume his work, we hope, sure of the approval of those whose kind thoughts he most vnlues. and of the public, which he charms and instructs. Meanw hile it is our dutv' to take care that no taint of prejudice attaches to his name.“'^

Booth w ould return to the stage the following January, explaining to his friend Mrs.

Richard F. Car\. "Sincerely, were it not for means, I would not do so. public sympathy notwithstanding; but I have huge debts to pay. a family to care for. a love for the grand and beautiful in art. to boot, to gratify, and hence my sudden resolve to abandon the heavy, aching gloom of my little red room, where I have sat so long chewing my heart in solitude, for the excitement of the only trade for which God has fitted me."““ While explaining his decision in terms of the need for financial support for his mother and small daughter, there is also the intimation that Booth has begun to feel a "divine" imperative to resume “the grand and beautiful in art." Although Booth's return to the Winter Garden as Hamlet was met with

“’^Clipping labeled "Harper's Weekly 1865" in Helen Weston scrapbook. The Players.

“’Edwin Booth, letter to Mrs. Richard F. Cary, 20 December, 1865, Grossman 174-75.

203 resounding success, and the rest of his career saw him attaining what was tantamount to public adoration for his performances mingled with an increasing mythology surrounding his offstage persona, the effects of his brother's assassination seem indelible in his psyche.

204 CHAPTER 4

EdvviV v in Boouh opened Booth"i; Theatre with a production of Romeo and Juliet on

February 3. 1869. Two weeks later, the body of John Wilkes Booth would Finally be exhumed and returned to the Booth family to be buried in an unmarked grave in the Booth

family plot in Greenmount Cemetery' in Baltimore.' Booth began plans for his “Temple of

.Art” shortly after his management of The Winter Garden theatre ended with that theatre's

burning on March 23. 1867. .A site was selected on the southeast comer of Twenty-third

Street and Sixth Avenue, and the cornerstone was laid on .April 8. 1868. The New York .

press reported the building's progress with almost fanatical attention, and the opening was

a gala affair that attracted the city's cultural and social elite.-

.Although Booth's Theatre would eventually put Edwin Booth into bankruptcy,

forcing him to tour extensively and successfully in order to repay his creditors, it provides

a tangible representation of his aesthetic shift in production and performance from his

realistic style prior to the assassination. It proved to be the only theatre that was under his

artistic management and direction for the rest of his career, providing a convenient example

‘Gene Smith. American Gothic: The Storv of America's Legendarv Theatrical Familv - Junius. Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth (New York; Simon & Schuster. 1992) 239-40.

'William Winter. Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1893)55.

205 of his new artistic methodologies. This chapter will focus on Booth's fourth season. 1871-

72, as that is the season in which Booth was most in residence as manager and star, and was the most ambitious season of his management in terms of number and scope of productions.

The primary sources will be taken from published critical commentary about the productions, since Booth's extant correspondence during this period tends to focus on business rather than aesthetic matters.' The physical theatre itself, the design of the productions, and Booth's acting style will be examined as indicators of the perceived shift in his performative approach. The chapter will conclude with a semiotic investigation of the critical responses, and a proposal as to how those responses indicate that Booth's shift in acting style was relative to John W ilkes' assassination of Lincoln.

Productions at Booth's Theatre gained a reputation for a distinct style, both in performance and decor, almost from the evening that the theatre opened. In lamenting the closing of A Winter's Tale at the end of the theatre's third season, the reviewer for the

Tribune comments that "its scenic attire is magnificent, and that the spirit of the performances - as well in the important element of acting as in the subsidiary attribute of scenery-is poetic, imaginative, and intellectual." The triad of "poetic, imaginative, and

intellectual " are repeatedly attached to Booth's performances, and it is interesting to note that

this critic attaches them to scenic decor, even though Booth was not acting in this production.

It indicates that the theatre itself was perceived to have become personified with the new

characteristics associated with its owner. The theatre was clearly seen as a cutting edge

^Unless otherwise indicated, all press citations are taken from Booth's souvenir press scrapbook at The Players. Publication and date citations are generally indicated by handwritten notation on or near each clipping, but page references are not included.

206 establishment, keeping pace with avant garde theatrical movements. The reviewer comments that "a stirring spirit of emulation and active enterprise is just now abroad in the theatrical world, and the necessity of keeping pace with it and of responding to the popular wish for something new. is probably felt at Booth's Theater, as it is everywhere else." anticipating the announced opening of Laurence Barrett in The Man O'Airlie to replace A Winter's Tale.~*

In a separate article from the same edition of the Tribune, a writer ( probably William

Winter) refutes a comment found in the Boston Courier which proposes that Booth "owes his reputation not to any overmastering genius, but to the facile pen of a faithful friend and distinguished critic. Mr. Stuart, formerly manager of the Winter Garden Theatre." In unambiguous terms, the writer asserts. "NO man can possibly owe real reputation to anything but real ability." and reminds his readers that "Mr. Booth has been on the stage for twenty years, has acted in all parts of the country, has worked very hard, and has fairly and honorably won the admiration of many communities." Any inference that the theatre's

success is due to Booth's business partner is dismissed by the writer's insistence that "[i]f Mr.

Booth had not been a man of ability, in the first place, not all the talent, wisdom, tact, and

diplomatic skill for which Mr. Stuart is so Justly distinguished would have availed to give

him eminence." Clearly, at least to the writer, the performance space is associated with only

Booth, sacrilized to his aesthetic and personality, which the writer points out is "the target

for splenetic censure" from "the persons who love to undervalue merit."' As will be seen in

" "BOOTH' S THEATRE - LAST NIGHT OF "A WINTER'S T.^LE." New York Tribune. 27 May 1870.

^"Weekly Review," New York Tribune. 27 May 1870.

207 critical discourse from the next few seasons. Booth's Theatre was not viewed as a neutral

performance space, but a dedicated site exemplifying a specific aesthetic code which could

be seen as violated dependant upon the nature of the production and artist seen on its stage.

Booth and his theatre were in the process of becoming mvxhologized as a priest in his temple

pursuing a spiritual quest through theatrical performance.

The power of the perception of Booth and his theatre is indicated in critical

commentai} around Barrett's production of The Man O'Airlie. The iMercurv found that even

though "[sjuch a programme was not calculated to create an excitement." houses had been

good for the opening week of the production "on the supposition that everything produced

at Booth's must necessarily have merit. "" The Sunday News praised the management for

having "spared no pains or expense to put it tastefully and accurately on the stage." and

praised Laurence Barrett for his "power of individualization which is as rare as it is

admirable in these days of surface acting." In at least one critic's opinion. Booth is to be

credited for encouraging and nurturing this new style of acting, framing him in the role of

mentor to what could potentially be seen as his competition:

No man has done more that Mr. Booth to advance the popular interests of young actors. This is amply proven by the production of new plays during the engagement of Mr. Adams and Mr. Barrett. For the latter he has produced three or four new dramas. There has never been such an opportunity given by any management to an actor as has been given to Mr. Barrett.’’

""Local Review." Mercury. 11 June 1870.

"Booth's Theatre." Sunday News. 11 June 1870.

’^"Booth's Theatre," Era. 17 June 1870.

208 Several New York critics took the instance of this closing production of the theatre's second season to comment on what had been accomplished by Booth and his theatre. The writer for the Era congratulated Booth on his success, particularly in light "from the fact that he has fought an unequal fight against long odds. When the curtain rang up, on the night of the third of February. 1869, the legitimate drama was buried under the sensational and burlesque." While simultaneously valorizing his own profession and implicitly siding with

Booth's perceived mission by stating that the "press was sending forth its mournful wails of anguish" over the surfeit of spectacle, ballet, and "Opera Bouffe," the writer implicates the established theatre managers who "rivalled [sic] each other in catering to a depraved public sentiment," The writer links Booth to Macready and Kean and asserts that he has succeeded where they failed in being "an impetus to art." Under Booth's superv ision and tutelage, the designers and technicians are seen to be engaged in a noble mission:

The prestige of his own name and his fame as an actor had much to do with his success. But it required excellent judgement on his part to select the proper persons to manage the business of the stage, and to attend to the complications of business attending the outside management. Shakespeare was to have the same advantage in scenery and dress as the spectacular and sensational drama. Historical correctness in costume required a student to select the dress: the stage manager must be thoroughly versed in stage mechanism and familiar with the works of the great author and the various commentaries.

Even persons engaged to run the financial business of the theatre are viewed in terms which

blur the distinction between the efficient and the moral. Mr. Magonigle, the business

manager of the theatre, is a man of "keen discrimination, sound judgement, and sterling

integrity-qualities so hard to find, and yet so necessary in a man of business," while Joseph

Booth, Edwin's youngest brother and the treasurer of the theatre, is "a jovial, whole-souled,

209 warm-hearted gentleman." Even the ushers succeed in treating the "visitor [with] urbanity and politeness" to be found in no other theatre. If there is one failing, according to the writer, it is in the selection of the supporting company of actors, however this is seen more as an indication of Booth’s threat to an older, traditional group of actors (almost assuredly a reference to Forrest), than as any indication of vanity or shoddiness on Booth's part:

It was more difficult for Booth to secure a company than most any other man. He was young. He had been successful, striding past old actors, and provoking their envy and hatred. They disliked him because he had more brain and nerve power than themselves and by force of energy had leaped into public favor. They couldn’t play second to a man who was a boy when they were on the stage, much less become members of a company which, to work harmoniously, must have a head to direct them, not they. But they could and did. in private, sneer ill-naturedly at the venture, ridiculing the idea and prophesying failure. Well, the experiment o f’69 is now, upon its own merits, a fixed fact. No one man has done so much for the love his art, for the elevation of the stage, and aiding in preserving the tone of the drama as Edwin Booth.

Booth is seen as standing "alone and singly" as an artist and theatre owner, who has "made so many sacrifices for the love of his art.In this quasi-religious terminology. Booth is

framed in messianic terms, leading the country, or at least the people of New York, away

from their "depraved sentiment, ” battling the "envy and hatred ” of older actors who do not

share his vision, and gathering around him a staff who reflect his sacrifice and moral

integrity. Even given a mid 19th century penchant for Romantic puffery, the Christ

comparison is unmistakable. Booth is seen as a public redeemer, his theatre becoming his

church, and the theatrical canon his liturg}'.

‘^’’Booth’s Theatre." Era. 1 July 1871.

210 The Tribune's recap of Booth's season found it "impelled by a refined and thoughtful spirit, and conducted with steadfast energy." The theatre manager, according to the writer. does not hold a position devoted to financial gain through diversionary entertainment, but is engaged in a mission to effect change in his society:

Every man who strives, through an art medium, to influence the mind of his generation, assumes certain obligations to virtue and to intellect. He is bound to consider public morality and the cause of education-which is the disseminating of culture. The theatrical manager stands in this attitude toward society.

Given this definition, the writer feels that "Mr. Booth has evinced a conscientious sense of the responsibilities this devolved upon him." and has administered the dramatic presentations of his theatre with a sympathy for the "pure and good" effects which they could engender.

For this. Booth has gained the "respect of intellectual workers and the gratitude of the public.""' The use of "gratitude" rather than "approval" to qualify public response indicates a status shift in the artist/audience relationship. Rather than reflecting the traditional stance of the artist seeking the approbation of his peers, a relationship indicative of a democratic, Jacksonian ideal in which ”[t]he public in the final resort, govern the stage." “ Booth is framed as a possessor of knowledge and/or moral guidance,

"disseminating" his secrets to a subjugated public which recognizes both its own need and

Booth's ability to fill that need.

‘""BOOTH'S THEATRE - REVIEW OF THE SEASON," New York Tribune. 4 July 1871.

“Unidentified "American critic [...] in 1805," quoted in Levine 29.

211 The Express praises Booth’s second season for its "scholarly, artistic, and attractive" entertainments, in which Booth has endeavored to "maintain a high and dignified tone in the class of entertainment offered." His "conscientious fidelity to art purity" is. again, seen as

"exceedingly gratifting."'" The Boston Dailv Times characterized Booth's Theatre as "a school of the proprieties, of refinement, and a promoter of art in its most perfect living forms."'' The Dispatch announced the closing of the season by lamenting, "we will be deprived of the pleasure of that splendidly conducted theatre."'■* and the Home Journal described the season as one "which has added largely to Mr. Booth's laurels as an actor and enterprise as a manager."'’ The critical discourse on Booth's first complete season, viewed

in aggregate, goes well beyond a summary of the theatre's financial or even artistic success,

decidedly qualifying it asasancta sanctorum in which its priest both guards and dispenses

the "authentic" to a self-consciously needful congregation.

An illuminating example of public perception of Booth's Theatre's sacrilization can

be seen in the flurry of critical debate over the appearance of the music hall entertainer Lotta

in a series of performances to open the new season in August. 1871. Charlotte Crabtree,

generally known as "Lotta" throughout her long and successful career, began her

performance training in California at the age of six as a pupil of Lola Montez, who taught

her to dance, sing ballads, and ride horseback. Under the supervision and management of

'-"A GOOD RECORD," Express. 24 June 1871.

‘^Boston Dailv Times. 23 June 1871.

'^Dispatch. 25 June 1871.

‘^Home Journal. 28 June 1871.

212 her mother, she became a darling of the California mining camps, and left the west coast in

1864 to achieve national popularity. Garff B. Wilson characterizes her as "a representative example of the countless performers who were produced by the popular theatre and who exhibited the essential characteristics of the variety artist."*'’ In performing a combination

of roles in vehicles written expressly for her, she "never attempted a characterization and

never tried to conceal her own personality.”* playing them all "exactly the same way. She

never developed or suggested any real dramatic force or adaptability."**' She opened the

season at Booth's Theatre in the title role of Little Nell and the Marchioness, a dramatization

of Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop written for her by John Brougham in 1867.

The Standard exemplified the difficulty to "make the two extremes of the Legitimate

and the Miscellaneous meet" by noting. "Mr. Booth occupied one of the proscenium boxes

and Mr. Lingered another."*'* The Era, comparing Lotta to a "diamond pure and sparkling,

which steals into our hearts." nevertheless continues to comment that the devices which

assure her popularity, her '"quaint movements [...] merry laugh, the clatter of the clogs and

the tingling of the banjo. " serve to make the audience '"forget [. ..] that we sit in the finest

Theatre in America, dedicated to the legitimate drama. " The writer envisions Shakespeare

looking down "more in sorrow than in anger " at a packed house characterized by a "marked

**’Garff B. Wilson, A History of American Acting 182.

*'Wilson 183.

ISJohn R. Towse. Sixty Years of the Theatre (New York, 1916) 89.

"LITTLE NELL AND THE MARCHIONESS’ AT BOOTH’S THEATRE," New York Standard, 13 August 1871.

213 lack of intelligent culture and keen perception on the part of those present" who "desire to laugh at everything, and applaud to the echo." In comparing the present audience to ones previously gathered at Booth's Theatre, the writer concludes:

It was not the audience in mental caliber that welcomed Booth as Hamlet or Richelieu, though there were some who were anxious to see the only theater in .America where the legitimate drama could find refuge surrender to the clamor for the sensational with clogs and banjo.

Not only is Booth's Theatre framed as a bastion for the "legitimate" which has been defiled by the "popular." but Booth is held up as a touchstone for the authentic by the reviewer's critique of Mr. Bateman's Quilp which is "the best piece of acting he has given us. and his imitation of Booth's Betuccio [sic], which he endeavors to follow in many respects, is the chief merit."'"

The Democrat was more direct in its assertion that the sacrilized space of Booth's

Theatre had been violated:

inasmuch as it proves that in these degenerate days we have no sanctuary wherein genuine, legitimate, dramatic art can find an inviolable asylum: no refuge in which the drama can escape the profanation of factitious aids and accessories which are in themselves purely mechanical and guiltless of art.-in its only true signification.

Rather than making a qualitative comparison in the type of audience attracted to Lotta's entertainment, the writer indicates that the demographic of the audience has remained constant, while its quantitative proportion is the primary cause for regret:

To see this magnificent house overflowing night after night with brilliant and delighted crowds attracted by the banjo-plaring, the clog-dancing and coarseness of Lotta as the Marchioness, and reflect that "Richelieu," "Othello." "The Fool's Revenge," "Winter’s Tale." and "The Man o'Airlie,"

-""BOOTH'S THEATRE," New York Era. 20 August 1871.

214 had been presented time and again upon the same boards to far smaller audiences, must go far toward convincing that the public taste is depraved-as has been so often asserted-and that managers, as prudent business-men who desire an adequate return for their investments, are forced to relinquish their devotion to art. or see their adherence rewarded by poor houses, if not empty benches.■'

It should be noted that the writer's estimation of the audience's depravity is not centered in an cbser. ation of the perceived morality (or lack thereof) contained within the text, but is argued strictly in terms of "taste." equating moral qualities with aesthetic appreciation. The manner of the presentation supercedes the matter, as the writer's objection is not over the choice of material, but in Lotta's "coarseness" of performance style and its inferred inferior/immoral comparison to Booth's. In a continuing attack the following week, the reviewer for the Democrat, presumably the same writer, shifts the attack from the audience

and indicts Booth himself:

Indeed, the company engaged at Booth's for the present season is conspicuous for its weakness. WTtile most of our leading theatres have made vigorous and successful efforts to strengthen their list of actors, the management of this house seems to have turned its attention, in the securing of its stock, to other considerations rather than excellence, and it has succeeded in bringing together a company considerably inferior even to that "galaxy" of "talent" which last year on more than one occasion astonished the patrons of the establishment by their performances."

This seems to be a clear implication that Booth's "violation" of his own space has placed him

in a negative comparison to his theatrical competitors, inferring that he has lost sight of his

"mission" by catering to popular taste and hiring substandard actors.

-‘"BOOTH'S." New York Democrat. 20 August 1871.

- "LOTTA AT BOOTH’S," New York Democrat. 26 August 1871.

215 Not all critical response was as dire in reaction to Lotta's appearance at Booth’s

Theatre. The Times evinced hope that the "versatile public" would adapt to the resumption of the theatre's expected fare after a late summer of farce, and that "the time will come when the melancholy bow of Hamlet, summoned anew to the foot-lights. will be made in response to at least as loud applause as that to which a dainty foot, protruded from behind classical canvas, now waves an acknowledgment. Similarly, the critic for Watson's .Art Journal admits. "[w]e never expected to witness Lotta's 'Marchioness' at this home of the standard drama [. . .] but. we must remember that in the summer-time the tragic muse goes to the

seaside to recuperate. " Alluding to the obvious financial success of Lotta's engagement, the

writer concludes that "[tragedy] lets her house furnished to the highest bidder: and Momus

being sometimes in funds becomes lessee, and. with his merry troupe, banishes the

melancholy of the stately Melpomone.Likewise, the Mail manages to praise the monetary

success of the performances while trying to dispel the impression of sacred space being

violated by appealing to a "profane " audience:

Lotta has played a profitable engagement at this theatre. Her audiences have been composed of the best classes, demonstrating that the regular patrons of the place have not fallen away from it on account of its departure from the legitimate.'^

Some critics, however, took the opportunity to voice an oppositional stance to the

appearance of elitism as represented by Booth's representation of high art. One writer

^New York Times, 13 August 1871.

-^Watson's Art Journal, 19 September 1871.

- New York Mail, 11 September 1871.

216 entered the critical fray by commenting, "Some of the critics speak of Lotta as a falling off from the standard of legitimate art. which has been inaugurated at Booth’s, and decry the attempts to introduce anything but the 'heavy' as a new departure quite out of character."

However, this charge is challenged with the assurance that "[t]he houses are thronging nightly with the people,' who go to be amused and pleased in these hot nights, rather than to be suffocated and bored by the arr ay of 'Theatrical' talent." The writer points out that the coming winter season will restore the "Tragedies and Heavys [sic] [...] for those who enjoy them," and, perhaps to dispel any charge that the critic suffers from pedestrian tastes, concludes by complimenting the "atmosphere of comfort" that per\ ades Booth's Theatre, in which "[ejverything is beautiful to the eye, and agreeable to the cultivated taste."-'’

The writer for the Evening Mail considered critical discourse describing Lotta's appearance as a "desecration of the Temple of High .Art' ( as some people have seen fit to dub

Booth's Theatre) " to be "the veriest nonsense." Admitting that he or she does not approve of the "star system," the writer capsulâtes the argument as "whether the managers of such a theatre are doing right in allowing that style of performance on their stage." The answer is that not only are they right, but

they show their great good sense in doing it. The people like it, and "high art " does not pay all the year round. The necessary amount of "high art" will be furnished during the engagements of Miss Cushman and Mr. Booth, and when they are not playing it is probably that the theatre will be run on some plan strictly honorable, but one that will bring money into the treasury.

-’’"BOOTH'S THEATRE." unidentified press clipping dated 1 September 1871, in "Booth Newspaper Clippings 1871-1873" scrapbook. The Players.

217 The writer finds it "very amusing" that the critical debate has centered on aesthetic, rather than moral issues of performance, by critics who "can revel in the performances of a tribe of blonde burlesquers, or go into fits of ecstasy over a 'Black Crook' ballet."' The writer seems to dismiss the sacrilization of the performance space as the issue, focusing on practical financial concerns and the perceived hypocrisy of praising morally questionable performances found in other venues while denouncing Lotta's appearance at Booth's.

The critic for Woodhull & Clafiin's Weekly finds the settings for Little Nell to be

"lovely," then continues by increasing the anti-elitist assault with a mixture of financial pragmatism and Jacksonian egalitarianism. Asserting that "Miss Lotta pleases the public, draws them to the theatre, and sends them home happy," the writer sumiises that this is all any management, "even a Boothian management," should care about. Acknowledging the argument that Lotta's engagement is not considered to be "art" in some circles, the writer declares. "What matter? Does it pay? Art without stamps, where is it?" He or she then reasserts the status of the audience, in terms reminiscent of Whitman's descriptions of antebellum audiences of laborers, as the only valid arbiters:

I have only to say, as I have before said, that the audience are the best judge, not of art-oh no! not by a great deal-but of what they them selves want, and of what amuses them. And, having found out the secret, managers are in the right to give it them. W ere I a manager, I would vastly prefer to play to a full house with Lotta than to empty benches with Garrick.

In a short comment comparing Lotta with Booth, the writer posits an intriguing

opinion regarding the stylistic approaches of both artists: "It may be that after all nature is

^"Lotta at Booth’s Theatre," Evening Mail. 13 August 1871,

218 better than art; and that Lotta, playing herself, is better than Booth playing Romeo.The implications of this statement are at least two-fold. First, it infers that Booth's acting possessed elements of opaque conventions, which signified that he was acting, and separating the actor from the character in a construct which echoes Diderot's paradox. Even though the writer acknowledges that Lotta "plays" herself, her adoption of recognizable and consistent traits which, presumably, carry through in all her performances regardless of textual differences, position her "nature" on a higher aesthetic status than Booth's transformative "art." Second, the writer implies that Lotta's "nature " is better than Booth's

"art" because it is more authentic, ostensibly due to it being closer to the "real " Lotta of a non-performative context than is Booth's characterizations to his non-fictive "real" self.

Foregrounding "nature" over "art" within this context allies the terms with "truth" over

"deception." recalling Platonic and .^.ugustinian claims of immorality based on the player's ability to change his appearance. As Michael Quinn points out in his semiotic study of

Strasbergian Realist acting style, the belief that an actor "use himself coupled with the theory that everyone possesses the ability to act "underpins the event of theatrical communion' in much the same way that "inalienable rights’ like freedom of speech in

American political discourse underpin democratic institutions."’'^ With this understanding, the perception that Lotta is "playing herself." or. as Quinn puts it. "engag[ing] in a historical undoing of coded acting signs." thereby assuming that the performance on stage derives from

^Woodhull & Clafiin's Weeklv. 12 September 1871.

-"^chael Quinn, "Self-Reliance and Ritual Renewal: Anti-theatrical Ideology in American Method Acting," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism vol. X, num. I (Fall 1995) 10.

219 a "natural, representative body," is a uniquely American performance trope which "converts its Puritan anti-theatricality into a performance technique that is also anti-theatrical.'"^'^ As a means of understanding why Lotta's more "authentic " performance may appeal to the writer, particularly given his or her estimation of the "non-artistic " audience as the best judge of artistic validity. Quinn posits a relationship with the theatricalized representation of the authentic with a distinctly .A.merican ethos;

Americans [. . .] tend to pride themselves on the extent to which they are "self-made." Yet to maintain this pride it is necessarv' to avoid a theatricality of the self in which the authenticity of this new self-construction might be questioned. [... T]he "real" construction of the self in American culture finds a theatrical analogue, and actors are given a way of constructing their professional products that makes them the equals of other citizens. Their characters, made out of themselves, by themselves, and in some notorious cases, for themselves, provide a remarkable reflection of the rhetoric of American political life."

.A.lthough Quinn is basing his theory on the presumptions inherent in Method acting, and no suggestion is being offered that Lotta was a nascent Method actress, Lotta's representation of "self as opposed to Booth's presumable transformation into "other" can be seen as anti­ theatrical and more "American" in the cnuc's perception.

With an air of self-mocking weariness, the writer for the Democrat appears to try to put the argument to rest by acknowledging that critical denouncement of Lotta occurs

"without any apparent influence upon the public." The "dear public" has chosen to regard

"the vivacious banjo player and clog dancer as an actress - reason to the contrary

notwithstanding," and continue to pack Booth's Theatre for her appearances. The writer

■"Michael Quinn 12.

"Michael Quinn 17.

220 anticipates the resumption of the "legitimate” with the announced return of Charlotte

Cushman from retirement to appear at Booth's "to the unqualified delight of all true lovers

of genuine dramatic art." '-

While avoiding any mention of the Lotta debate, the Boston Times focuses on the

upcoming production of Henrv VUI. with Charlotte Cushman as Queen Katherine. William

Creswick as Wolsey. and D. W. Waller as "the bluff'King Hal. " The waiter states that the

production, done in "perfect Booth and Waller manner. " will be a "boon indeed to all who

love what is noble, beautiful, grand and truthful in the drama, and we hope that for this

occasion the name of such admirers will be legion: and that standing-room only' will be the

order of the night." Unreservedly supporting the validity of sacrilized space, the writer

implicitly argues with the concept of a heterogenous audience, and uses the population and

increasingly mixed demographic of New York to support the theory of a dedicated space:

In a city so vanous, so extensive, so wealthy, as this, there should be a special clientele for each theatre, and Booth’s demands upon the support of an intelligent, a cultivated and an art-loving public are, it seems to us, imperative. We hope and believe that there are educated and superior people sufficient in New York to encourage the praiseworthy art-efforts of this theatre, and we cordially wish the Management the success it deserves, that being all sufficient to reward it for its Cushman and Creswick engagement.

Press accounts indicate that the opening night met the Boston paper's expectation in

both numbers and singularity. The New York Times reports, "For numbers, fashion and

intelligence it may be called alike remarkable." The writer also remarks that the event was

an indication of more than aesthetic or fashionable response, but an evening almost

^■"BOOTH’S," Democrat 18 September 1871.

-^"BOOTH'S." Boston Times. 17 September 1871.

221 amounting to a patriotic event by saying, "there seemed to prevail a gratifying spirit of national pride in thus saluting a lady who has done what Miss Cushman has in making the title of'American artist' respected and memorable." The Star concurs that the opening night attracted one of the largest audiences yet seen in Booth's Theatre, and among the literary, theatrical and social celebrities seen in attendance, added that "the attendance of elderly theatre-goers, who are seldom nowadays in the play-house, [was] very large." Booth seems to have successfully bridged the gap between generational taste with the nostalgic reappearance of Cushman at his theatre, and at the same time transferred the perception of the actress to accommodate his more ratified audience. The Star succeeds in placing

Cushman in a separate category from her generational peers represented by Forrest:

That such a performance [. . .] should attract such an audience is not surprising, and yet should be very gratifying to the friends of the legitimate drama, whose cultivated tastes led them to abhor the blood-and-thunder drama, and enable them to appreciate the genius of Shakespeare.

The World subtly alludes to the return of the legitimate to Booth's Theatre following Lotta's

engagement by declaring. "Never was prodigal son so handsomely welcomed back to

sobriety as was Mr. Booth's company last evening." The combination of Cushman appearing

in the theatre managed by Booth, "two of the best artists in the country." had. in the opinion

of the writer, a direct relation to the status of the attendant audience, for they "made those

parterres blossom like the rose with fashion and intelligence." The article closes indicating

the dual effect of Cushman's appearance at Booth's. Not only does it seem that her

^"REAPPEARANCE OF MISS CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN." New York Times. 26 September 1871.

Amusements," Star. 26 September 1871. association with Booth and appearance at his theatre has transcended the impression that she is an artist associated with an outdated taste, as is the indication when she appeared under other managements, but her performance at Booth's represents a return to an "appropriate" type of engagement which reflects back on Booth himself;

Miss Charlotte Cushman's name-albeit well nigh passed from the nwmt of management to memory-still has puissance, as was testified last night, imd no one will doubt for a moment that in revisiting the glimpses of the chandelier. Booth's was the only place where the prodigal daughter (if we may repeat that term for the sake of the figure ) of art could appropriately reappear and lend extra eclat to the prodigal management.’"

A few weeks later on October 19, 1871. Booth and Cushman appeared together in a production of Macbeth as a benefit performance to raise funds for the victims of the great

Chicago fire. Booth appeared as Macbeth. Cushman as Lady Macbeth, and William

Creswick as MacDuff. The writer for the Globe explained the overflowing house of

"fashion, beauty, and wealth " as equal testament to both "the popularity of Edwin Booth, and to show sympathy with Chicago sufferers." Booth's performance and his management of the theatre is framed in terms external of aesthetic considerations:

Lovers of Shakespeare and critical judges of histrionic art. were free to admit that either the public manifestations of applause, or the extraordinary largeness of the multitude of spectators, or a share of the universal feeling of sympathy with the bumt-out victims, or that esprit dii corps which characterizes Booth's management, gave life and energy, and very nearly perfection to last night's performance.

Under these circumstances. Booth and the audience are seen as coactivists for the public good, with critical response to the performance blurred with social response to its efficaciousness. The writer adds that the repeated calls for Cushman to appear before the

^""BOOTH'S THEATRE - Henry Vm," New York World. 26 September 1871.

223 curtain "must have convinced her that her popularity is as great as her merits, and that is saying much."' hinting that her public reception was augmented by Booth's charitable largesse.

The critic for the Era comments that the combination of Booth. Cushman, and

Creswick was so noteworthy that "we may be permitted to ignore the custom which vouchsafes to benefit performances the courtesy of silence." and review the performances

"without regard to the Chicago sufferers, who profited by the result." While disappointed at Booth’s "recitative" delivery of the first scene with the witches, which carried into the "If it were done when 'tis done" soliloquy, the beginning of the second act. starting with

Macbeth's scene with Banquo and Fleance. is seen as a "masterpiece." Most of the review details Booth's psychological realism as Macbeth, such as "Rapidly and stealthily he tries every entrance and listens for every sound, laying his hand upon the gate, he starts at a fancied noise behind him." WTien he sinks e.xhausted and lays his head in his hands, the reviewer sees this as

not the trembling of a poltroon, it is unmistakably the doom of guilt, the interior dread which his own heart creates, the threatenings of conscience, and when he raises his head from out his hands we can well understand that the picture of that air-drawn dagger should stand before him. he who but a moment before stopped at the sound of his own footstep, and started at the moving of a gate himself had laid hold of.

This is a bold characterization choice, given the inevitable correspondences potential in

Macbeth's telling of unwarranted regicide and its leading actor's connection to Lincoln's

assassination six years previous. Booth's Macbeth is not seen as a coward or a madman, both

^"Booth in '^'lacbeth," Globe. 20 October 1871.

224 plausibly popular choices to explain away John Wilkes' actions, but as a cipher (the critic

notes Macbeth's "tameness" in his opening scenes) who does not "awake to the task before

him" until his meeting with Lady Macbeth. In this light. Macbeth is seen as an agent who

is acted upon by others, rather than originating his own destruction through malice or

ambition. The "Is this a dagger" soliloquy is acted with an "exquisite appreciation."

beginning with uncertainty which is "startled into terror" on the line. "Thou marshall'st me

the way that I was going." Booth "reluctantly" follows the vision to the door of the king’s

bedchamber, until the lines

There's no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes.

whereupon "the guilty wretch totters back into the room." The following scene with Lady

Macbeth after the murder is framed as demonstrable of "The utter hopelessness of tlie man

[being] the prevailing idea." particularly at the "piteousness" of Macbeth's "But wherefore

could not I pronounce amen. " Funher evidence that Booth's Macbeth is an unintentional

agent is demonstrated in his being "dragged away by Lady Macbeth " as he responds to the

knocking at the gate with "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could’st!"

Although the reviewer labels the banquet scene as "simply terrible. " it is interesting

to note that Booth played the scene "without the bodily presence of Banquo's ghost,"

indicating that Booth's intention was to clearly emphasize Macbeth’s realization of his own

guilt and remorse, rather than giving any credence to supernatural imposition. Booth's

emphasis on the word "father" in the line "They hailed him father to a line of kings." despite

the critic's opinion that "'line' is, in our judgment, the emphatic word," could not but serve

225 to semiotically echo Booth's emphasis of the same word in Hamlet's "I'll call thee

Hamlet./King, father, royal Dane." which is a referent to the elder Booth in Edwin's interpretation. This referent to the role with which Edwin had already been inextricably linked could serve to reinforce to the audience that Booth was standing aloof from the role of Macbeth, reminding them his "authentic" identity is located in the character of Hamlet. and thereby reinforcing that he is "commenting" through his portrayal of Macbeth.

The critic praises Booth's "rapid and complete transitions of feeling." in the final scene with MacDuff. indicating that Booth adopted a metatheatrical approach as the play progressed, reminding the audience that this was as actor portraxdng a role, rather than assuming a transparent identification with the character. Ironically, the last comment by the critic may be the most conclusive as to Booth’s pointing toward his brother in the role of

Macbeth. The critic cavils at Booth's makeup for Macbeth, and particularly challenges.

are we to believe at the early date when Macbeth flourished the art of shaving had already been carried to that perfection which could produce such a moustache as that worn by Mr. Booth, and which we had hitherto supposed purely the invention, as it is unmistakably the badge, of the New York gambler'?^*

John Wilkes' distinguishing trademark was his well groomed moustache, which also

distinguished him in appearance from Edwin. Their facial similarities were so striking that

a Colonel Conger, who was present at Garrett's bam where John Wilkes was surrounded,

mistook the clean-shaven Wilkes for Edwin."*

-'^"MACBETH AT BOOTH'S THEATRE." Era, 8 November 1871.

^“^Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1982) 186.

226 Booth's announcement to appear as Hamlet starting December 4. 1871, following

Cushman's engagement at his theatre caused a stir of expectant commentary in tiie press.'*®

The writer for Turf. Field and Farm judged that "no personation is better known to the

American stage to-day than this. " adding that Booth’s performance of the character has benefitted the level of American dramatic criticism in that, "none has caused more thoughtful and dissective criticism; and by none. I believe, is public curiosity more readily figure [sic]."

The writer concludes by offering what appears to be both a descriptive and proscriptive passage about the anticipated audience for Booth's most famous role:

We may be prepared to see. on Monday night, an audience not only packed to the full capacity of the house, but composed of a class of theatre-goers rarely drawn out now. And this audience will give careful attention and judicious applause, taking care to be just before it is generous. Other personations of Mr. Booth might draw an equal number of persons-I do not believe any other could combine the same materials in it."*'

Despite the ambiguity of the writer's Injunction for the audience to be "just before it is generous." it is implied that Booth's performance in this role is responsible for the audience's heightened critical discernment. In essence, he has made them better, more capable audience

members by his appearances, and his performances are seen in the frame of augmenting the common good. The Era concurs that Booth's return as Hamlet ensures a full house, which

is. in the opinion of the writer, a "forgone conclusion.'"**

^*This was a remounting of the production done at Booth's Theatre which opened January 5. 1870. That production, and particularly Charles Clarke's detailed commentary on it. provides the basis for most of Shattuck's The Hamlet of Edwin Booth.

~**Turf. Field and Farm. 1 December 1871.

■*-"BOOTH'S THEATRE." Era, 2 December 1871.

227 Critical discourse following the opening of the play was overwhelmingly positive, asserting Booth's stature as an emblematic representative of a burgeoning American aesthetic, and demonstrating a marked shift in style from the detailed realism with which he had been associated. The Tribune attests to the popularity of the performance by reporting there were "about two thousand persons" present, adding that "doubtless there would have been a still larger concourse of spectators to welcome Mr. Booth's return to his own stage, " had it not been for the weather. Already, according to the writer, the setting for the play in

Booth's style has become familiar, described as scenes which are "so elaborate, so instructive to the student, so replete with picturesque detail, and so vital with sentiment," which do not serve merely to frame the action of the plot, but are tangible representatives of Booth's

"genuine devotion to the calling he has so honorably and usefully served." The critic describes Booth as possessing "positive and beautiful genius," with his Hamlet representing the three greatest elements of art, enumerated as "repose." "spirit," and "poesy." Above all its many attributes, the critic hails Booth's portrayal as "poetical," described as its "crowning excellence." The writer distinctly moves the text from its traditional narrative locus to one of poeric metaphor, going so far as to say, '"Hamlet" is a poem, and Mr. Booth invariably and consistently treats it as a poem." Rather than detailing characterization or treatment of the plot. Booth's performance is viewed in relation to its "atmosphere.[ . . .] The spirit of that

indéniable [sic] grace, that glamour, which hallows an Autumnal sunset or the starry silence

of a midnight Winter skv. It must be felt; it is not easilv to be described.

■*^"BOOTH’S THEATRE - HAMLET," New York Tribune. 5 December 1871.

228 This represents a substantial departure from critical reportage of Booth's acting prior to the assassination, as well as a discrete discourse from the "personality" acting of the previous generation. As will be seen. Booth is not viewed as Booth on stage, but neither is he viewed as the embodiment of a fictive character within the illusionistic setting of the play, inviting the audience to accept, through convention, the performance as a representation of reality. Instead, Booth and the character are perceived as distinct entities, simultaneously occupying the stage, but through a metatheatrical approach to the text which reminds the

audience that it is experiencing an actor manipulating text as text. In foregrounding the

formal construction of the dialogue as poetry, the audience is reminded that the text is

constructed by an author rather than engaging in the illusion of it being created by the

character, and inherent with this approach, the actor/character is seen as a dual personage

which is both manipulator and manipulated, with the character clearly fictive. Under this

construct, the actor becomes co-creator with the playwright, distancing himself from

perception as character by allowing the audience to witness a conscious, real-time act of

artistic creation on stage, reinforcing the ficti ve/constructed nature of the theatrical event and

engaging the audience as co-creators in the process. The actor becomes the author! ity ) of the

character who presents rather than becomes the character, potentially displacing the empathie

response of audience identification found in an illusionistic frame to one of distance and

contemplation. In this frame, the character is seen as distinctly literary rather than dramatic,

inviting a shift in audience interpretation toward literary devices of metaphor and connotation

rather than submerging itself in the finite confines of the stage world within an illusionistic

presentation.

229 The Star attests that Booth's opening was "tumultuously welcomed" by the audience, and claims that Booth is "the best of all the living Hamlets, the favorite American tragedian, the idol of young New York, and the admired of Shakespearian students." The writer praises

Booth's study which has "added very many details of significance, which impart a new and pleasurable zest to his interpretation," and reinforces the beneficial efficaciousness of the performance by claiming, "none can afford to permit the opportunity to pass unimproved.""^

Even negative criticism of Booth's "new" Hamlet attests to the instructive/didactic nature of the performance, and its appeal to the distanced intellect rather than the emotional empathie audience response. The writer for the Herald saw in Booth's performance a

"combination of the conceptions of the great actors who have preceded Mr. Booth in the part." but found that it lacks "those magnetic flashes of genius with which great actors electrify their audiences." Viewing Booth's interpretation as "a composite conception,

[which] presents us with a curious mixture of the old traditional, lugubrious Hamlet and the more robust modem interpretation of the character." the writer appears to miss the inclusion of idiosyncratic detail "which in purely original conceptions more than atone for defects and shortcomings. " In a telling commentary about Booth's performance, the writer illuminates

the authorial nature of Booth's performance, and its shift from emotional to intellectual

appeal:

We could afford to be less pleased by being more moved. The highest quality of art is to make us forget that it is art and to appeal to our feelings by the intimate sympathy which exists between all human passions, and to this point Mr. Booth failed to arrive. At those moments when we admired him most it was the actor that was in our minds, and we praised his care or his refinement

""BOOTH'S THEATRE," Star 5 December 1871.

230 or graceful action as a wondrous perfection of art; but there was so little real passion or feeling that we were not once moved to forget that we were admiring Mr. Edwin Booth.

The opacity of Booth's "wondrous perfection of art" defies, for this critic, a traditional conception of the purpose of a theatrical event to make one forget he is watching a fictive creation. In the scene with the Ghost, Booth displayed "evidence of his careful study," which the writer, acknowledging no irony, details that Booth "held the attention of the audience

riveted upon him and portrayed all the sentiments of horror, dismay and anger which the

narration called forth with an intensity which strongly moved us." The writer seems

ambivalent in his commentary of Booth's approach, but clearly defines what, for him, is the

primary purpose of the theatrical event:

though the whole representation was artificial and wanting in the heartiness and vigor of passion which cheats us into a momentary belief in the reality of the scene passing before us, or rather, by exciting intimate sympathy, makes us feel as though we were interested assistants in the plot developing before us, yet such care had been taken to use art with discretion as left no room for complaint of its abuse.

For this critic. Booth has transgressed the theatrical contract by disallowing the illusion of

reality and the evocation of empathy, while still gaining plaudits for his evidently visible act

of artistic creation/manipulation of the character and text. Booth's Hamlet displays the

"careful culture which his reading reveals," and his performance indicates that "[e]very word

and act bears the indelible stamp of careful thought." As an additional comment, the writer

adds a nearly Brechtian description that "[a]II has been planned and examined-we might

almost add measured," clearly indicating the impression of an actor visibly displaying the

methods of his creation to an audience. The writer utilizes a comparison with the recent

231 appearance of Charlotte Cushman, whom, he says, was "eminently powerful and natural."■*'

While the critic’s own commentary leaves some question as to the power of Booth's performance, it appears evident that his approach was decidedly non-natural.

The Sun views Booth's Hamlet as a touchstone to gauge the actor's progress, based on public familiarity with his characterization, which the writer claims is "the important event of the dramatic season." Each time Booth returns to the role, the "critical spectator" feels an essential interest which is heightened to watch "the modification enjoined by later study and riper thought." The writer feels that Booth's latest incarnation has undergone

"material tempering, " and is "more thoughtful, but less passionate, more quiet and level in delivery and action-less marked by sudden bursts of fiery and spasmatic energy." The actor's manipulation of the character seems to be at the forefront of critical response, as the wTiter praises Booth's "conception of the part" and explains that his "correctness of the general plan is supplemented and developed by the sympathetic music of his voice and his singular grace and ease of attitude and movement. " Perhaps better explaining the comments voiced by the

Herald as far as Booth's echo of past actors, the Sun mentions that some of his readings possess "relics of early conventionality which might have been amended, and which only the iron force of early habit can fully explain." However, the writer concedes that these "faults of detail" do not detract from "the most perfect and thoroughly satisfying bit of dramatic

work to be seen on this side of the water, and probably in England either."^

■‘■"Edwin Booth as Hamlet," New York Herald 6 December 1871.

^"Hamlet at Booth's," New York Sun 8 December 1871.

232 Booth's return to "relics of early conventionality" may indicate, as the writer infers, that the actor has simply returned to an archaic delivery or utilized traditional stage business out of habit or even lack of originality, however it seems out of character, given his apparent penchant for meticulous detail and "study." that Booth would unintentionally regress to unfashionable stylistic choices. It is more likely that Booth has consciously incorporated visibly recognizable conventions from the non-realist acting tradition of his father’s generation and blended them into the transformational frame of his own early realist approach as a purposefully jarring mechanism which reminds the audience that it is seeing, in the case of this performance as Hamlet, a creation that is neither wholly actor nor wholly character but a simultaneously coexistent duality. .A.s exemplified by Booth's engagement of Cushman in his theatre, he seems engaged in an attempt to utilize the opaque conventions of what was being termed "old school" acting which was primarily personality based blended with the transformational subsummation of the actor within the character in an intentional effort to reinforce the perception of the theatrical illusion qua illusion. Given this, it is easy to see how the writer for the Sun refers to the settings for the play as being "in harmony with the dramatic rank of the work, as with Mr. Booth’s undisputed preeminence in his art," as the

historically "accurate" and illusionistically realist sets move and change in full view of the

audience, subverting the illusion of reality with the visible mechanics of the theatrical.

The Citizen deems an actor's personification of Hamlet as a semiotic reminder of

previous generations of actors who have come before him, making the actor's attempt more

weighted in that he has "generally one more effort at perfection to surpass than had the great

actor of the generation which preceded him." In this light, the writer sees the role as a

233 referent to the actor's progress, both in a Darwinian progression over previous generations of actors and as a means of evaluation within that singular actor's career. In choosing Hamlet as his preeminent character, the writer feels that Booth has made a conscious decision to invite critical estimation of himself as an actor, rather than merely his habitation of the role:

The taste which led Mr. Booth to select "Hamlet " as the character that he desired to malte his greatest, was of itself a presentiment of his ability to realize all he has since achieved in it. We can well understand that it was with a conscientious anxiety that honors the artist in proportion to the weight of its influence upon him. that Mr. Booth considered the ambition of making himself a great "Hamlet."

Booth's evocation of archaic acting traditions serves to semiotically refer to other actors who have attempted the role and purposefully places Booth in a line of succession, with the character of Hamlet operating as a mechanistic linkage with previous actors and subsumed

to the actor engaged in playing the role rather than the illusion that the character itself is the

primary object of critical inquiry:

To a dramatic scholar of his rank it was imoossible not to think of the Booth of Queen .Anne's time, as well as of the immortal impersonations of Henderson, Betterton. Garrick. Kemble. Cooke and the two Keans. But our age has cause for profound thankfulness that Mr. Edwin Booth found in his great predecessors material to emulate rather than to discourage; for the result of his genius, studies and experience in "Hamlet" has been to give our generation an embodiment of that character which, for intellectuality, manliness and beauty of conception, and for sustained strength and fineness of delineation, ought to satisfy all those who are willing to remember that even the greatest possible actor cannot be expected to exceed the capabilities of human nature.'*'

The discrete duality of the character and the actor is here heightened by Booth's

emulation/evocation of his father and other actors who have previously assailed the role of

‘'Citizen 9 December 1871.

234 Hamlet, while qualitatively surpassing them by the act of stylistically referring to them. The character is decontextualized from the frame of the virtual world of the play and seen as a

referent to the skills of the actor, much as a vituosic piece of music might serve as a

touchstone which refers to the technical accomplishments of the musician. The musician's

performance recalls and invites comparison to previous musicians who have performed the

piece. To carry the analogy further, the musician does not become the music, which remains

a distanced entity serving primarily to display the approach and interpretation of the player.

The opaque approaches utilized by the musician to accomplish the piece serve as referents

to his or her training, study, and practice, with continued returns to the piece serving as

means of adjudicating the musician's progress, while the piece itself, in a sense, remains

static.

The writer for the Express does much to illuminate Booth's change in style, even

though the overall evaluation of his Hamlet is not particularly positive. Mention is made of

the audience filling "the beautiful temple of which he is the presiding genius." as well as his

recurrent association with the role allowing an audience to "detect the merits of the

performance. " Booth’s Hamlet, according to the writer, "deals rather with abstractions, than

with the passionate utterances which fall from the lips of the character." The reason for this

departure from what is seen as the accepted and more viable dramaturgical approach is

resultant from Booth's evident conception "that the tragedy of 'Hamlet' is a poem, and that

being such, the leading character should be a creation rather of poesy than of a strong and

impetuous nature." The writer cites that Booth has the support of "good critics and close

students" who maintain that all of Shakespeare's tragic plays should be treated in what

235 amounts to literary rather than dramatic terms, which would lead to "a truer, juster and nobler interpretation upon the modem stage." In comparison to previous performances of the character. Booth has become "more delicate than heretofore, Mr. Booth's evident aim being the repression, rather than the expression, of emotion." Booth is judged to have "idealized throughout, " in which he "expresses" the character, rather than portrays or embodies him, as

"a man who feeds upon his sorrow and recks but little of the outside world so that he be left to brood, to ponder, and rhapsodize." This approach is the "poetical and sentimental conception of the character," and as such, allows the spectator to view the mechanics of

Booth's performance, which is seen as "being harmonious in its every detail, the lights and shadows marked with delicate and well regulated gradations, and, altogether, the idea is held to with a loyal fealty. " The writer compares this to the "realistic conception of the part," based on the given circumstances of the text and a fidelity to nature

which would give us Hamlet as he might have lived, the son of a sturdy and warlike father, skilled in all the arts of war, and yet, withal, a scholar-in short, the ideal prince of fairy lore. The text gives good warrant for all this, and the part, so played, unquestionably appeals more closely to the sympathetic, and, consequently, to the more real emotion.

The writer concedes that, although the "realistic" approach is his preference, "it is a

somewhat singular fact to note that the poetical and idealistic conception, of which Mr.

Booth is the exponent, has come to be accepted as ± e only true one by the general public to­

day, and has attained a popularity that is remarkable." Without explicitly incriminating the

audiences' discernment, the writer holds that the question remains open as to whether "this

verdict of the public at large is a just one," and adds that "Mr. Booth has not fully satisfied

the critical mind by his delineation of the character, although he has the public entirely with

236 him." The lack of an empathie response garnered by a realistic approach to the character has not impeded a positive response from Booth's audiences, although the writer is clear to delineate that a realistic interpretation would fall more neatly within the parameters of what the theatrical contract is traditionally meant to convey:

it must be adhered to that his interpretation would receive more reality, excite more s\Tnpathy. and come close to the author's meaning were he to divest it of some of its ideality and in its place give us vitality and passion.

However, with a surprising display of equanimity, the critic admits that "it is justice to criticize an artist from his own standpoint. " and in this light, concludes that "Mr. Booth's

Hamlet is a harmonious and symmetrical execution of the design he has set for himself."’*''*

The Republic contends that it is "useless to comment on Mr. Booth's acting, as he has long since been declared the best Hamlet on the American stage," and continues, somewhat bewilderingly, that "to witness anyone else in this role one would almost forget the tragedy which Mr. Booth has made so popular."’*'* The Dispatch concurs that commentary on Booth's performance is unnecessary due to its familiarity to audiences "not only of New York, but of the United States." The critic admiringly describes Booth's Hamlet as "scholarlike, refined, and thoroughly intellectual. " while admitting that "exceptions are frequently taken as to this interpretation o f the character.""** Watson's Art Journal describes Booth's acting as

"one of the finest mental efforts that we have witnessed for many years," seemingly

’*''*"BOOTH'S THEATRE." Express 9 December 1871.

*'*"BOOTH’S TH EA TRE," Republic 9 December 1871.

^"BOOTH’S THEATRE," Dispatch 10 December 1871.

237 unconcerned that Booth's portrayal is an intellectual rather than empathically emotional experience. Booth's "reading" of the part "sets all the metaphysical quibbles at rest,

presenting the picture of a fine but dreamy mind distorted by a sense of terrible duty, of grief,

love, and disappointed ambition." Framing Booth as the "reader" of the text, the writer

enforces Booth's distanced position from the part and asserts his authority for its definitive

explication, rather than interpretation. The writer continues by couching Booth's

performance in terms of reading and scholarship, identifying the actor more in an authorial

stance w ith the playwright than in what might be seen as a lesser status had he been more

identified with the character:

his pure and classic reading, and his deep appreciation of the most subtle and highest meaning of the author, while they command our warmest admiration of him both as an actor and a scholar, afford us an intellectual delight which no dramatic performance has yielded us for some time past. It is simply a masterpiece, for which no parallel can be found in this country.

The juxtaposition of "intellectual delight" with "dramatic performance" is important in that

it foregrounds the didactic/authorial nature of Booth's style, signifying a profound shift in the

accepted modus of theatrical communicative convention. As is a constant in critical

commentary for productions at Booth's Theatre, the writer comments that the mise en scene

combines with the acting to provide a "sense of entire completeness," producing "a sensation

in dramatic affairs as rare as it is delightful."'*

The Times, less complimentary in its estimation of Booth's Hamlet, nevertheless

conceded that Booth "was welcomed with acclamations and acted with his customary care

and discretion." Citing his "attenuated refinement" in the part, the critic sees the performance

-‘Watson's Art Journal 10[?] December 1871.

238 as "cautious, closely studied and reverential." Clearly taking aim at Booth's popularity in the part, and the considerable attention that his Hundred Nights Hamlet drew six seasons previous, the critic maintains "the fact that he plays it more frequently than any other part, that it draws more money, or has been acted by him for a greater number of consecutive nights does not. to our mind, enhance the merit of the representation." Booth "read[s] the text with appreciation and conscientious exactness," which leads to the conclusion that while

Booth may not "thrill he does not offend." It is Booth's lack of the sensational in his

interpretation that leads the critic to compare his Hamlet with Hazlitt's famous description of Kean's portrayal as "reading SHAKESPEARE by flashes of lightning," indicating both a

move away from the point system of acting and a distinctly detached relationship with the

character which, again, associates Booth more closely with the author than the character in

that "the immortal Bard will certainly be treated with decorous respect." In an attempt to

describe the distanced, almost narrative approach Booth has adopted in the part, the critic

exemplifies the Ghost scene, in which

[t]he striking contrast procurable here between the spiritual and the material is lost, for the reason that Mr. BOOTH is himself too spiritual. In fact, he is rather more like a ghost than his father is. and the intensely human elements of terror and amazement are but thinly and inadequately shadowed by him."’’

While the writer does not qualify his definition of "too spiritual." it may be assumed it is

connotative of Booth's detached removal from a realist embodiment of the character, and a

representation of the duality of actor and role on the stage.

In rebuttal, the critic for the Sunday Times comments that

^-'"Hamlet' at BOOTH'S THEATRE," New York Times 5 December 1871.

239 The remark of one of the daily papers that his Hamlet is more spiritual than the ghost Itself, and that therefore it does not admit of that contrast which should exist between a spirit in the flesh and one out of it. may be smart, but it is certainly superficial.

The writer alludes to Booth’s repeated performances as Hamlet providing opportunity to witness the actor's refinement of the role, in that "[ejvery year witnesses some added

Luuciies," and the incicasing "coherency of Mr. Booth's conception" is made more evident by his apparent treatment of each scene as discrete illustrations of Hamlet's character, which are seen as "representative of different and sometime contradictory phases, of one and the same character. " Booth's purposefully fragmented representation of the play reflects an interior logic based on the actor's analysis of the character:

There are some men who would not seem, to the observ'er, to be consistent with themselves unless their conduct were full of inconsistencies. It is a part of the individuality of such men that they never knew their own minds, and that, in order to retain their identity they must be constantly shifting their resolutions. Hamlet is a man like this, and it is Mr. Booth's triumph that he makes his conception appear consistent with itself, while illustrating all the many moods through which the character now advances and now recedes.

The fragmented juxtaposition of Booth's approach for each scene disrupts the linear/realist

perception of the play, presenting facets of Hamlet's personality en tableau and framing the

audience as observers of behavior rather than empathie participants with the title character.

Booth's authorial position is echoed in the critic's obserx ation that "his aim is not so much

to invent originalities as to give a vivid illustration, at once delicate and comprehensive, of

the ideal which the dramatist has put into the flesh and blood of his matchless blank verse."

Public perception of the real actor Booth identified with the virtual character Hamlet by

means of his "melancholy and poetic charm" does not serx'e to submerge the actor within the

240 role as much as to lend authority to his interpretational rights to it, giving him more validity in the part "than any other actor now performing in either Europe or America."'^

Commenting that Booth’s production has attracted a "numerous and select" audience, the New York Jewish Messenger repeats the view that Booth's acting is familiar enough to audiences and critics that it serves as a gauge for his aesthetic progress. Change rather than stasis in Booth's acting style appears to have become a standard expectation, as the critic states that Booth's performances elicit hopes that they will "manifest new traits of excellence

with each succeeding year, and it were a sad disappointment if this expectation were not, in

some extent at least, realized." WTiile commending Booth for succeeding in his "renewed

study" and "careful attention" in this incarnation as Hamlet, the critic also wonders why it

is that "our Booth, with all his excellence, is at times so determinedly monotonous."

Evidently nostalgic for points of sensational theatricalism in pr<=" ' j s performances, the

critic yearns for Booth to "exhibit some of the fire and passion inherent in every man, and

which are inevitably called forth by peculiar circumstances." Booth’s departure from a

realistic acting style warrants negative critique from the writer, as he feels Booth "sometimes

seems to lack the requisite of naturalness, and thus often fails to create in his audience that

thorough sympathy which only the successful imitation of nature can evoke." Paradoxically,

the critic praises Booth's "scholarly rendering" even though it is "a little too spiritual," and

gives some impressionistic detail of the effect of Booth's performance by relating it to the

"varying and shifting pictures of a dream." Rather than framing the production in terms of

narrative flow or plot, the critic likens it to a "seemingly beautiful romance which has been

’^"BOOTH’S," New York Sundav Times 10 December 1871.

241 brought down to us from the realms of poesy, and that a Prince from fairy land is fretting his few hours on earth to convince us that passion and sentiment live even beyond these spheres." Despite the Romantic hyperbole, this reportage of the performance suggests intriguing evidence that Booth's acting operated within a distinctly different communicative system with the audience, sens ing as a signifier for a virtual world beyond the real-time space of the stage. Part of this communicative formula involves the opaque presence of the actor as creator, pointing to Booth's "overweening care which he has bestowed on the ideal character of Hamlet. " Despite the critic's negative reaction to Booth transgressing accepted norms of realistic theatrical presentation, it is seen as "classical, artistic, and instructive," and is clearly seen as an innovation in theatrical approach, as the critic deems that "Mr. Booth's impersonation of Hamlet must be classed among the great triumphs of modem dramatic an/*

The New York Globe reminds its readers that it has often praised the "high tone of art" at Booth's Theatre, and observes that it has become "the thing to say, that nothing equals the standard of this theatre." However, the writer has doubts that "all that is done at this theater is appreciated." comparing the offerings at Booth's Theatre to Hamlet's advice to the

Players and adding, "the aim at Booth's is to reach the one cultivated taste in the hundred, rather than the ninety and nine whose applause though loud, cannot be held discriminating."

The reviewer feels that watching Booth's Hamlet is "like communing with a noble and exalted friend," for which the "hearts of his appreciative auditors go out to Mr. Booth with

warm gratitude for his noble conception and execution of the highest in his art." Supporting

^"MR. BOOTH’S HAMLET," Jewish Messenger 13 December 1871.

242 his belief in the efficacious effects of Booth's performance further, the reviewer adds that "it is not for Mr. Booth, but for the reader we write. ' and continues by asserting the opinion that

"anyone who follows Mr. Booth in his impersonation will be the wiser and better for it.’’’’'’

The writer for the Irish People concurs that the audience attracted to the "splendid edifice in Twenty-third Street" were the "intelligence of the metropolis." .Although the writer feels it would be superfluous to add to the "laudation" showered on Booth for his Hamlet, he or she comments that Booth's audiences must "follow his every motion with that interesting watchfulness which only the man of thorough genius can inspire in the on­ lookers.""'’ This would indicate that Booth's performance engenders an unexpected engagement from the audience, due. perhaps, to the poetic frame of the character. This is supported by the Era's comment, two days later, that Booth's Hamlet is a "poetic creation, not only in the mere rendering, but in appearance. " Booth's every action, according to the writer,

"lik[ens] an inward grief w hich consumes but fails to energize the faculties of the mind into

the settled purpose of his life." The greatest asset of Booth's approach is the uniformity

brought about by the "poetic conception," in which there are "not spasms, no waiting for

special opportunities, no play upon certain words, but a smoothness that slights nothing and

gives us a perfect picture.""

""'"HAMLET AT BOOTH'S." New York Globe 13 December 1871.

-'"'BOOTH'S THEATRE." Irish People 16 December 1871.

^^ "BOOTH'S THEATRE. " New York Era 18 December 1871.

243 Tlie New York correspondent to The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin provides insight into the physical presentation and staging of Booth’s Hamlet, detailing aspects not mentioned by many of the New York critics and prox iding comparisons to effects which were "not producible when he plays it at his Walnut Street Theatre.” The writer feels that nothing in

England or America approaches Booth's Theatre, "where so many splendors of ah/5 en scene or niceties of an-effect can be found.” The decorative and practical accouterments "in his own principal theatre” are detailed almost as much as the setting and effects for the production, blurring the distinction between the "profoundly studied picture” of the stage and the theatre itself, which the writer describes as. "[djecorated, engraved, inlaid, patterned over and statued, from the chandelier that lights up with a sputter by electricity to the seat beneath you, whose frame is punctured for the emission of pure heated air, the house is as much a work of art as a vase by Benvenuto Cellini.”

The descriptions of scenic effects in the production concentrate on Booth's study and, more importantly, on the overtly metatheatrical nature of the set as it was operated by the underground hydraulic systems beneath the theatre. After the initial scene which shows the

moonlit ramparts of Elsinore, the writer describes seeing

a chamber wall come rising up out of a long slit across the stage, steady, with an easy gliding motion, with nothing unsubstantial or tottering about it, but mounting to its destiny like a wall of Ilium to the harp of Orpheus. The effect on the eye and mind is singular and captivating.

The scenic effect does not serve as an illusionistic representation of realism, nor does it

function within the bounds of the fictive world of the play. By overtly breaking expected

244 stage conventions, the effect distinctly serves as a signifier for the underground machinery necessary to achieve the shift:

The influence, however, which causes the scene to lift is very far from magical. Down in the cold and cavernous cellar, a row of Mr. Booth’s hydraulic rams, supplied from tanks near the roof, which are pumped full by Mr. Booth's subterranean steam-engine, do the business. On the stage the effect is an enchanting instance of the response of even motion. Down below, thirty feet beneath the stage, it is a sort of Dantean pandemonium. There is a rush and stir of waters, a turn of huge wheels like wings in the dusk, great pistons move, and the proper scene separates from the collection of ruins, temples and forests stored away there, and delicately rises into the flood of stage lights and the admiration of the audience. The pleased surprise at this novel mode of setting a stage is felt progressively during the play up to the very last. when, to mask the operation of arranging the back for the final fencing-act, a lovely screen rises, representing distant river-scenery viewed from the arches of a loggia, and bathed in an Arctic intensity of light.

To the writer, the shifting scenes were clearly as much exemplars of the duality of

creator/creation as was Booth’s performance. The audiences’ horizon of expectations is

confounded by not using the conventions of either closing the act drop to make scenic shifts,

and also having the set constructed so that the "flat is met by side wings, enclosing them

almost at right angles, and. in effect, building a real chamber on the stage [. . .] a great

improvement on the old-fashioned coulisses, which allow you to look between them at the

carpenters, and the actors waiting for their cues." Both the invisibility of stagehands and the

fluid workings of the stage settings serve as referents to the “Dantean pandemonium” of the

subterranean stage machinery, reminding the audience that they are, in fact, an audience

watching a constructed work of fiction employing means which celebrate rather than obscure

theatrical (and mechanical) innovation.

245 The distinction between the character of Hamlet, "the work with which Booth's reputation is most inseparably to be connected.” and the actor portraying him is as blurred as that which separates the fictive world of the setting and the physical theatre which houses it. The writer's discussion of Hamlet begins with information that

Few actors whom I have seen behind the scenes are so genuinely dignified as Booth. -A. natural directness of manner, an absence nf strut, and a perfect attention to his business secure him the slavish obedience of the good people having direction there, from the stage manager to the tiniest call-boy. I have heard him rate the captain of supernumeraries with violent and in terms far from choice. I have seen him hold out his slender hands to the first somebody near (I think an old lady), to be daubed with the red paint of murder. I have seen him shake his hair over his face, with two shakes, at a spotted shaving-glass held up for him by a fellow in shirt-sleeves, and to prove that neither the triviality nor the violence of his contact with them had tarnished their respect, I have seen everybody, the scolded and the scullion, run up to him with real affection and concern when the curtain, falling upon one of his nightly deaths, left him exhausted and unable to rise.

The writer notes, however, that the "play of Hamlet, though long and exacting, is not an exhausting one," and since Booth has seen to all the details of the production in a manner which does not necessitate his constant supervision or direction.

The chief performer can walk out of his green-room, leaving the parlor company there to continue the conversation, and then enact his affection for his Horatio or his apprehension of the ghost, without having conversed with those gentlemen off the boards, perhaps, since the last season.

This distinction is important because it enforces the detached nature between artist and creation, explicating the physical exhaustion of the performance which might leave Booth

"unable to rise" following the final curtain as distinct from an emotional/intellectual identification with the role which would warrant preparation before the performance or solitude and concentration during the performance. The writer finds Booth's acting

246 “scholarly, chaste, and pure as usual,” and continues to foreground Booth's visible hand as co-creator of the text by lauding his reinstatement of “those mad lines about "the fellow in the cellarage* when the invisible ghost calls for the oath; this critical restitution, which a step would carry into ridicule, is thrillingly fine."

Finally, the writer praises Booth for a “capital bit of mimic antiquarianism" in his staging of the actors for the play-within-a-play sequence, which takes place “upon a draped table" after the actors have appeared “in their harsh gowned indigence" to initially meet the court. The actor playing the part of the Player Queen is actually “a pert chit of a boy, who kneels in his tunic to kiss the Prince's hand. This gives new effect to Hamlet's jocular insistence on his sex: What, my young Lxid\\ and Mistress"! By our lad\\ your ladyship is nigher heaven than when I saw you last,' &c.-and his fears that the youth's voice may have

"cracked within the ring." " This radical departure from expected casting reminds the audience of Booth's scholarship and study in presenting "authentic" Shakespeare to the public.

However, in an intriguing comment regarding the casting of the First Player, the writer observes that it is "Mr. James Stark, formerly a tragedian who attempted lofty parts, now sunk to this mimicry of a mimic."'* It is impossible to recreate the complicity of signifiers

'*Helene Wickham Koon identifies Canadian-born James Stark as a founder of a minor acting family during the California gold rush days who “lacked the magic of a Booth, a Forrest, or even his master, Macready. But they did introduce more Shakespeare than any other actors, and their performances showed Californians that theater was more than amateur entertainment. If they were not great themselves, they most certainly created a taste for greatness." Apparently, Koon was not aware of Stark's appearance in this production, as she states, “Some say James returned to acting and toured, that he went to Australia, that he had a small part in Edwin Booth's famous hundred-night Hamlet in 1865. None of these stories is substantiated. On May 11, 1871, a newspaper reported that he had a stroke in Virginia City and was not expected to live, but he must have recovered sufficiently to go East, for he died in New York City on October 12,

247 involved in casting an actor who had been associated with the Booth family in the California gold rush days, had recently had a stroke in Virginia City and had returned to New York, and was now impersonating a member of an acting troupe which created “the quaintest old-time illusion,'*'"’ It seems clear that Booth was engaged in a series of referents which refused to allow the audience to experience Hamlet within the limited frame of the fictive setting of the play.

In what appears to be an end-of-the-year tribute, the writer for Watson's Art Journal presents an essay on Edwin Booth, “who as an actor of the true, legitimate school, stands at

the very head of his profession in this countr\ : and is, perhaps, the leading actor of the world

among those who speak the English language." In delineating Booth's style, the writer

identifies him as "the acknowledged representative of the intellectual school of acting, — of

that school which appeals rather to the intelligence of the audience than to their passions."

In contrast to both the Heroic style of his father and Forrest as well as the Realist style of

Booth's antebellum career, the writer sees Booth's approach to his characters as being made

from “a high intellectual standpoint" which has the effect of "the presentment of a man as

nature made him. and as education and circumstances controlled him, and not a stage

anomaly, as most of even our (so called) best actors manufacture him," Comparing Booth

1875." Helene Wickam Koon. How Shakespeare Won the West: Plavers and Performances in America's Gold Rush. 1849-1865 (Jefferson, NC: 1989) 45-46.

^'*“NEW YORK GOSSIP: How to Set a Great Play on the Stage. (Correspondence of the Phi la. Eve, Bulletin.)" unidentified press clipping dated 10 December 1871, in "Booth Newspaper Clippings 1871-1873" scrapbook. The Players.

248 to his theatrical peers, the writer concludes, “It is genius and education on the one side, and necessity and shallowness on the other."

Although the writer feels the charm of Booth's acting is in "the absence of all conventionality," he or she praises the "charm of his voice [... which] has that tone of high refinement which is rarely met with in any but men of education and intelligence." The writer comments that Booth has carefully studied and perfected his stage voice "to a point of such e.xcellence that its modulations are cadences of melody, and even its passionate utterances are neither coarse nor harsh." Similarly, the writer feels that Booth's action is "the perfection of grace, and is always in perfect consonance of expression with the language he utters; and in his carriage he proves that dignity of bearing is not in the stature, but in the mind." There is no sense of disparity between the perception of Booth's "absence of all conventionality" and the clearly self-conscious and overtly opaque study that Booth has made in his vocal and physical presentations. The actor's preparatory work is tangible in his performances, signifying the presence of the actor along with the character on stage, however the writer feels "he makes the character his own. Its personalities are his, and the idendty is so positive that it matters not how often he repeats a character, the character with all its

infinite variety of expression is seen, and not Edwin Booth." In concluding the article, the

writer takes the opportunity to blur the distinction between critical reaction and patriotic

fervor by commenting that Booth "has the full sympathy of the public, and its admiration and

support. His position is assured by his superlative merits, and cannot be disturbed by the

carping comments of a few inexperienced, hap-hazard writers," The reviewer further

combines aesthetic with ethical commentary in stating that by Booth "erect[ingj for the

249 public one of the finest dramatic temples in the world [... he] has given a high intellectual and moral tone to a profession which most sadly needed a redeemer.”*^’ Booth is positioned as an artist who has embarked on a mission to uplift the intellectual and moral character of both his own profession and the nation, presumably in a causal relationship leading from the former to the latter. By redeeming the acting community (presumably by example) from its debased standing through his careful study and opaque vocal and physical theatrical approaches, the assumption is made that Booth will redeem the nation from a similar moral, or at least intellectual, nadir.

Although Booth’s Hamlet drew the strongest box office and generated the highest praise of all the productions under his management, his production of Julius Caesar which opened on Christmas night of 1871 became the longest running production the play had ever known and was an extraordinary' success for Booth’s Theatre.”' This staging was

"unquestionably his most lavish and generally integrated achievement in terms of overall production” and was "unanimously recognized as a highpoint in Booth’s relatively short tenure as an actor-manager.””' Booth retained the serv ices of his Hamlet designer Charles

Witham to create lavish and historically "accurate” Roman settings, and the production opened with Booth as Brutus. Lawrence Barrett as Cassius, Frank Bangs as Marc Antony,

'""EDWIN BOOTH The Great Tragedian. ” Watson’s Art Journal 23 December 1871.

'’‘Charles Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the Hallams to Edwin Booth (Washington, B.C.: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1976) 142, 145.

'’■Lise-Lone Marker and Frederick J. Marker, "Edwin Booth’s JiiHus Caesar. A Promptbook Study.” Nineteenth Century Theatre Research 4:1 (Spring 1976) 1.

250 and D. W. Waller as Caesar. Unique to this production is Booth's appearance in the roles of Cassius and Antony by the end of the production's 85 performance run. The combination of scenic effect, staging, engagement of critically popular actors for the leading roles, and

Booth's unprecedented multiple-role playing made this the "climactic achievement" of

Booth's theatre management career.'”

The fact that Edwin Booth had decided to revive Shakespeare's most famous work about politically motivated regicide did not escape the notice of some members of the press.

The writer for the New York Season questioned how Booth could stage the "assassination play." and more specifically offered the opinion that how "[Booth] could have maintained his composure during that awful scene in which, in mockery, he played the part which John

Wilkes Booth played with such fearful earnestness, no one but Edwin Booth and his God can tell."''^ Even when not overtly expressing misgivings about Booth's mounting of this production, several critics mentioned that Booth's last appearance as Brutus in New York was as part of the benefit performance of November 25. 1864. with Junius Booth as Cassius and John Wilkes Booth as Marc Antony. No extant documents which might explain Booth's reasons for mounting Julius Caesar less than six years after Lincoln's assassination have been discovered, but it is inconceivable that Booth entered the endeavor naive to the associations which would be made in the critical and public mind.

As the public memory of the Booth brothers' 1864 production of Julius Caesar (or at least awareness of the event) would likely be revitahzed during Booth's 1871 remounting.

^’Shattuck Shakespeare 146.

^New York Season 30 December 1871.

251 it is useful to explore the process of associations made by an audience which intertextualize an actor's past performances into his or her current creations. Marvin Carlson explains the process by which an audience’s knowledge of an actor's previous performance affects the perception of the actor and creation/construction of the character as an act of "ghosting":

In semiotic terms, we might say that a signifier, already bonded to a signified ill the creation of a stage sign, is moved in a different context to be attached to a different signified, but when the new bonding takes place, the receiver's memory of the previous bonding remains, contaminating, or 'ghosting' the new sign. In the more traditional theatre concept of mimesis, the mimetic process is similarly 'ghosted.' and made more complex, by memories of previous mimetic acts by the interpretive body of the actor.'"

Knowledge of previous roles is achieved in various ways, but most fundamentally from the audience's direct experience of seeing the actor on stage. Critical evidence suggests that many of the critics reviewing Booth's 1871 production of Caesar were present for the 1864 benefit performance, so that Carson's "ghosting" effect would include Booth's previous perfomiance as well as the enhanced significance of that performance when combined with his brother's assassination of Lincoln four months later. Even for audiences and critics who did not witness Booth's first production, the significance of the brothers' appearance together would impact perception, based on familiarity with the actor's real life outside the theatrical frame. This extra-theatrical intertextuality is no less operative in the semiotic perception of the character which "may very well provide a serious disruption for the expected reception of the dramatic structure and its presumed fictive world [...] forming the dominant element

^^Marvin Carlson. "The Haunted Stage: Recycling and Reception in the Theatre,’ Theatre Survey 35:1 (May 1994) 12.

252 in audience construciion of the stage figure.”"* While it is impossible to accept that Booth understood the theoretical implications of his action, it is not beyond logic to assume he realized the notorious associations that would be made with his remounting this particular production. In so doing, he could have purposefully intended to utilize the "ghosting"

associated with his performances, and in the combination of his new acting style and

particularly his assumption of all three major roles in the play, he could effectively subvert

or "redeem" the national harm done by his brother's action.

Despite the BoothAVitham emphasis on antiquarian scenic reconstruction. Booth's

production of Julius Caesar was clearly framed within the non-realist theatrical approach

which had predominated his work since the assassination. The writer for tlie New York

Herald, clearly preferring a Realist approach and evidencing an opinion that there is a

"correct" approach to the character of Brutus, comments that while Booth has "much of the

dignity" that is needed for that "friend of liberty," his acting style possesses "a tricky

staginess which will force itself forward at the most unseasonable moments, when we feel

least inclined to pardon any deviation from a severe and dignified naturalness." As has been

repeatedly suggested in critical commentary of his acting. Booth seems to have endeavored

to diminish an empathetic response of identification from the audience, as this critic finds

his reading of the "Friends, Romans, lovers" oration to be "wanting in pathos, force and

spontaneity, and bore traces of constant striving after theatrical effect."*'

""Carlson 14.

"^New York Herald 26 December 1871.

253 The New York Mail reminds its readers that Booth last played the part of Brutus “at the Winter Garden, the night the attempt was made to fire the theau-es and hotels. Marc

Antony and Cassius were played by J. B. Booth and John Wilkes Booth,” and, like the

Herald, finds his performance a "thoughtful, studied conception, bearing upon it almost too plainly the traces of the care bestowed.” While the writer finds Booth's performance to be

“finely conceived and the execution is in perfect accordance with the design.” it appears to be at variance with a preconceived expectation of how Brutus is to be presented, since the

“design does not entirely accord with what we know of the character of the noble Brutus."

The singular objection to Booth's portrayal is that there is “too much of the feverish excitement which we admire in his Hamlet but which is unsuited to the present part.”'^'^ This commentary suggests that Booth may have intended a portrayal which showed an unexpected, more human and less formally noble characterization of a reasonable and patriotic man persuaded by strong political argument to commit assassination. If this were the case, it is easy to concede how an audience still reeling from the effects of a presidential assassination might become uncomfortable with the intimation that Brutus' agency in the crime was brought about by neither duplicity on the part of Cassius nor irrationality in his own thinking. While probably not intended as an apologia for John Wilkes Booth's action, it could potentially serve as an example of how external forces could persuade a moderate person to commit an unthinkable act. In diminishing Brutus' conventional nobility. Booth emphasizes his humanity, and does not allow him to fit (and therefore be safely dismissed by) an audience's preconception of him as a semi-divine representation of nobility ignobly

^New York Mail 27 December 1871.

254 deceived. Seen in this context, it is easier to understand how critics and audiences might

become unnerved with the thought that they might be capable of the same action.

In contrast the Mail, the New York Citizen found Booth's portrayal of Brutus to be

"the exact presentation of the cold and passionless idealist of Shakespeare, and its sharp

individuality, its wonderful fidelity to nature, its subtle refinement and its intense strength

place it in the very front rank of this great actor’s most successful parts." The critic praises

the "transcendent excellence of this revival," commenting that the "poetic beauty of painting

and gorgeous richness of coloring" in the sets elicited "prolonged applause" from the

audience. WTiile lavishing praise on the design and mise-en-scene. the critic emphasizes the

overt aesthetics of the production over its historical accuracy, and concludes. "Julius Caesar

is the crowning glory of Mr. Booth's management, and marks an era in the history of the

stage.""'* In an article appearing the following week, the writer for the Citizen seems to add

justification for the argument of aesthetics over antiquarian accuracy by mentioning that there

"is perhaps an excess of columns in the buildings shown, since it is hardly probably that

every building in Rome boasted a Doric or Corinthian colonnade." however, the design

choice is seen to be justified, as "the effect of these countless columns is to add a

magnificence to the scene which fully excuses their presence." °

As the new year began, the popular press commenced to identify Booth's production

of Julius Caesar as the pinnacle of his theatrical achievement, the best exemplar of his

aesthetic aims, and the ideal vehicle in which to express the relationship between the

""New York Citizen. 30 December. 1871.

°New York Citizen. 8 January, 1872.

255 artist/poet and his public. The Commercial declared that “Booth is doing Hamlet and other classic characters as well, and his admirers think better, than the individual could represent them themselves." ‘ On January 6. 1872. the critic for the Yonkers Gazette, writing as “The

Prompter." states

The theatre-going public of New York, and even of the whole counUy. owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Booth and his assistants, for the consistent and able following out of what they have considered a duty to legitimate art. in thus presenting the works of Shakespeare in the lavish manner which is characteristic of Booth's Theatre, and we hope that a succession of audiences such as has witnessed "Julius Caesar" during the week, will compel the keeping of the play on the bills for the remainder of the season. '

The Era was lukewarm in its appraisal of Booth’s Brutus, saying he "dressed the part admirably" and “read the text with a proper appreciation of its purport and meaning." but conceded that “he was lacking in dignity and was not as terribly earnest and impressive as others we have seen in this role." However, even given the weakness of the characterization,

the critic still sees the production as a testament to Booth’s artistic mission. The critic

reports that the opening night house “was packed to the utmost capacity." and that the play

was "worthy of the audience" as it portrays “every phase of human character, and [is]

pregnant with useful lessons." The critic begins to comment on the elaborate scenery and

staging of the production, focusing on the apparent cost for the lavish spectacle which

“seems to be gotten up on a grander scale than its fellow." By the tone, it would seem that

the writer intends to comment on the monetary aspect of the spectacle, but takes a shift from

‘New York Commercial. 31. December. 1871.

^“REVIVAL OF ‘JULIUS CAESAR’,” Yonkers Gazette 6 January 1872.

256 the discussion of the ’“labor and study” necessary to mount the “elaborate series of stage pictures” to a consideration of the motives behind the enormous undertaking:

that the labor was one of love on the part of Mr. Booth, and not of gain, is alike true. At his own house, built by his own earnings, he could have attracted large audiences in any series of plays he chose to produce. With delineation of character, as with the work of the painter or the music of the composer, when either reaches perfection, we never grow tired. We may be familiar with every line, but tlie very completeness of the picture recalls pleasant memories at each revival. The management, in point of scenery, has surpassed all former efforts. ^

For the Era, the abundant scenic effects tvpical of Booth’s Theatre are evidence that Booth’s effort is a "labor of love.” ostensibly both for Shakespeare and the American public.

Further evidence of the impact of this production of Julius Caesar and the growing perception of Booth as beneficent actor/scholar/priest can be seen in a review appearing in the New York Express for William Winter’s book Edwin Booth in Twelve Dramatic

Characters. The critic praises the choice of Winter as the biographer of Booth, claiming that

Winter has “evidently traced this man's career with personal interest and attention.” recounting Booth’s theatrical growth from his early days in California to his present efforts as an artist, “which, but two short weeks ago. reached its fruition in a tribute to the great painter of human passions which has surpassed all efforts yet recorded in dramatic lore.”

More important than the puffery, however, is the inclusion of the growing Booth mythology:

[I]t is the story of a life fraught wdth import and interest. Few men now before the public in an art capacity have passed through the vicissitudes which have attended the career of Edwin Booth, and it is only by the most laborious and conscientious application that he has attained that prominence which is now so unhesitatingly accorded to him. The life of the man is a

"^“BOOTH’S THEATRE,” New York Era 6 January 1872.

257 romance "full of strange accidents by flood and field;" and to know how, step by step, the ambitious stripling has worked his way to the highest niche of histrionic fame is to read a tale full of wonder, perhaps, but still full of much that is noble, laudable, and worthy of much emulation.^

Once again. Booth is framed as a noble model who has undergone strange and tragic events

in his real life which at least rival those of the tragic characters he portrays. His success is

endeavors, and he is seen, with the latest production at Booth’s Theatre, as having reached

the pinnacle in American (to discount the writer's assertion of "all efforts yet recorded in

dramatic lore” ) dramatic art.

The writer for the Home Journal begins with the assertion that the contemporary

audience has changed in its taste from a "popular reverence for Shakespeare" to "that morbid

craving for novelty and excitement v\ hich accepts anything, from the most lurid melo-drama

to the most meretricious spectacle." Asserting that a "ripe culture" was always necessary to

thoroughly appreciate Shakespeare and that while once he was “fashionable with the mass

of play-goers," Shakespearian productions are now "sustained on the stage by the cultivated

alone." With this as a given, the writer announces that with

honest pride then may Mr. Booth, at the close of the third year of his career as a manager, point to the grand temple which he has built and earned by his own labor, and exclaim. Here is my monument to my great master in art! The series of magnificent Shakespearian revivals which have extended through these three years is nobly culminated by ‘Julius Caesar.’

■‘“New Books: Edwin Booth in Twelve Dramatic Characters. The Portraits by W. J. Hennessy. The Engraving by W. J. Linton. The Biographical Sketch by William Winter. Jas. R. Osgood & Co.," New York Express 8 January 1872.

258 It is unclear as to whether the writer is lauding Booth's preservation of Shakespeare as the domain of the "cultivated alone" or has returned the playwright to the "mass of play-goers." as he or she takes pains to refute arguments against "such massive realism in stage art, because [some people] fear that it. more than the tragedy, attracts the public." The critic dismisses the argument as "conservative" and warrants that Shakespeare's plays "can receive no garnishing too splendid, and their breadth, comprehensiveness and subtlety, are heightened rather than diminished by such lavish treatment as they receive at the hands of

Mr. Booth." The reader is reminded that Booth last played Brutus in New York "previous to the burning of the Winter Garden Theatre." and through his "patient and exhaustive" study

in the role during the intervening years, he has created a characterization which is compared

to "the exquisite finish of a painting by Meissonier." The presence of both creator and

creation as separate but coexistent entities is suggested by this comparison to painting.

Booth's act of self-conscious character construction results in his character being sometimes

"a little too studied and seems at times lacking in spontaneity" but these are seen as "trifling

blemishes compared with its general completeness, firm equipoise and self-absorbed

identity." The writer sees Booth's Brutus as

a man of grave dignity, beneath which is half-hidden, half-revealed, a warm heart and a noble purpose; a man superior to any injustice, slow to anger and stem in resolve: a true lover and a constant fnend. but above all a Roman patriot, whose highest thought, hope, ambition and abnegation are for his country.

It is clearly dangerous ground for Booth to portray a regicide, but in his exploration of

Brutus' continuing "struggle between friendship and patriotism," Booth would appear to

have constructed an antithesis to the popular perception of his brother's action as rash,

259 impetuous, and ultimately self-serving. There even seems to be a correlative in the conspirator's death. The public was aware of John Wilkes' ignominious death; hobbled by a broken leg, ferreted out from a burning bam, shot in the back by Boston Corbett, he was carried out paralyzed and uttering "useless, useless.” By contrast, Edwin Booth achieved a death scene for Brutus which the writer found to be "absolutely terrifying in its intensity and magnificent power.”^ It can be plausibly argued that Booth's conception of Brutus served as a public lesson in reason, patriotism, honor and self-agency. It did not seek to justify the act of assassination, but contrasted the attributes of nobility and rationalism to stand in stark relief to John Wilkes' brutality and cowardice.

In reviewing the production for Turf, Field and Farm, " the writer spends less time e.\amining particulars about Booth's performance than he or she does in using the production as a basis of commentary for extra-theatrical observ ations. The critic seems less impressed by what is represented than by what it represents, and admits that "I have always objected to Mr. Booth's Brutus, in that he failed to imbue die character with that profound dignity which undoubtedly characterized the great man, giving instead an assumption of thought which is often to be mistaken for hesitation.” Booth is praised in his "declamatory scenes” and his acting is "marked by great force and fire,” with particular praise for the reconciliation scene between Brutus and Barrett's Cassius. Of apparent greater interest to the writer is an inferred elitist/populist debate centered on the producdon's elaborate staging. After praising

"'"'JULIUS CAESAR* AT BOOTH'S,” Home Journal 10 January 1872.

^Undated clipping found in Booth's press scrapbook at The Players, labeled "T. F. & Farm.” placed next to an entry dated "January 12, 1872."

260 the settings' ability to present "elaborate detail of nature, even to light and shade.” the writer

acknowledges that the "cynic may say that this scenic display is necessar\ to make

Shakespeare popularly attractive, and it may be even so." However, the writer continues to

clarify his stance that it is to "inane, meaningless, showy massing of tinsel and gewgaws that

we should object, not to stage elaborations which reproduces with the fidelity of the camera

historical architecture, costumes and scenes." By seeming to attract a diverse demographic

for this production. Booth appears to have raised a critical debate with echoes of that

centered around the appearance of Lotta Crabtree in his "temple of art" cited earlier.

Exempting instances such as "the grand productions of Booth's Theatre, of 'A Midsummer

Night's Dream.' at the Olympic Theatre and The Tempest' at the Grand Opera House." the

w riter declares that most contemporary Shakespearean productions are marked by "wretched

scenery, and often an incongruous assortment of costumes." In defending the Booth/With am

mise-en-scene to those who might cavil at the quality of the audience it attracts, the writer

argues that "it should be very gratifvang to the lovers of the ultimate and the nobler order of

the drama to hear that his enterprise and industry are properly rewarded by popular

patronage." It is easy to read in this stance the inherent positioning of Booth, presumably a

representative of the "lovers of the ultimate and the nobler order." as a patriarchal guide and

teacher for the presumably unenlightened members w ho comprise "popular patronage." The

writer deftly dismisses, or perhaps assuages, the class bifurcation in the argument for social

261 responsibility and the obligation of the "enlightened” class to educate the masses for the good of the body politic, for which the former should be grateful to Booth.

At the heart of the article, however, is an attack on Edwin Forrest, beginning with the

writer’s "wish” that "Forrest could have had the advantages of this scenic elaboration in

’Lear'." While adding a desire to see Forrest’s Othello placed within a more elaborate scenic

frame, the writer begins to clearly place Forrest in aesthetic, and ultimately social, opposition

to Booth:

But he has to blame himself as much as any one. He is three or four times richer than Mr. Booth, and could have better afforded to erect a temple of his own. and properly presented his great characters, instead of starring it in the provinces, supported by a company of sticks.

The writer posits that the reason Forrest had not attempted to emulate Booth’s new

production style is that "Forrest has never evinced a thorough appreciation of his art. He

understands its philosophy, but does not appreciate it.” While admitting that Forrest is a

"great actor.” the writer does not impugn his talent in comparison to Booth as much as his

motives:

It may not be generally known that Mr. Booth asked Mr. Forrest to open his theatre with a series of characters, but the irascible, self-sufficient old gentleman - 1 know him - choose [sic] to consider the request impudent, and said he would not play in the theatre till it bore his nam e. **

For a detailed investigation of bourgeoisie responsibility to educate the urban poor through dramatic art, see Bruce A. McConachie, Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre & Society, 1820-1870. Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa P. 1992 (particularly Chapter 8, "Built to Endure”).

^William Winter corroborates Forrest’s antipathy towards Booth, whom he claims "had known Edwin from childhood, resented the fame of the younger actor, and

262 What is intriguing about this variation on the Booth/Forrest rivalry is the reversal of their populist/elitist stances in the implication that Booth had done more for the “people" by

building his theatre as a teaching tool for the masses than Forrest had by holding to

traditional methods of stock touring and provincial star appearances. By refusing to appear

at Booth's Theatre, Forrest is framed as self serving and arrogant, whereas Booth is

positioned as the popular benefactor who donated his money, scholarship, talent and name

for the edification and enlightenment of the American public. It is an extraordinary feat of

rhetoric to place Forrest as a representative of the "old school" elite and Booth as the

people's champion, but it exemplifies the shift which Booth represented that the theatre

existed as a classroom at least as much as it was a showcase for histrionic display.

Two reviews which appeared in separate publications on January 13, 1872, make

oblique references to the relevancy of Booth's Julius Caesar to its contemporary American

audience. Watson's Art Journal begins by describing the story as "one fraught with deep

interest and import" which delineates "the various characters who were the principal actors

in the bloody scene which gave over Rome to civil war. and brought about the death by

suicide of the two leading conspirators. " By mounting the production, the writer vouches

that Booth is worthy of "[pjraise for having done his work so thoroughly and artistically, and

thanks for laboring so earnestly to elevate the standard of public taste in the knowledge and

appreciation of Shakespeare's works." Particular note is made of Booth's management of

the "throng in the street, and [...] how they are as easily led by a demagogue as is our later

gradually came to view him with aversion." Life and Art 87.

263 mob of today." Clearly, the play's political relevance and the inherent educational motive in Booth's production was not lost to the writer. Commenting on Booth's portrayal of

Brutus, the writer repeats what would be a common complaint that the actor's physical stature does not meet with “the popular ideal" of a robust, martial Roman consul, but praises

Booth for bringing out "all the sweetness, the tenderness, and the philosophy, for which the

part calls." Additionally, the writer mentions qualities which seem more Booth than Brutus

by praising the "grace and poetry" of his portrayal, and commends "an embodiment which

commands respect, from its scholarly and refined attributes."’'"

On the same day, the writer for Woodhill and Claflin's Weekly announced, "The

perfection to which scenic art has been carried, and the careful elaboration of details, are a

triumph in Mr. Booth's management. .Any one of the plays that he gives us in his revivals

is a study, and very best and most interesting commentary on the social habits of the age

represented that can be offered to us." However, two comments about the assassination

scene seem to indicate that the writer did not view the production as a mere window through

which to view the behavior of a past society, but as a germane commentary for its

contemporary audience. The description of the Senate, verified by W itham's sketches for

the production, place Pompey's statue behind Caesar's consular chair, which is approached

by a series of steps to the landing on which it rests. After the conspirators have plunged their

"^The Markers' "Promptbook Study" of the production concludes that Booth's handling of the supernumeraries (among other staging devices) anticipate the more celebrated techniques in the Meininger production of the same play appearing in New York nearly two decades following the production at Booth's. (2 and 19)

’^"'Julius Caesar' at Booth's Theatre," Watson's Art Journal 13 January 1872.

264 daggers into Caesar, "he falls not wrapping his mantle round him at the feet of his great rival, but at the foot of the steps that go up to his own throne.” The critic concludes that this break

from staging and pictorial convention leads to the interpretation that "the great thought of retribution is. in some measure, weakened." If this was. in fact. Booth's intention, it is a

startling and somewhat daring choice. If the production showed, as William Winter states.

Booth" s "conscientious sense of the obligations to public morality and the cause of education

that rest on a theatrical manager.”"*' it is conceivable that Booth was attempting to mitigate

the still prevalent calls for retribution against the South for the assassination of Lincoln. In

this staging, Lincoln/Caesar's political ambition is not necessarily implicated, but the

conspirators' view that his ambition merited his downfall might weaken "the great thought

of retribution.” It is a daring perspective to present to a New York audience that would

doubtless recall that the last time Booth appeared in this play Southern arsons torched several

theatres and hotels in the city. The critic's observations regarding the assassination scene as

a whole leave little doubt that a correlation between it and the real life assassination in

Washington nearly seven years previous was intended:

The whole action is here so rapid, and the confusion and tumult of a mighty catastrophe whose report shall last through time are so great, that the spectator of the reahty before him has no time to note small differences: even in the mimic representation, the mind is aghast at the immensity of the situation.

The parallel to the events in Ford's Theatre is unmistakable, and one can only conjecture as

to the effect the scene must have had on its audience. The lines of demarcation between the

*^‘Life and Art 63.

265 fictive event and the public’s memory of the actual event seem aggressively ambiguous, and it is difficult to imagine that an audience would not grasp the implications of that ambiguity.

Furthering the perception that the real and the fictive were made manifestly blurred by this production, the writer continues by asserting. "The part of Brutus seems peculiarly fitted to the popular idea of Mr. Booth's individuality." This comment is intriguing in that it does not pertain to the actor’s suitability to the role, but to the public’s perception of what constitutes the real Booth. The writer continues to obscure the distinctions:

We most of us suppose that Mr. Booth is of grave, almost melancholy temper, given to abstruse thought and the unraveling of the eternal relations of things. To this his extreme sedateness of demeanor and his Italian cast of features have in great measure contributed. Even in Romeo there are a certain philosophic spirit and self-control manifest, while his preference for the measured step and slow is apparent in all his gestures, which, even under excitement, seem the result of Intellectual rather than of emotional impulse.

Then, the writer practically reverses the casting process, stating, "The grand self-poised character of Brutus, superior to fate and serene alike in prosperity as in adversitx', would naturally fit with this assumption of Mr. Booth’s own personality." Is it Booth who is playing

Brutus, or Brutus who is subsumed within the character of Booth? It is as if the audience

were watching Booth himself inhabiting this Rome/.Mnerica compilation. Booth who could

"slay Caesar to save Rome, ” and, perhaps most tellingly in the writer’s commentary, it is

Booth who, "in the quarrel scene with Cassius stands calm, though not indifferent, against

Ills ‘brother's’ petulance and injustice like a great rock against the bufferings of the angry

sea." The writer’s use of the word "brother." and his foregrounding the choice by the use of

quotation marks, unmistakably connote that this confrontation is, for the writer at least,

Edwin Booth’s refutation of the petulant and unjust John Wilkes. Should there be any doubt

266 on his readers' part that the critic saw Booth as the embodiment of noble apprehension, it was surely dismissed by his statement that "M r. Booth gives to Brutus an expression so perfect that it leaves nothing to desire; so perfect, indeed, that there is no room even for praise: it is the thing itself: and we would not praise Brutus for that he is Brutus." After such

a blending of the character with the actor, it is difficult to discern if it is Brutus or Booth who

is "a perfect portrait of a man whose matchless character left room only for the regret of his

enemies in the moment of success."^'

The Times’ critic was less enthusiastic over Booth's Brutus, and spent a good amount

of the review connecting the themes of the play to contemporary political events and figures.

as well as questioning Shakespeare's sympathies in the writing and construction of the plot.

The writer states, "the problem of Caesarism is still not solved, or the practice of Caesarism

arrested." and as example, states.

a Caesar was atumbled last year from his throne: but straightway, and by the same propulsion, another Caesar rose to the purple. The imperial diadem fell from the brow of a BON.A.PARTE. but it was set. almost in the same hour, on that of a HOHENZOLLERN. Despite the march of progress and the wisdom of time, the corruptions of popular Governments still furnish arguments to the foes of liberty, and in modem France the same doubts and fears attend choice between the two great contending principles that embarrassed the patriots of ancient Rome.

Using this as a basis, the critic begins a discussion as to the appropriateness of the play,

citing the "animated debate as regards the drift of its purpose and the propriety of its

construction.” In particular, he raises the question of the "real sympathies of the poet on the

political theories at issue.” The writer has issue with the character of Caesar being portrayed

*'“ART AND DRAMA: BOOTH’S.” Woodhill and Claflin's Weekly 13 January 1872.

267 as subordinate in importance in the play, and he feels that “the death of Caesar should be the climax and end of the action." By continuing the action past the assassination, and showing the results of the conspirators' subsequent political maneuvers, the critic concludes.

That the intention of SHAKESPEARE was to avoid attracting interest to Caesar, but rather to fix it on the chief assassins and his most brilliant apologist and avenger is manifest; yet when Brunts runs on Strata's sword at the end, it is not clear whether the author's prejudices jump with the poetic, or the political justice of such a conclusion; whether SHAKESPEARE felt most for his splendid hero's three-and-thirty gaping wounds, or for the mangled liberties of his country.

From his tone, it appears that the critic for the Times would prefer that the play be a tragedy

of situation, ending with the assassination as the culminating action, rather than a tragedy of

character, exploring the downfall and death of a patriot who makes misguided, although

morally guided, choices.

Not surprisingly, the critic is also unimpressed with Booth's portrayal of Brutus,

citing in the first instance the actor's slight frame which does not meet the requisite of a

“figure cast in the very antique mold - large, massive, calm and evenly balanced." Although

he concedes that Booth “reads Brutus with a decorous gravity and steadiness of appreciation

that are very commendable," he feels the actor is better suited, in “style" and “person," for

the role of Cassius; “His natural bent would, doubtless, have freer scope in Cassius for other

reasons. Cassius is a fiery, scheming man of action; Brutus a deep-thinking, self-examining

philosopher." By way of explaining the characters' differences through contemporary

relevance, and in a surprising manner given the writer's audience, he continues;

If such a comparison may be hazarded, we might say Cassius reminds us somewhat of Gen. Sherman; Brunts of Gen, Washington. It is conceivable that if the two American leaders had been in the same relative positions as the

268 two Romans, they might have had similar colloquies, similar quarrels and similar reconciliations.

Booth's primary failing is that he "falls into the error of substituting a kind of nervous tension of equanimity." The critic feels that Brutus should be "fixed as the centre, self­ poised as the sun," somewhat recalling Caesar's self description of being as "constant as the

Northern star." Booth, however, portrayed Bratus as "palpably o'-er-solicitous for the thoughts and deeds of others." In conclusion, the critic feels that Booth is mainly lacking in a "certain erect majesty, as distinguished from crouching suspicion, and the honorable self- sufficiency of a character noble, pure and patriotic in the highest sense possible to humanity.'"^^ It appears that the critic would prefer a performance more in keeping with one that might be offered by Forrest, for what he objects to in Booth's portrayal is the element of humanity and self-reflection, specifically those qualities which might cause an audience to ponder the possibilities if it were placed in a similar situation as Brutus.

The review appearing in the New York Express justifies the subordination of

Caesar's importance in the play by explaining, "he is but the pivot upon which revolves the

drama of liberty which Brutus and his associates work out." To have placed him more

prominently, the critic argues, "would have been to have destroyed the unity of a poem

whose numbers speak of liberty, of patriotism, and of self-sacrifice." The critic also

addresses and justifies the scenic splendor of the production by comparing it that seen in the

concurrently running production of The Black Crook at Niblo's Garden, which is found to

'^^"AMUSEMENTS - Theatrical: ‘JULIUS CAESAR' AT BOOTH’S THEATRE," The New York Times 20 January 1872.

269 be “ purely pictorial in scenic art, and, in doing this, [they] do their duty to the furthest extent to which the pictorial may be. or can be, carried.” By contrast, the critic argues that Booth

adds to pictorial, intellectual pleasure, and into the series of revivals which have won for him and his theatre so enviable a reputation in the New World, has projected the culture, the refinement, and the intelligence of a man bom in a family whose name is a household word, and of which he is a worthy scion."

For this critic. Booth's examination of the results of the assassination, rather than the assassination itself as the dramatic highlight of the production, along with his efforts to

“more nobly and. surely, as profitably, [to adorn] the works of the great masters of literature.” are linked to his association with a "family name” which is worthy of respect and emulation. The artistic products of Booth's Theatre are seen to be directly reflective of

Booth's aesthetics, which, the critic seems to infer, are the products of a lineage which is unsullied in the “New World.”

The writer for The Citv of Brooklvn. in reviewing Booth's Julius Caesar, formulates an elegant and extraordinarily sophisticated analysis of Booth's acting stvie and intentions, as well as delivers a cogent exploration of audience response theory. He begins his thesis by stating.

The theatre-goer of to-day who reads the accounts of the triumphs of Betterton, Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Kemble, and the elder Kean, and whose wonder and admiration are excited at the bare recital of the marvellous [sic] control of these artists over the passions and the emotions of their audiences, will be apt to conclude that they must, of necessity, have been far superior in their profession to even the ablest of their successors.

""Julius Caesar at Booth's Theatre,” New York Express (indecipherable date, found next to clipping labeled “20 January” in Booth's press scrapbook at The Players), 1872.

270 He supports this argument with the contention, seemingly drawn from critical commentary regarding Bootli's performances, that

as not even the most unsophisticated villager who witnesses Booth's Hamlet, trembles with supernatural fear during the Ghost scene, as Partridge is represented by Smollet in "Tom Jones," to have done when Garrick performed the part, that the acting of the latter must have been far more powerful and effective than Mr. Booth's.

.Adding historical instances to the argument, the critic cites reports of Aeschylus being castigated for "frightening [the .Athenian audience] into fits with his Furies,” and the poet

Phrynicus being fined a thousand drachmas for "torturing them with his tragedy on the fall of Miletus."

The writer then begins his two-fold response by opining that the difference in

audience reactions is not prompted by a lessened ability on the part of the actor, but in “the

superior intelligence and culture of the [contemporary] audiences.” He contends that even

if an actor is portraying intense passions on the stage, in order that "an audience should be

profoundly moved and excited by the representation of imaginary woes and sufferings, it is

essential that the imaginative faculty should be highly developed in the spectators.” He

contends that the Athenian audiences, and also those witnessing the performances of Garrick

and Siddons, “were undoubtedly far more imaginative and impressionable than those of the

present day.” Rather than couching this in terms of an inferior comparison, the writer

establishes his argument that the diminishment of imaginative (emotional) response is a

natural consequence of more developed critical thinking skills:

Where they/e/r-and betrayed their feeling-we are content to analyze, and “make no sign.' Though the average American audience of to-day may possess “little Latin and less Greek,' as compared with the cultivated portion

271 of those who trembled and suffered with Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, it cannot be denied that the standard of knowledge and intelligence to-day is higher than it was then, and consequently that the critical faculty has been more highly developed, and so brilliant a critic as Lord Macaulay has somewhere said, the critical, and imaginative, or poetic, faculties are not only distinct, but almost incompatible.

He further contends that a contemporary audience would not respond to Garrick's acting in the same way that Garrick's audience would have should the Georgian actor he able to appear before a 19‘*’ century audience, and that Booth's performance would "afford much more intellectual and critical gratification than would that of his famous predecessor."

He then begins the second part of his thesis argument by contending that actors are products of their environments and culture, and that if contemporary culture has advanced

in "intelligence, culture, and critical discernment," it is only logical that the contemporary

actor has moved in that direction as well. Within this movement, the critic posits that

Mr. Booth is probably far beyond all his contemporaries. In fact, it is, we imagine, to this high mental cultivation that those very defects upon which his critics delight to dwell, are to be attributed: at least the only objection which can reasonably be urged against his acting is that he does not make his audience feel but think.

By way of example, the critic focuses on Booth's portrayal of Brutus, which he attests is

"represented with a fidelity which deserves the highest praise, but yet there appears to be an

indefinable something wanting to render it complete." This "something wanting" is deemed

to be "feeling, emotion." While praising Booth's portrayal of the character's "lofty mind,

exalted patriotism, inflexible integrity, and dauntless courage," he contends that the audience

does not "feel, fear or hope, because Brutus himself does not." In explicating the empathie

response, the writer contends that an actor "who would excite emotion, must himself be

272 moved,” and holds that Booth "has cultivated his intellectual and critical powers to such a degree, that they completely dominate his imaginative and emotional faculties.” Booth's propensity for the intellectual and emotionally removed is seen as a benefit in his performances as Hamlet and lago, but a deficit in his portrayals of Othello and Macbeth. The writer admires the effect of this characteristic in Booth's Brutus in scenes such as the quarrel with Cassius, where Brutus' "stinging reproaches, lofty disdain, and rational explanations with which he first inflames, then overawes, and finally soothes, his fierce, eager, and impassioned companion, are given with a fidelity to nature that fairly electrifies the audience.” It is the scenes in which the character's "regret for his dead friend, grief for his dead wife, or joy for the fidelity of his friends” are perceived by the audience, but not

experienced by them. The writer observes that the audience perceives Booth/Brutus'

emotions from a distanced perspective due to the "instrumentality of art.” meaning an opaque

aesthetic technique employed by Booth which clearly displays the character's emotion while

at the same time making it evident that the actor is not experiencing it himself. Even though

the writer feels that these moments "would be perfect were the artist only able to conceal it,"

he concedes that it is still "art of the highest order.” The writer sees this as a symbiotic

creation between the artist and the spectator, stemming from a shared culture and aesthetic

which foreground critical thinking over emotional response:

This failure to sway or excite the emotions of the spectators [...] is one for which the audience is not less responsible, as I have already shown, than the actor. He is cold, classical, and intellectual, because he has kept in advance of the mental and critical development of the time, the effect of which, upon

273 both actor and spectator, has been to subordinate feeling and imagination to mind.’'"'

While the writer may wish for a more emotional identification between the actor and character at times, thus eliciting a traditional empathie response from the audience in those moments, he qualifies the wish as being based on Booth's superiority to his theatrical contemporaries which can be seen as a penalty "inseparably attached to the highest order of talent in every walk in life to excite expectations of the possible realization of an exalted and unattainable ideal." For the writer, the new style that Booth exhibits in his acting outweighs the nostalgic desire for tradition.

The reviewer for the New York World echoes the opinions held by the Citv of

Brooklvn by claiming that Booth's Brutus "is not a character whose merits appeal to the

feelings." In analyzing Booth’s approach, the critic reveals the character is a study in. and

perhaps a model for, the merits in an intellectual commitment to political action:

He must be admired for his judgment [sic] and honor, not praised for his passion and impetuosity. If he is won over to the conspirators it is by the most convincing arguments that can be used to a patriot and philosopher. If he makes mistakes they are the mistakes of a virtuous and unsuspecting mind. If he enters the revolutionary ranks it is less with the personal desire for emolument or fame than with the desire to lend himself to a noble cause, and his unimpassioned actions when once committed to the conspiracy are those of a determined man thoroughly convinced, who needs no emotional spurring.

In portraying Brutus as "this coldly grand idealist," the critic believes that Booth "has seized

upon the poetic if the not the historic truth." The critic elaborates that in witnessing this

interpretation, "We observe at once the calm stateliness which the sense of duty either to the

^^Citv of Brooklvn, 20 January, 1872.

274 individual or to the community imparts to the man. His whole manner is that of a person whose thoughts seek broad and deep channels.” The critic sees this approach as a distinct departure from the traditional portrayal of the character, and in so doing, goes beyond simply examining Booth's aesthetic interpretation to distinguish it as indicative of the actor's moral and intellectual capacities:

That Mr. Booth has endeavored and with success to present this view of the character is creditable alike to his moral strength and his intelligence, for while it is the poet's conception it is so far wide of the conventional notion that it will be presently complained of for its lack of 'vigor' and 'presence' and that puissance which belongs to the ‘noblest Roman of them all.'

The writer also supports Booth's choice to elicit a critical rather than emotional response by arguing its basis is found in the play itself: "There are few opportunities offered Mr. Booth in this play to rouse his audience by intense action. Probably no play of Shakespeare's is so barren of purely theatric situations and so full of rhetorical eloquence. Such as he has he uses sagaciously, with delicate power and with sure effect." Along with his interpretation of the character. Booth's production as a whole is seen as an innovation which is at the forefront of theatrical conceptualization:

Mr. Booth as usual has discarded tradition in the setting of the piece, preferring to be guided by his own judgment and knowledge and that of his able assistants. The consequence is there are several innovations in the business, and a number of improvements in the mechanical effects, not the least important of which is the representation of the apparition in the fifth acL^

“The Marker's "Promptbook Study" provides explanation of the apparition's appearance using scrim and lighting to achieve its sudden revelation and disappearance. They also note Booth's turning his back to the audience in the scene as an "unusual violation of the conventions of the time,” and deem it an indication of another of Booth's "modem” approach. (18)

275 For the writer, the innovations in staging and departures from traditional characterization are not merely exemplars of theatrical unconventionality, but allows the production to become one which "deprives the enemies of the theatre of their most effective objections, for here are rational amusement and edification so deftly combined and beautifully illuminated that the dullest and the wisest must alike be benefitted as well as refreshed by their contemplation of them.”

For this writer of the Worid. the production of Julius Caesar is indicative of a larger motivation prompting Booth and his theatre. The production is seen as an indication of the

"triumph of Mr. Edwin Booth's endeavor to re-establish the reputable drama in the metropolis upon an enduring basis." Booth is framed as creating a bastion for reawakening a moral imperative in theatrical presentation and to win back audiences who had claimed

"the stage had outlived its usefulness, and when Shakespearian revivals were invariably associated in the minds of the people and managers with disaster." Citing many critical

doubts as to whether Booth's experiment would succeed, the critic claims.

Whatever may have been its immediate and individual purpose, its real and important object was to determine the possibility of making the modern theatre worthy of the approval and patronage of intelligent and refined audiences already driven from the contemplation of theatric shows by the immorality and emptiness of their material and their exhibitors.

Booth is again framed as standing apart from the general definition of a theatrical producer

whose goal is only profit, but in the success of his theatre, the critic declares, “we now find

276 Mr. Booth, after three years of faithful effort, fully entitled to our admiration not alone for his endeavor but for his success."'*

Several critics repeat the perception of this production and Booth’s Theatre as agencies for public education rather titan simply entertainment. Watson's Art Journal states.

"Julius Caesar, as now performed at Booth's theatre, should be seen by every student and f every lover of Shakespeare."’*^ The Home Journal deems the continued and increasing success of the production as indicative of changes to theatrical tut as a whole by Booth’s

Theatre: "the position it occupies to-day and the world-wide dramatic influence it e.xerts are proof sufficient of the true art impulse which has inspired and actuated its owner and manager from the start.""''’ Appleton’s Journal pronounces the production "an important aid

to education: it would do more than much reading to strengthen the impression of a grand,

by-gone age. and hence commends itself to the attention of all persons having the charge of

advanced pupils.’’"" The critic for the Connecticut Advertiser concludes. "Edw in Booth

deserves the thanks of a city for the moral and intellectual instruction which he gives to us

nightly through the magnificent plays of Shakespeare.’’"' The Sunday Mercury contends that

the production "marks the refined and constantly improving tone of the metropolitan tastes."

'" ’BOOTH’S THEATRE - JULIUS CAESAR. ” New York World 28 January 1872.

’'•'Watson’s Art Journal 3 February 1872.

'Tlome Journal. 7 February 1872.

"""Table Talk. ” Appleton’s Journal (undated clipping found in Booth’s press scrapbook at The Players.)

"‘New York Advertiser 22 February 1872.

277 and that its educational merit is realized by "parents from the surrounding country bring[ing] their children to the matinees in family parties, to [...] see the Roman Senate, the forum, and

Caesar's funeral in perhaps more than all its original grandeur, with the accessories and unrivaled stage effects so necessary to the conception of the bard’s magnificent creation.'"^'

The writer for the Evening Journal recommends that the production be made part of the city* s educational curriculum: "If every school boy and girl could see this play no harm would come of it, but a love of liberty would be enkindled, and a taste for oratory and elocution cultivated, which it is hard to obtain in any other school."*’*

An editorial commentary in the Citizen, however, finds the play and the production disturbing in that "it is difficult to see how Shakespeare’s sympathies and the sympathies of the world could have uniformly been with the murderers." The writer has clear nationalistic bias in his comment that the character of Caesar is intellectually and morally superior to

"such a cold-blooded Gladstone as Brutus, while Cassius was about as unpleasant and unprofitable a demagogue as even France could produce.** The writer suggests that a more fitting ending to the production would be to have **the unexpected revival of ‘Caesar* and the dragging of ‘Brutus* and ‘Cassius* to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat. The two conspirators dragged away in a glare of red fire, while Antony dances a pas seul." The writer contends that this would provide “an ending consonant with poetical justice, if not precisely in accordance with historic truth."*^ Although not explicitly stated, it might be surmised that

’’"Sunday Mercurv 11 February 1872.

” ‘‘Edwin Booth as Brutus,” Evening Journal 28 January 1872.

^ New York Citizen 3 February 1872,

278 the writer views Shakespeare's treatment as an advocation of assassination, and that historical accuracy should be subsumed within the imperative to "teach" by altering the ending in his proscribed manner. It is not difficult to infer the writer's disapproval of the choice of the production itself.

In an unprecedented move. Booth assumed the role of Cassius beginning Monday evening. March 4. with William Creswick taking the role of Brutus. Critics were in general agreement that the part of Cassius was more suited to Booth's physiognomy and perceived

temperament than was the part of Brutus, with the critic for the Express going so far as to

state, after Booth had announced the change in role but before he had assumed it, "There is

no doubt that the part will be found to be in closer sympathy with his style of acting than that

of Brutus.'"'^ The New Y ork Herald asserts that "The same mental constitution which enable

Mr. Booth to play lu^o better than Otlicllo. would naturally make his Cassius more

satisfactory than his Brutus." and holds that since the motivation for the two roles are similar,

envy and ambition, they are best viewed as character studies in which the actor's

interpretation takes precedence over the playwright's intention. For this critic. Booth's

interpretation of Cassius was "carefully studied, intelligent, and consistent throughout,” but

also augmented by "an intense and electric vitality, which is not always a feature of Mr.

Booth's acting, and which must set this part among his foremost representations.” Given the

rare opportunity to compare the actor in these immediately contrasted roles, the reviewer

"^New York Express 28 February 1872.

279 concludes, “The very defects that, in our judgment, detracted from the excellence of Brutus help to make his Cassius one of Mr. Booth's very best delineations.”*^

The Courier found that Booth's assumption of the role shifted the focus of the production's main characters to make Cassius the primary object of interest: “In the naasterly delineation of this character he has not equal on the American stage, and he has made it ± e chief and prominent feature of this beautiful performance."** Similarly, the writer for

Watson's Art Journal found that “Mr. Booth's delineation of Cassius is by far more complete and satisfactory than his rendering of Brutus." Familiar attributes of Booth's acting style were, for this critic, better displayed in Cassius, which the critic explained by stating, “The intelligent and careful study, imbued with electric vitality, so often noticed in Mr. Booth as great features of his acting, come out with remarkable vehemence and expressive dramatic power." The critic was particularly impressed by the multi-layered interpretation that Booth gave to Cassius' personality, which he felt Booth most successfully accomplished during the tent scene where "the impetuosity and tenderness of Mr. Booth's Cassius, showing the good qualities and the good nature of the man, are really wonderful delineations of character." For this critic, as with others, in the same manner that Booth's Brutus was ghosted by referents to his Hamlet, his Cassius brought to mind his lago, as the critic contends, "his rendition of

Cassius is a finished work of art, and so much superior to his Brutus as his impersonation of

'lago' surpasses his ‘Othello."'***^ It should be distinguished, however, that critical

**^New York Herald 5 March 1872.

**^New York Courier 9 March 1872.

**^Watson's Art Journal 9 March 1872.

280 commentarv' does not compare the roles as being similarly portrayed. Rather, Booth’s acting seems to have encouraged an intertextual response in which one performance served as a referent to another model in Booth’s oeuvre.

For the critic of the Era, the intertextuality reached to a previous generation, for he found that Booth’s performance "is perhaps the best played Cassius our stage has seen since old Booth played it. Much of the father's business is preserved by the son. with a sort of filial reverence worthy of encouragement, for few men excelled old Booth in originality of business.” The comparison is interesting in that references to the elder Booth were

increasingly rare in Edwin’s post war reviews, and most mentions of comparison in earlier

commentary were framed in how distinct the younger Booth was from his father. Unless it

is merely an indication that Edwin was preserving lines of business used by his father in the

part, it may infer a hearkening back to the previous generation’s acting style in its

metatheatrical overtones, and in distinct contrast to Edwin’s earlier realist approach before

the assassination. For this critic. Booth’s performance "display[ed] beautifully the care of

his study,” particularly in delineating the "moral Janus” of Cassius’ personality, in that he

was a man “of deep hatred, strong self assertion, cunning, courage and quick to anger, even

with his wife; and again, a man who loved Rome and Roman freedom, who loved his fnends,

was tender as a maiden in their reproof, while fiery as steel and flint when struck the wrong

way.’"”

The writer for the Home Journal attests that Booth’s change to the role of Cassius

proved a financial as well as artistic success, declaring that it “leads the list of the week as

‘^"BOOTH'S CASSIUS ” New York Era 10 March 1872.

281 a dramatic event, and has been successful in filling the house since Monday evening-the more successful as Booth has never before appeared on the New York stage in this (to him exactly adapted) impersonation.” References to other portrayals are again mentioned in

Booth's assumption of the role: "Hamlet brings certain qualities of his in to bolder and more distinct relief; so, lago: but. if rather less salient than either of these masterpieces, his

Cassius is not less artistic, not less sculpturesquely perfect.” The critic offers tantalizing commentary regarding Booth's acting style by saying that Booth's Cassius "is a realization, not an impersonation; a dramatic identity, not a mere objective study; and must be classed as one of those art-works which Booth is so fond of elaborating, and in the elaboration of which he so strikingly excels.” One must only conjecture as to the precise meaning of the critic's commentary here, but it would seem to indicate an awareness of the actor’s creative process, and is further evidence of the duality of both actor and character present in the stage

performance. By detailing that it is neither an “impersonation” nor an "objective study” but

rather a “realization” and a “dramatic identity," the critic seems to say the performance is

proof of a self-consciously opaque fictive creation rather than a realistically approached

model. The critic found Booth's conception of Cassius to be “in perfect harmony with

Shakespearean conception of the most subtle, mercurial and really dramatic actor in the

tragic conspiracy," while the actor's technical opacity was displayed in “sharp and skilful

[sic] contrasts, the transitions of which were wonderfully shaded and punctuated.”

Not all critical commentary was favorable, and at least one critic distinctly felt that

Booth's Cassius was a complete failure. In an undated, unlabeled clipping in Booth's press

'""“BOOTH'S THEATRE,” Home Journal 13 March 1872.

282 scrapbook, the only positive aspect the critic could find in the performance was that Booth was more physically suited to the role of Cassius than he was to Brutus which "made up a picture to the senses which intensified the idealization and insured the actor a hearty reception." The critic confesses that "we expected grand acting, and were grandly disappointed," with a major objection being "that in giving us Cassius he gave also a little of everything else." Apparently the mercurial nature of the characterization which landed

Booth plaudits from other critics only confirmed for this critic that " his conception was far

from settled - his working out of the idea shifting and unsteady. There was an apparent

unevenness-an accomplishing of things without cause-as though the hand and brain were at

variance with each other, and the mind in a constant ferment, knowing not the object which

it ought to seek." In greatest contrast to the other critics, and in absolute contrast to general

assessment of Booth's acting process, this critic holds the varying nature of Booth's portrayal

"was evidently the result of careless study, or possibly a lack of all study. No other reason

can fairly be assigned." Paradoxically, it would appear, for this critic, that intensive study

of the character would be unwarranted, since "Cassius is not a character difficult for a man

of average grasp to comprehend, or, when once comprehended, to work out." It appears that

the critic views Cassius as a character motivated by a sense of noble patriotism, which Booth

does not present:

His eye expresses, instead of frankness, e.xultation at the prospect of success. The lips are compressed and the mouth set hard, while the whole contour of the face betokens that of a man bent of the commission of a hellish, not a noble deed-to take a life for revenae, not for the aood of Rome.

283 This character choice is home out in the critic's description of Booth's performance during the assassination scene, in which "he breaks all bounds, and slashed and cuts at Caesar as if he would indeed hack his limbs." This behavior is deemed inexcusable based on the interpretation that "Cassius brought reason to bear for this murder, and by the force of that same faculty he would not have borne himself like a butcher, but as a Roman." During

Cassius' suicide. Booth "lacked the manhood and stem resolve that actuated Cassius, exhibiting more of the woman than the Roman." and Booth's entire endeavor was seen as

"falsely conceived and badly worked out.""" Despite the obvious distaste in which the critic viewed Booth's performance, his observations do shed interesting light on Booth's conception and bring out aspects which are not included in other critical commentary. It would appear that Booth was attempting to show an oppositional stance to the patriotic

idealism which motivated Brutus to assassination. His Cassius seems to have been actuated by personal gain and political envy, physically demonstrated in his countenance and

startlingly enacted in his barbarously cruel, almost bestial murder of Caesar. To complete

the didactic purpose of this portrayal. Cassius is denied the noble death enacted by Brutus,

choosing, if the critic is correct in his observation, an ending more "the woman than the

Roman." presumably indicating cowardice and, perhaps, regret. Given this reading. Booth's

Cassius would provide a strong example of dialect argument to his Brutus in this treatise on

political assassination, which, as demonstrated in later explorations by Shaw and Brecht,

prompts an audience to view the performance as an opportunity for critical thinking on the

‘"‘Unlabeled, undated clipping in Booth's press scrapbook at The Players.

284 viewpoints presented, rather than an empathetic identification with characters and passive witness of plot line.

In the final week of the production's run. Booth again changed roles and assumed the part of Marc Antony. Critical reception was. again, generally favorable, with the only constant objection being to Booth's slight build. The critic for the New York Republican judged that in his portrayal “he surpassed, in this part, all the conceptions of Shakspeare's

[sic] ideal that we witness from time to time on the American stage." The reviewer points to two scenes which stand out as consistent high points in the performance: the oration over

Caesar's body, and Antony's mourning over the dead Caesar shortly after his discovery of it after the assassination, “when he mourned over his fallen friend and leader as brother mourns over brother. " It is ambiguous as to whether the choice of words was intentional, but not beyond reason that the familial connotation would not be lost to the readership. Once again. Booth is compared to actors from a previous generation, including the “elder Kean," and “that better former of manifold men's styles in Shaksperian [sic] personation—the worthily-famous model of fancy and imagination in dramatic life. Edwin Booth the Senior

[sic]." Despite misnaming Junius Brutus Booth, the critic is “glad to see the paternal fire gleam out in so many nobly-rendered passages of the master-dramatist on this occasion."'”'

The reference is notable in that Marc Antony is not a part that the elder Booth performed,

thus the comparison can only be framed in terms of an overall style rather than in particular

lines of business, as may have been the case in the comparisons based on Booth's Cassius.

‘°-“EDWIN BOOTH AS MARC ANTONY." New York Republican 10 March 1872.

285 Given that there is no evidence that Booth had returned to his father’s "heroic” school of acting, it can be assumed that the comparison is based on other matter, possibly nothing more than a non-realist approach, for which the only critical referent could be in recalling the elder

Booth and his contemporaries.

The critic for the New York Tribune was impressed by Booth's transformation from a "sleek and well fed spaniel" who followed at Caesar's heels at the beginning of the play. to the "startling [. . .] transition when he comes upon his corpse in the presence of his murderers and enacts a scene of deep feeling and consummate dissimulation." Following the conspirators' exit. Booth impressed this critic

when his suppressed rage and revenge are let loose and depicted on his countenance. The baleful look he sends after them in its flashing and concentrated intensity of hate, animosity and vengeful fire is such as Edwin Booth alone could give. That glorious eye of his has a diction of its own. and nothing could be more significant, brilliant and expressive. The terrible prophecy that follows he launches with an inspiration that no pythoness could have surpassed, and here he rises to the acme of Kxic sublimity which electrified the house.

This commentary evinces a strong perception of the dual presence on stage, and the

awareness that the actor is engaged in a process of manipulating both the text and the

audience, without attempting to hide the technique behind an illusory mask of the character.

Noting Booth's "glorious eye” and "lyric sublimity” is testament to the presence of the actor

qua actor on stage, however it is couched in terms which indicate that there is also the

presence of the character, rather than simply an instance of a "personality” actor who fits the

character to his or her own identifiable personality traits. However, it is in the oration scene

that the dual presence is most strongly felt, for it is here that Booth displays his "transcendent

286 artistic skill and talent.’* The critic’s commentary could refer to both the actor and the character in stating, “Nothing could be finer than the art, subtlety, and ascending force with which the cumulative effect is wrought up to its final and topmost height. It was a model piece of elocution.” In this instance, it is clearly a scene in which both actor and character opaquely utilize oratorical technique to manipulate text, with technical application being as dramatically important as textual content. Booth seems to have again gone against conventional expectations for the role, as the critic admits,

Mr. Booth's .Anfony may be considered somewhat too busy, active, and subtle to faithfully represent the careless but able voluptuary, the lover of plays and music, as he is portrayed by Shakspeare [sic] and history, but the distinction involved is a nice one and the delineation would lose in stage effect were it less sharply outlined and carefully filled in.

For this critic. Booth’s performance was so successful that “[ejxceptions taken to so

admirable, symmetrical, and successful a work, which justly commanded unbounded

applause, savor of hypercriticism.”"’’

The Express was more balanced in its estimation of Booth’s work, mainly faulting

the actor’s physique as too slight to "fully convey the idea of the voluptuary.” However,

given this limitation, the critic finds that Booth’s physical hindrances produce an opportunity

in which “his effects must, therefore, be produced by purely artistic means.” This echoes

and. perhaps, explicates, the mention of Booth’s "transcendent artistic skill” found in the

Weekly Review’s criticism. Rather than presenting a realist replication of the character’s

ideal form. Booth engages in a process of artist co-creation with the audience to produce a

fictive image of the character which transcends his own physical inappropriateness. As has

‘“ “Weekly Review,” New York Tribune 10 March 1872.

287 been discussed, this co-creative process is actualized by a conscious and visible application of “artistic means” rather than attempting a transparent illusion of reality. The critic cites the

scene in the Senate chamber over Caesar's body and the sudden change in Antony's

disposition at the conspirators' exit, as well as the funeral oration, as theatrical highlights,

adding a comment which reveals a moment of purely theatrical bravura at the end of the

funeral oration "where he leaps from the forum to the stage, [and] is a cleverly conceived

piece of stage business that is very electrifying in its effect." Perhaps this might serve to

explain references to the “heroic" school of his father's generation in other reviews. As

important as the quality of the production, in this critic's estimation, is the success of the

production itself, which he hails as “a run unparalleled. Never in the annals of the stage has

this tragedy been known to have been played as often as fifty consecutive times, and yet Mr.

Booth has succeeded in presenting it for just twice that number.""^ Even though the

production actually ran for only eighty-five performances.'"^ it is still an impressive feat, and

was universally acclaimed as the finest production ever produced at Booth's Theatre.'""

Booth's production of Julius Caesar exemplifies his marked shift from a realist

approach to characterization, ostensibly encouraging a distanced, critical stance on the part

of the audience enabling it to engage in the philosophical dialectic debate represented in the

play, rather than adopting a single point of view interpretation based on empathie

'"^New York Express 13 M arch 1872.

‘"'Gerald Leon Honaker, “Edwin Booth, Producer - A Study of Four Productions at Booth's Theatre: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Richelieu, and Julius Caesar." diss., Indiana University, 1969, 372; and Winter Life and Art 62.

'""Honaker 373.

288 identification with Booth's character. From the scenic design, to the staging of the crowd scenes, to his own interpretations of the characters, his aim was not to hide his artistic process in order to achieve an illusion of reality, but to foreground the artistic process itself as an integral element of the production. Indeed, the very fact that he portrayed the roles of

Brutus, Cassius, and .A.ntony during the run serves to remind the audience that it is witnessing an actor engaged in a fictive construction, allowing them the opportunity to closely observe the actor's ability to shift both personality and dialectic stance. Further, it can be argued that

Booth's act of assuming all the major roles in the play effectively redeemed the memory of the production from its previous performance with Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes in the same roles. In what can reasonably be considered a daring venture to produce Shakespeare's most famous play about political assassination made infamous by John Wilkes' association with the production and his brother, Edwin Booth subverted those associations by effectively claiming the roles, refashioning them by breaking with conventional expectations for their portrayals, and transforming the play into a study of the motives for and a treatise on the consequences of assassination. Throughout the critical commentary, it is obvious that the presence of Edwin Booth as artistic, moral, and instructive guide was tangibly felt, transforming the familiar plot into an intertextual and metatheatrical experience for its audience.

After closing Julius Caesar, Booth revived productions of The Iron Chest in which he played Sir Edward Mortimer, and The Fool's Revenge playing the deformed Bertuccio, both productions running during the week of March 20 through March 27,1872. This short run occurred before Booth's left for Philadelphia in order to fulfill contractual obligations

289 to perform at his Walnut Street Theatre. Although pulling these productions from Booth's familiar stock did not attract the critical attention garnered by the season's previously mounted "grand Shakespearean revivals" and culminating in Booth's remounting of

Shakespeare/Cibber's Richard Dl. a few comments are noteworthy as to their indication that

Booth's new approach extended beyond the classical canon. On Booth's portrayal of the malevolent Sir Edward, a part also associated witlt the repertoire of the elder Booth, the critic for the Home Journal found the part well suited for the "display of his marked idiosycrasied and masterly skill." Tlie critic goes so far as to indicate the part is. in some ways, better

aligned for Booth's talent than the classical roles, in that it is seen to be "a type of modem

thought and development, and [he] interprets its complexity of motive, its excessive self-

consciousness and refinements, far better than any of the more direct and simplistic modes

of the older times." Booth's interpretation is deemed "an artistic, and intellectual study," in

which he is seen to engage in a “subtle analysis of passion.""’ This commentary is

indicative that Booth displays the actor's workings on the stage during his performance, as

evidenced by the critic's observation on his "analysis of passion" rather than his "display"

of it. The artistic and the intellectual are mingled, with no mention of the real or natural.

The critic for the Sun regarded Booth's portrayal of the deformed court jester in Tom

Taylor's The Fool's Revenge as "one of the most complete and powerful impersonations

now to be seen upon the stage." and described Booth's acting style as typified by "a didactic,

precise, and formal method of declamation." which is somewhat less pronounced in this

'"'Home Journal 20 March 1872.

290 production."'^ That didacticism and formality are enumerated as traits of Booth's acting indicate an opacity in both his intention and technique. The critic for the Home Journal saw

Bertuccio as "one of the great actor’s most powerful impersonations, comparing in subtlety with lago. in power, with his more robust roles. [... It] is a part in which none but Booth could have succeeded." For this critic, the key to Booth's successful interpretation is based in the fact that he "expunges the abnormal hideousness, and puts in its place a powerful, almost mystical, subjective element." In repeating what seems to be a consistent in his performances this season. Booth is seen to transcend the "revenge play" plot so that he manages to achieve an resolution in which "the noble revenge of forgiveness [is] extended to the repentant enemy.""'" The mitigation of revenge to forgiveness seems to be a constant

in the didacticism of Booth’s performances. That Booth's didactic purposes in performance

was overt is testified to in a commentary by Turf. Field and Farm while Booth was still in

Philadelphia. The writer poses the question whether "theatrical art is a mere money-making

business or professional art." which, according to the writer. "Edwin Booth has measurably

solved this question." The distinction between moral/educational obligation and

aesthetic/artistic presentation is seen to be nullified, as the writer observes that Booth knows

"no reason why the stage should not teach lessons of wisdom, morality and dignity as well

as other forums of power that claim higher pretension."'"’

"’’’New York Sun 22 March 1872.

"’’’Home Journal. 27 March 1872.

“"Turf. Field and Farm 6 April 1872.

291 In returning to his theatre for the final production of the season. Booth chose to revive

Richard PI. a role which had been critically and popularly identified as the touchstone part in the repertoires of both the elder Booth and John Wilkes. While the production did not boast the elaborate new scenic and costume designs associated with his révis ais of Hamlet and Julius Caesar, it provided an opportunity for audiences to witness Booth's departure from an acting style associated with his father, and note differences in Booth's approach over the course of the seven years since Booth had last played the role in New York, in the popular and familiar role of the humpbacked monarch.

Booth appears to have avoided the temptation to use the role as a fiery display of histrionic gymnastics, and while the departure from expected theatrical tradition was noted by many of the critics, it appears that the interpretation was popularly received. The critic for the New York Telegram repons that the opening night production was performed before

“a very large, and, during the performance, enthusiastic audience." He does note, however, that “Mr. Booth's interpretation of Richard, while in every respect a thoroughly admirable performance, will hardly fit the popular ideal of the character, as handed down on the traditions of the stage for centuries." The reviewer indicates, unapprovingly, that Booth strayed from a traditionally accepted interpretation of the character who “is at odds with the world: is a misanthropic usurper in fact, who does not hesitate in the commission of any crime which would enhance his prospects of attaining the power he covets," in order to present a character who is “politic, insidious, and deep. [. . .] intriguing, sarcastically

humorous and [an] unfeeling wretch, who apparently keenly enjoyed the results of his own

wickedness.” Although not explicit, the critic seems to disapprove of Booth's transformation

292 of the character from a symbol of opaque, malicious evil to a charming and adroit social maneuverer. The critic points out tliat Shakespeare "describes with powerful touches the dread effect which his bloody malignity has upon all thrown in his way." but Booth's divergence from this interpretation leads the critic to state, "we can hardly agree with Mr.

Booth's interpretation in these scenes." It is unclear what the critic imagines as the ideal, but the inference is that he disapproves that the other characters, and presumably the audience, are capable of being charmed and entertained rather than repelled and disgusted by

Gloucester. Despite his objections, the critic concedes that Booth's new Interpretation

"brought with it the enthusiastic plaudits of the audience for the startling manner in which it was executed."'"

The critic for the Express feels that the opening of the production proved to be

"another event of importance in the annals of an establishment that has done very much to foster and increase a love for all that is good and true in dramatic art.” Mentioning that the scenic aspects are not as extravagant as those of Julius Caesar, he points that the power of the production rests on Booth's portrayal of Richard as a character "with such indomitable will, so thorough a power of reading the motives of his fellow men. that his infernal craftiness is able to safely guide him on to the goal of might and prominence whither his ambition has beckoned him." He notes that Booth's "performance is a much better one than it was seven years ago." particularly citing "a fuller knowledge of its requirements and the ability, which time and study alone can give, of imbuing it with the subtler and more cunning qualities which are so absolutely necessai}' to make the picture a com plete and faithful one.”

'"“RICHARD m AT BOOTH’S THEATRE,” New York Telegram 2 May 1872.

293 Booth's portrayal of Richard's ability to countenance himself to other characters' expectations is carried out with an "admirable simulation. " and he cites the wooing of Lady

Anne and the feigned rejection of the crown from Buckingham as examples. By contrast,

Richard's mask of charming authority is shown to be a facade in the tent scene after

Richard's nightmare, where "the agony and terror of the guilty king are the most perfect embodiment of a being racked with the superstitious terrors that cannot but be in a man of strong animal characteristics." This duality of character is further displayed in Richard's final encounter on Bosworth Field, where in Richard's battle with Richmond, Booth displayed an animal ferocity, "and in it the mental is swallowed up and lost sight of."

.Attesting to the success of the performance, the critic reports,“ Evidently the audience was well satisfied with it last evening, for Mr. Booth was called before the curtain at the end of ever) act." The critic specifically highlights Richard's death scene, as do many other critical commentaries of the performance, in which "Mr. Booth introduces the thrilling effect which was said to be so marv elously striking in the elder Kean’s performance of the part, standing, after the sword is wrenched from him, with outstretched hand, as if still clutching it, and so towering in his terrible and impotent fury .""' The image is a telling one if one remembers published reports of John Wilkes' death scene after being removed from the burning bam, viewing his outstretched hands and commenting "useless, useless," perhaps dually referring to his paralysis and the futility of his political crime.

The writer for the New York Post concurs that the seven years since Booth's last

appearance in the part is "enough, physiologists say, to entirely change the very being of the

^‘~New York Express 2 Mav 1872.

294 man.” He observes that Booth plays the role with "a keener outline and more finished details than ever before.” and while offering that Booth plays the part with intensity and power throughout, he points to the death scene gripping in its effect, particularly “[t]he look of demoniac hatred with which Glosrer [sic] glared at Richmond [which] was a marvelously powerful effort of facial expression; and the fall of the guilty monarch was something utterly different from the death scenes usually witnessed on the stage.”"' This commentary is interesting in that it does not confine itself to the changes in Booth’s acting style alone, but goes so far as to submit that the “very being” of the actor has been transformed in the seven years since 1865.

The differences in Booth’s performance from his last appearance is noted by the critic for the New York Courier, who observes that the current portrayal has "more force, reason, breadth and virility in it. It is endowed with much more spontaneity.” One of the primary differences, serving to also differentiate it from other actors’ characterizations, is found in

Booth’s “sardonic humor and species of hilarious dare-devility which make him quite a jolly

fellow at odd times. His Richard literally smiles, and murders while he smiles with

overweening ambition as the insentive [sic].” The critic also observes that Booth’s

announcement to play the part carried with it some amount of ghosting by audience members

who had seen the elder Booth in the same part, but “excepting in the family resemblance of

face, they were disappointed.”""* The primary' difference, according to the critic, is Booth’s

avoidance of making “points.” as typified by the elder Booth and Kean. It is valid to ponder

“Booth in "Richard HI..” New York Post 2 May 1872.

"•*New York Courier 3 May 1872.

295 that if Booth reminded an audience in his facial features of his father, how much more might he have reminded them of his brother, whom he much more closely resembled.

The Sunday News attests to the evidently unprecedented nature of Booth’s portrayal

by stating it "was as unlike either the Richard of history or the traditional histrionic Richard, or any modem stage Richard to which we have been accustomed, as it is possible to

conceive." Whereas Booth's previous Richard had been "artificial, stiff, unsympathetic and

crude," and contemporaneous portrayals had been seen in the part as "mediocre ruffians,"

Booth’s present performance was "dashing, brilliant and courtlv—a polished, ambitious and

unscrupulous hypocrite, cruel, but gay and vivacious, monstrous only in figure, but in

deportment, in repartee, and in sarcasm, flashing and refined." Booth’s interpretation of the

role as a "gentlemanly conspirator" led this critic to feel that the performance was "the most

artistic and intellectual stage performance that we have seen for some time.’’“'

Writing for the New York Tribune, the critic alludes to the effect Booth’s new

interpretation had on his audience, with their empathie response not centered on the character

of Richard, but on the gullibility of his victims: "When he cozens those about him, using

them so long as he needs them and then making their heads stepping stones for his ambition,

we do not wonder at their blindness and his success, for we feel that we ourselves should

have been as easily deluded by such an arch deceiver." Using the wooing of Lady Anne as

an example, the critic states that other actors’ opaque depiction of Richard’s villainy has only

"excited our disgust and contempt" at her eventual surrender. However, with Booth’s

interpretation, "she moves our sympathy and commiseration for we are forced to concede

“^"BOOTH’S THEATRE,” New York Sunday News 3 May 1872,

296 that it was as impossible for her to escape the satanic tempter, as for the bird to elude the serpent when once fairly within the circle of its horrible fascination.” Booth's Richard wears a mask "which is framed for all occasions,” and is so successful in his relentless deceptions that his "unscrupulous intellect [...] is matched and overwhelmed by brute force." The critic feels that Booth is excellent in both scenes requiring theatrical panache and intellectual analysis, but is of the opinion that "mental display is the true province of the tragedian.

Sword play and shouting are more fitted to the circus than the stage.” The critic feels that

Booth brought the character to "a familiar but startling reality,” and the actor "was summoned at the conclusion of ever}' act before the curtain and cheered heartily for a performance which surprised and delighted his friends by its surpassing merit, and extorted from the cridcs prone to disparage his success an inevitable and overflowing tribute of praise.”""

Comparison to Junius Brutus Booth's Richard is made by the reviewer for the New

York Republican, who notes, "there is no difference between [the elder's] acting and that of

his [son] which is not in the son's favor.” The critic is careful to point out that no

disparagement is meant to the elder by commending the younger, and he remembers that

Junius Brutus "could summon the intellect and fashion, as well as the least cultivated of his

day, to crowd the 'Pard' or 'Chestnut,' or to 'jam' a third-rate place like the 'Eagle,' in Boston—

where [...] he electrified,' as we knew, its shouting and stamping pit and gallery." Edwin,

on the otiter hand, draws an audience

‘‘""Weekly Review - BOOTH'S RICHARD m ,” New York Tribune 4 March 1872.

297 which does not sit down, after the curtain falls [...] but is content to go home with its honest indignation still burning against that 'crooked tyrant' who had held them in his weird control for hours, and only relieved them by falling headlong from his bad eminence, after 'Richmond' had passed his avenging sword through and through him."

Although the critic reports that the audience called Booth out for repeated curtain calls, the effect of his performance seems to engender a more thoughtful and more lastingly critical examination of the play after its final curtain. Another critic, in an unlabeled, undated clipping found in Booth's press scrapbook, makes more specific comparison between the elder and younger Booth, finding Edwin's portrayal is "less bitter and malignant than as rendered by the elder Booth. " Edwin's Richard does not have the "sardonic mirth of the customary stage Richard." but possesses a "gay audacity of a bold spirit whose reckless

ambition is relentless and unpitying." Although the critic somewhat faulted Edwin in his

"unnecessary attempt to avoid the elder Booth's well-known points'," he found the

characterization to be "singularly fresh, vivid, and picturesque, affording quite a new study

of the character."

The critic for the Era uses the performance to remind the readership of Booth's

heritage, stating that the "character is indelibly connected with the name of Booth. In that

part his father won his earliest and most substantial triumph, contesting the ground

successfully with the elder Kean and sharing honors justly won." He does not, obviously,

mention that John Wilkes had also gained fame from his portrayal of the "family role."

Edwin is seen to be more successful in this role than in any of his others, and even his

" New York Republican, undated clipping next to a clipping dated "May 4" in Booth's press scrapbook at The Players.

298 ■'mannerisms, and he has many, are as needful a part of Richard's character as the shortened limb and humpback. His reading was excellent, free from all that forced declaration that at times crops out in his deliveries.” The mask of earnestness in the wooing scene is again mentioned, adding that it “justly called forth the most enthusiastic applause.” but it is the tent scene where the critic finds Booth's power at its zenith. Richard's nightmare was an occasion which appaiently captivated the audience, “holding them spell bound by intensity of feeling and freezing the blood with awful horror.” The critic also notes that the quality of the final combat seems to have elicited a response not dissimilar from those brought about

by the fiery histrionics associated with the heroic school: "it carrie[d] the feelings of an

audience past the bounds of mere praise into the boisterous and declamatory, and he [was]

greeted with cheers and cries of bravo.” For this critic. Booth's performance leads him to

feel that "others have been as mere copies to this portrayal of Mr. Booth's and will justly take

rank with the best of his characters.”"*'

In what seems a paradox, the critic for the Home Journal finds Booth's Richard to be

one of his most realistic creations, for in Booth's portrayal, he found "his interpretation

profoundly true or otherwise, there is a powerful personal consciousness running through the

impersonadon-which is more than art. and narrowly escapes nature, by reason of certain

lapses into pure art in passages where the actor is not fully possessed by his role." These

lapses, according to the critic, are due more to the structure and language of the text, in which

“the rhyming and somewhat buskined phraseology of the so-called legitimate drama” are at

odds with the actor's approach. The scene in which Gloucester feigns refusal of the crown.

"^“BOOTH'S THEATRE.” New York Era 6 Mav 1872.

299 in particular, "returns to nature in all its startlingly psychological breadth and variety.” The tent scene is "a piece of unexcelled psychological painting in the way of dramatic action,” and Richard's death is done is such as manner that "Mr. Booth's interpretation is quite beyond comment: while the modem stage has not witnessed a death-fall so thoroughly the counterfeit of the real, nor one, indeed, so masterly in its terrible realism of death-struggle vindictive to the last—a tiger in the throes of dissolution.”"" Most critics, however, seemed to be in agreement with writer for the Sundav News, who found it to be "a poetic and not strictly a historical Richard, and is a brilliant symmetrical individualization of the poet's conception that, more than any other of Mr. Booth's previous efforts, established his title to the possession of artistic genius of the highest order.” Similarly, most critics were in accord that it was the "most unconventional impersonation of the character known to the modem stage, and in no particular which we can detect, is an imitation of any of the distinguished artists who have preceded Mr. Booth in its portrayal."'"”

Whether it is a matter of the actor’s intention, critical perception, or both, a few noteworthy elements to ponder are elicited by the response to Booth's portrayal of Richard m. First, it was a popular success due, in part, to the role's association with the family name.

That there is no press reference to the success that John Wilkes had in the role, particularly in the estimation that John Wilkes most emulated the elder Booth in his portrayal,'"' indicates

"""BOOTH'S RICHARD m ,” Home Journal 8 May 1872.

‘~°New York Sundav News 12 May 1872.

‘■‘For critical accounts of John Wilkes Booth's portrayal of Richard lU, and especially critical comparison with Junius Brutus Booth, see Samples, Lust for Fame. particularly 76 - 83.

300 a discursive negation of his existence by linking Edwin's revival of the role only with his father's portrayal. The physical and vocal similarities between John Wilkes and Edwin were the matter of much critical commentai")' during Wilkes' career, and that similarity may not have been lost during Edwin's 1872 revival in the role, although there is not critical statement to that effect.*” Second. Edwin's portrayal was almost unanimously seen as a unique interpretation, which did not follow the model set by previous actor's incarnations of the role. What seems to have distinguished his interpretation is the transformation of

Richard from an apparently conventionally approached opaque villain to a charming, humorous “gentlemanly conspirator" who could effect his plans to usurp the throne by reading other people's personalities and “acting" the part they wanted him to fulfill. The critical commentai}' clearly infers that part of the unique success of Booth's Richard is in watching the character's chameleon-like mimetic abilities, so that part of Richard's power is derived from his ability to change. It is only when he is alone, as in the tent scene, or during his final combat with Richmond, that his true “animal" nature comes out and the several masks he has adopted throughout the evening are dropped. It is no leap of logic to see the connections made between Booth's characterization of Richard, an urbane bon vivant who is a skilled actor that uses that skill to deceive the innocent, and the popular image of

John Wilkes Booth. While it may be tangential, and certainly is requisite to the part, several

'“ During John Wilkes' performance of Richard HI in New York City in 1862. the March 18 New York Herald remarked, “the debutant last evening is almost a facsimile of Edwin, and in the first three acts of the play these brothers could no more be distinguished than the two Dromios." The March 12 Spirit of the Times comments. "In person he is very like his brother Edwin, though considerably stouter.[ ...] His voice is so much like Edwin's that it is only in its greater power a casual hearer can detect the difference.”

301 critics even comment on the pronounced limp that Booth employs in his portrayal of the

Duke of Gloucester.'- It is easy to infer the referent to John Wilkes* broken leg after leaping from Lincoln's box at Ford's Theatre in Edwin's apparent highlighting of Richard's limp.

Third, Richard's confrontation with his own guilt as personified by the spectral visitors to his nightmare in the tent, as well as the theatrically stunning evocation of "impotent fury" when he is thwarted by Richmond in the final battle and his violent death, presents an

"unmasking" of the character to reveal his primal nature, stripped of the suave urbanity which he used to lead others to his cause. Like John Wilkes, Booth's Richard meets with a brutal end which is equal to his own brutal nature. There is no poetic mitigation to

forgiveness, for Richard's cold ambition does not contain any honorable bent which led to

his regicide, as did Booth's Hamlet or Brutus. Richard is killed, as was John Wilkes, ignobly

and bestially, a deserved culmination to a character without remorse or self reflection.

The startling new interpretation which Edwin Booth seems to have achieved with his

Richard HI may well lie in his evocation of his brother in the role of the malevolent

Gloucester. By virtually playing his brother, however, Edwin successfully seizes ownership

of both the character of Richard and the memory of John Wilkes, making both of them a

fictive construct. Richard/Wilkes is not seen as a ranting bogeyman from the melodramatic

convention, nor is he a reminder of the pre-assassination acting style of the elder Booth, but

'^The May 2 New York Express comments, "his limp is exaggerated," the May 3 New York Courier reports, "Mr. Booth bears the envious hunch with a gait which denotes one leg longer than the other, as alluded to in the text, and never forgets to give this peculiarity a special prominence," the May 8 Home Journal observes, "[he] takes the stoop and limp of the part as if they were a portion of the actor, not of the thing acted," and the May 30 Cosmopolitan states, "His make-up and limp of gait were something which I had never witnessed in any of the tragedians whom I had seen in London."

302 is a credible personation of corruption in whom art equals deceit. The fact that Edwin portrays the character in such a satisfying, if disturbing, manner points to his own art as one that conquers the deceptive art employed by the character, thus redeeming himself and his audiences by this instructional morality play.

This was the last season in w hich Booth exercised full artistic and managerial control

over his theatre. In the 1872-73 season, his contributions were confined to a three week

revival of Richard m followed by a two week engagement in John Howard Payne's Brutus.

.Although net profits for the theatre declined from $102,000 in the first season, to 385,000

in the second, and 370.000 in the third, they were still substantial.'"' However, almost all of

the profit went back into the amortization of the mortgages on the building. Booth began

touring in order to try to add to his resources, and in January of 1873 he persuaded his

brother Junius to take up management of the theatre, with a contractual arrangement to pay

an annual rent of 373,000 to Edwin over the next five years. Unfortunately, the “great panic"

of 1873 caused widespread unemployment and bankruptcies, precipitating decreased theatre

attendance, and by the end of 1873 the theatre posted losses of 340,000. Booth could clearly

see that the end of his theatre was near, as he wrote to William W inter in December of 1873,

I had a hope - a foolish delusive dream - that in a few more years I would be free of debt, when I wd. be able to place my family and a few good fnends of mine out of reach of pecuniary cares, and establish a sort of ‘Charitable Institution’ in connection with the Theatre; I had a glorious project - one that wd. do more real good than any I've ever heard of - and it only seemed five years ahead of me, but it's gone up now & after all these years of hard work -

'■■‘Figures taken from Booth's Theatre account books at The Players.

303 and enormous gains (none of which did I enjoy - for every dollar was sunk in the theatre) I came out - figuratively - "all tattered & tom.”‘~

Booth's Theatre had been secured by several short-term mortgages, and Booth's creditors refused to renew the loans which had sustained its operation. On the advice of his attorney.

Booth conveyed the entire property to Clarke Bell "for no consideration, being led to believe that it would be protected and carried until a favorable

Booth's Theatre was assigned to Henry C. Jarrett and Henry D. Palmer. Booth's Theatre continued operation until 1882. although Booth unsuccessfully attempted to have the name of “Booth” removed from the theatre in a lawsuit considered in November. 1876.'-

If. as Shattuck maintains, the theatre manager's "first responsibility is to keep the enterprise going-to maintain the financial solvency which makes the honoring possible.”'-''

Booth was clearly a failure. However, the 1871-72 season at Booth's Theatre provides several examples of what his shift in theatrical style represented to American culture.

'-'Letter from Edwin Booth to William Winter. 14 December 1873. in Watermeier Between Actor and Critic 43-44.

'■* Letter from James H. MeVicker to William Winter, quoted in Winter Life and Art 77.

'- Court of Common Pleas, in and for the City and County of New York, Edwin Booth, against Henrv C. Jarre tt and Henrv D. Palmer. Statement and Points for Defendants (New York: Douglas Taylor. Law Book and Job EYinter, 1877).

'■"Charles Shattuck, “The Theatrical Management of Edwin Booth,” The Theatrical Manager in England and America: Players of a Perilous Game, ed. Joseph W. Donohue, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton UP) 185.

304 Booth's Theatre was one of the first examples of the shift in American thinking to sacrilize theatre, and Shakespeare in particular, within a discrete setting devoted to its preservation. Levine remarks that it was increasingly felt "necessaiy to confine Shakespeare to certain theaters catering to a discreet clientele because he was simply too complex for untrained minds."'-'' although the distinct bifurcation of audiences would not occur until later in the century, and Shakespeare, like opera "was an art form that was simultaneously popular and elite.""" More important than its distinctiveness as a burgeoning social segregate is

B ooth's Theatre's standing as a tangible representation for the perceived aesthetic and moral imperatives of Edwin Booth. This theatre's function was more efficacious as a space sacrilized by and for its high priest to preserve the artistic/moral (which are increasingly seen as interchangeable) integrity of .American theatre against the encroaching threat of unwarranted scenic spectacle, tawdry displays of underclad chorines, and low-minded subject matter. Booth and his theatre appear to have been regarded as essentially the same entity, with the physical space endowed with the noblesse oblige of its founder.

The critical debates over the nature of entertainments staged and the demographics of the audience attending indicate an underlying assumption that the performance space itself is subject to degradation as much as its owner, endowing and personifying the space with the

same perceived standards as Booth himself. WTiat is clearly demonstrated in the debates,

however, is that Booth's Theatre attracted a diverse audience, much to the dismay of critics

who would prefer it to be kept as a preserve for the cultural/intellectual vanguard. Objection

‘-‘'Levine, Hi shbrow/Lowbrow 71.

‘^"Levine 86.

305 can be seen to the audiences attracted to Lotta's performances as well as praise given for the mixed classes attending Julius Caesar. Whether the diversity of audiences are garnered by the lavish spectacle or the season’s material. Booth is manifestly regarded as a teacher to both audiences and theatrical practitioners, with his influence seen as reaching from legendary head liners such as Chai lotte Cushman to the most menial usher in his theatre to as divers a spectrum in his audiences. Additionally, he and his theatre were endowed with transformative powers that effected his performers and his audiences. Established, although outdated stars such as Cushman were seen to be given salience as well as beginning actors such as Barrett substantiated by appearing in his theatre. Likewise, audiences were seen to be subject to the transformative influences of Booth’s performances, with his educational and moral mandates clearly defined as inherent to Booth’s position as the nation’s moral/aesthetic conscience. The presumption seemed to be that, whether actor, staff, or audience member, contact with Booth and his theatre effected change upon the individual for good.

Part of the transformative process seems to be based in the opaquely metatheatrical nature of his performances and productions. The design and decor of the theatre itself serves as an adjunct to Booth’s performances to remind the audience of past generations of actors, implicating a nearly Darwinian progression to Booth as the zenith of histrionic art.

According to Winter, the grand staircase from the lobby to the balconies displayed "Gould's noble bust of the elder Booth." and once in the theatre the audience were presented with more symbolic iconography;

306 In the center of the proscenium arch stood a statue of Shakespeare, the work of Signor G. Turini, an Italian artist, representing the poet meditating and in act to write. Other statues and emblematic devices surrounded that figure, and completed the decoration of the arch. [...] Sitting in the amphitheatre the spectator could contemplate, upon the wall above the proscenium arch, portrait busts of Garrick. Talma, Edmund Kean, George Frederick Cooke, and Betterton. Those were in white ovals, relieved against a dark background. Overhead, in an ascending perspective, was an elaborate painting of Apollo, the Muses and the Graces. On the walls immediately beneath the ceiling were painted various symbolic figures and devices. One panel represented Venus in her chariot. Another depicted the march of Cupid. On the right were figures of Lear and Hamlet; on the left, figures of Othello and Macbeth: while above the proscenium arch, and under the statue of Shakespeare, was painted the Shakespeare coat-of-arms. Those decorations, following the style of Raphael, were planned and furnished by Signor G. G. Gariboldi; the paintings were chiefly from the hand of Signor C.^Brumidi.'-'

The iconic significations represented in the decor of the Booth's Theatre would have served

to establish a link to past generations of actors, as well as remind the audience, in the case

of Shakespeare contemplating the act of writing. Booth's authorial position as co-creator of

the productions. Marvin Carlson argues, “For much of the history of the theatre [...] interior

decoration has been one of the building's richest sources of signification." Even though

contemporary post-structuralist architectural theorists have posited that the primary locus of

theatrical signification occurs between the performers and the audience, Carlson points out

that the theatre has "rarely if ever been solely a space for the confrontation of audience and

performance. It has almost always served a great variety of other social and cultural

functions, all of which have added to the complexity of botli its external and its internal

‘^‘Winter Life and Art 49-50.

307 signifying systems."' ’■ The allegorical subject matter in the decor ofBooth's Theatre evokes the Baroque ideal that '“the theatre should be an important source of moral and intellectual instruction."'’' contextualizing Booth and his productions within an efficacious frame.

Additionally, the pictorial representations and elaborate embellishments within the theatre function as "reflexive iconicity." which serves to "foreground the awareness that we are in fact in a theatre, and in such situations traditional auditorium decor, far from distracting from the performance, provides an essential semiotic support for it."' It would seem that Booth’s choices for the interior design of his theatre thus supported and enhanced the metatheatrical experience of his productions, reminding audiences that they were engaged in watching a

fictive, opaquely artistic, event.

The seating arrangements in Booth’s Theatre reflected a shift from the shared space

between audience and performer, and consequently between audience and audience, common

in theatre prior to the Civil War to one which individuated each audience member and

generated a more personal and privately reflective experience between audience and

performer. Upon entering the performance space from the lobby. Booth's audience found

themselves ushered into individual seats with dividing armrests''^ facing an enormous

proscenium arch in which hung the grand drape. As Keir Elam has noted, even though an

'^'Marvin Carlson. Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture (Ithaca: Cornell UP. 1992) 163.

'"C arlson 182.

'"Carlson 199-200.

'■'■Honaker 106.

308 audience may surrender some sense of its individuality in the gathering places of the theatre's

foyer, this fixed-seating arrangement encourages an environment in which each audience

member "has his own well-marked private space, individual seat, and relative immunity from

physical contact with his fellows (and even from seeing them). The result is to emphasize

personal rather than social perception and response.”’ Each audience member begins to

occupy its own space in which it privately communes with Booth's semiotic decor, and is

reminded by both the curtain and the proscenium arch of the theatrical frame in which the

production is to be conte.xtualized.’’ While the closed curtain "function[s] to provoke the

audience into speculation about the kind of set that will be revealed for the play they are

about to watch,""'’ thus facilitating critical response even before the production has begun,

it also functions as a signifier that the production is an intentionally fictive and aesthetic

event operating within a metaphoric and s\Tnbolic structure beyond the confines of real life

experience.

Booth's innovation in dimming the house to blackness prior to the raising of the

curtain denoted a marked shift in the relationship of the audience to itself and to the

performance. Rather than engaging in a theatrical experience which was. as Carlson and

McConachie have argued,"'* as much if not more about being a part of an group as it was

"^Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama ( London: Methuen Press. 1980) 64-5.

" Susan Bennett, Theatre Audiences: Theory of Production and Reception (New York: Routledge. 1990) 143.

" ’’Bennett 143.

‘•’Carlson 150-56, McConachie 244.

309 about watching a performance, the ability to control the lighting to a subdued level in the house, as Bennett observ es, reminds an audience "of its purpose in being at the theatre. The subdued lights encourage a subdued atmosphere in the auditorium at large, and prepare the audience for interpretive activity.” Additionally, the moment the houselights are extinguished "becomes a significant instruction to the audience as well as a means to heighten anticipation quickly and effectively.”'""' As McConachie obser\'es, "Booth's 1869 theatre, the first to install wiring which provided an electric spark to relight the gas, became the first to allow the audience complete privacy during the show.”'"*' WTiile McConachie interprets this as an attempt by theatre managers to "save an increasingly anonymous audience from the awkwardness of social interaction,” it may also be interpreted as a means to enhance the spiritual/educational experience that Booth was striving to elicit with his theatre. Evidence and commentary suggests that entering Booth's Theatre was seen as entering a "sacred space,” and the architectural, decorative, and atmospheric choices Booth

oversaw very likely contributed strongly to the transcendent effect of his productions.

As has been previously noted in this chapter, innovations in stage machinery

introduced in Booth's Theatre allowed scenic shifts to be done in full view of the audience,

with flats, platforms, and tightly stretched and framed drops capable of appearing and

disappearing simultaneously from the wings, flies, and cellars, apparently unaided by

'Bennett 144.

‘■‘'McConachie 246.

310 backstage hands.Booth's revolutionary departure from scenic convention (flats being pushed or rolled on stage by stagehands utilizing a wing and groove system or drops being

lowered in order to mask the scene changes) could not fail to have drawn attention to

themselves as overt signifiers that the performance was partly a celebration of theatricality

itself, and serv ed as a referent to Booth as the provider of that innovation. With what seems

to have been a stunning scenic effect executed in seemingly effortless silence."^ the audience

would have been likely to have not seen the stage as a "macrocosm," decoding all its

elements as more or less equal importance in order to formulate a synthesis of the real. The

innovative self-consciousness of the scene shifts would have logically flouted the audiences'

instinct to "assume" the scenery by being "drawn back into the spectator's focus (as in the

case of a set change)."''^ Additionally, the antiquarianism represented by the historically

detailed sets would serve to enhance the jarring effect in seeing them assemble and

disassemble through the use of the invisible stage machinery. Lastly, as if to support the

metaphoric nature of the productions and reinforce their referent power beyond the confines

of the physical theatre, the "scenes at Booth's Theatre are so set that the eye wanders off into

suggestions of space; if it is a forest, a tangling of boughs blend above, and at either side the

wooded depths seem to recede away." so that the fictive world seems to extend beyond the

boundaries of physical limitations, "letting them lead off into undefined limits, the

‘^‘Loren Hufstetler. "A Physical Description of Booth's Theatre. New York, 1869 - 1883." Theatre Design and Technology (Winter. 1975) 12.

‘~*^Booth's Theatre - Behind the Scenes (New York: Henry L. Hinton, 1870) 6.

‘■^Bennett 150.

311 imagination immediately supplying] space and extent.”''*'' This scenic conceit supports

Booth's seeming desire to extend the relevance and referents of the fictive world beyond the confines of plot and character.

It may be said of Booth's penultimate season as manager and star of his theatre that, coincidentally or not. it served as an extended meditation on the motivations and consequences of political assassination. The four Shakespearean revivals in which he appeared. Macbeth. Hamlet. Julius Caesar, and Richard IE. all encompass the act or the contemplation of regicide as the driving impetus for the central characters.'^'’ Each of

Booth's portrayals of the assassins were consistently seen as departures from traditional convention. His Macbeth appeared as a man that was neither a coward nor a bully who was acted upon and influenced by outside agents and pulled into a murderous act by those who fed his ambition. His Hamlet was a highly poetic and metaphoric representation which did not elicit an empathie response from the audience but engendered a distanced, critical stance in them to evaluate the internal logic of jarringly juxtaposed, dreamlike scenes. Booth's

Brutus was presented as a very humant e) reasonable man led to unreasonable behavior prompted by the perception of Caesar's unmitigated ambition, for which his Cassius and

‘^’’Booth's Theatre. Behind the Scenes 9.

‘■‘'These were not the only productions offered that season at Booth's "Theatre, however they were considered the primary attractions of the season, based, in large part, on Booth's appearing in them. According to records at The Players, other productions of the season, none of which lasted for a run of more than two weeks, were Little Nell and the Marchioness. Family Jars. The Pet of Petticoats. The Little Detective. Queen Katherine. Meg Merrilies. Caleb Plumer. Vicdms. Solon Shingle. The Fool's Revenge (starring Booth), The Hunchback. Plot and Passion. The Rough Diamond. A Sheep in W olf s Clothing. The Honeymoon. The Iron Chest (starring Booth), Katherine and Petruchio. and Enoch Arden.

312 Antony provided a dialectic argument in Shakespeare’s thesis on assassination. Finally, his

Richard HI was an adept actor and charming manipulator which shifted the audience’s empathie response to those who fell prey to his machinations. Critical commentary indicates that Booth did not engender a response which sought to make the audience identify with his characters as much as consider what they emblematically represented, demonstrating a nearly

.Aristotelean concept of "character” as a tangible representative of "thought” (argument) as a means to sustain and propel plot.

The means by which Booth generated such didactic efficacy in his performances seem to be based in his rejection of a realistic approach in characterization which relies on

soliciting audience identification and empathy grounded on recognizably familiar naturalistic

behavior, and an intentional semiotic code system which blended public perception of

Booth’s own personality and family history with the fictive constructs of Shakespeare’s

characters. A common element to both of these foundations is Booth’s foregrounded

presence as actor/author(ity)in the mise-en-scene, the text, and the creation of character.

Booth's presence in the mise-en-scene (this includes Booth’s Theatre as a semiotic referent

to his theatrical heritage and design and function of the scenery as a self conscious

metatheatrical display) has been previously discussed. Booth’s presence in the text is best

exemplified by the consistent comment of his overt treatment of the text as "poetry” rather

than "dialogue,” with his co-creator status with the playwright supported by references to the

actor as "poet.” By drawing attention to the text as an artistic construction, manipulated by

an actor rather than spoken by a character. Booth places himself outside the fictive frame of

the virtual world of the play and refocuses the communicative process to one of direct

313 conveyance between actor and audience. Aston and Savona explore this shift in direction by explaining that overtly poetic dialogue creates a frame "in which it is supposed that the reader/spectator is the primary listener as opposed to another character.” With this direct communication between Booth and his audience established, the didactic nature of the

process follows close at hand, since “the dominance of the linguistic sign-system therefore

ensures the reader/spectator’s focus on what is said, and on the philosophical ‘truths'

embodied by the dialogue.”'"*

The philosophical "truths” of this season’s productions, filtered through Booth's

choices and characterizations, seem to center on the humanization of the character of the

assassin rather than reducing it to a comprehendible and ultimately dismissible "mad act.”

Macbeth. Hamlet, and Brutus are presented as noble characters who are either misled by their

associations or misguided in their efforts to rectify wrong by violence. Each of them evince

remorse or guilt for their actions and each are met with a violent end. While Booth does not

ennoble Cassius and Richard, they are presented as intelligent, rational figures with engaging

personalities who have allowed personal ambition to supercede moral imperative. Both die

ignobly and bereft of comrades. Booth does not act as apologist for either assassination or

assassin, but neither does he bracket the act or agents in terms which could not resonate as

possible to the observer. Perhaps most tellingly, while he offers avenues of audience

understanding for the action, his distinct refusal to elicit an empathie response from the

audience indicates that neither is he inviting pity from them for his characters. They are

‘■*'Elaine Aston and George Savona. Theater as Sign System: A Semiotics of Text and Performance (New York: Routledge, 1991 ) 59.

314 neither demons nor tragic heroes, but object lessons for an audience to understand that every one, even the rational patriot, is potentially subject to the possibility of committing the unthinkable.

Booth's presence in characterization is explicable, in part, in the underKdng assumption that the actor is always present with the character, acting, as Jean Alter states, in "their dual role as signs and producers of signs." in which the actor iconically "stand[s] on the stage for their mirror image in the story world."Following Alter's formula, the actor exists as a referent to the ideal character created by the playwright, and together (the actor and ideal character) combine to produce the unseen character in the "story world”

which is both/neither actor and character and is co-created with the audience. Beyond this conventional decoding process, however, other factors may influence the perception of the

actor/character relationship which can disrupt the expected mimetic contract. Two factors

particular to Booth which warrant exploration are his opaque theatricality and his celebrity

status.

Alter suggests that the stage experience is always balanced in a tension between

performance and referentiality. Typically, Alter argues,

an audience's involvement in a theatre story depends largely on the story’s content, appealing or not to individual spectators. But it also depends on the telling of the story, that is. on its staging. A successful staging ensures that spectators, whether they like or do not like the story, will visualize it mentally with clarity and intensity. And when spectators follow well the events of a

'^Jean Alter. A Socio-Semiodc Theory of Theatre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990)262.

315 stor\". their interest in its content remains sustained even when they are indifferent to problems it raises or when they react to them with outrage.'^''

For the most part. Alter continues, the clear telling of the story is accomplished by an audience’s awareness of a performative norm, which is directly tied to referentiality, in that the adequate actor successfully evokes a "convincing imaginary world." Conversely, extraordinary acting is principally recognized as e.xceptional achievement in that it "always breaks loose both from the competence norm and its ties to referentiality. Indeed, a performance's gaping superiority must be demonstrated in the proper domain of staging signs, that is, techniques and styles." In other words, while a competent performance depends on the success of referentiality, “petfonnance constitutes the only pure manifestation of the performant function operating on its own sake."'^" An audience's ability to recognize the exceptional is built on a principle of "transformation" from an expected norm (either in standard expectations of contemporaneous actors or from knowledge of the actor’s previous work) to a level of perfonnance which, although they "draw attention from the story space to the stage space, and break the spell of referentiality, ultimately they ser\’e both the performant and the referential function that always converge in theatre,"'^'

The oscillating pull toward character and actor can be seen in critical commentary on

Booth’s performances when critics confuse a character’s attributes with Booth’s, and in some

instances assign motivational or moral imperatives to both Booth and his character

'"’Alter 64-5,

Alter 66,

'^',41ter71.

316 interchangeably. The real and the virtual world strive to be the predominant frame, jarring an audience's contextual references from the fictive to the real, the past to the present, in a cyclical de/resemiotization of the stage. Booth's new metatheatrical technique, in that it unapologetically drew attention to and made visible the process of acting, offered contradictory information to audiences which. Alter posits, would enhance their realization of the "ambiguous nature of all signifiers."'^' Shuttling between the perception of the actor as individual and the actor as a sign of the ideal character,

the spectator learns that anything can be turned into a signifier whenever a new meaning, defined s the signified, is attached to it by an appropriate convention or code; that many signs borrow their signifiers from the existing reality; that any convention, including the theatrical contract, can thus generate new signs, and hence new referents, where not familiar signs were initially perceived; but also that conventions can be discarded, by individual decision, and that signifiers then revert to their former function as parts of reality. The experience of a cultural performance, in that circuitous way, better prepares the spectator to understand all se mi otic operations, to manipulate signs by semiotizing, desemiotizing. and resemiotizing features of reality, to deconstruct theatrical signifiers, and perhaps thus fuller to appreciate not only the performant function of theatre but also its referential function.

If this argument is correct, it is clear that critics were not merely engaging in Victorian

hyperbole by stating that Booth’s performances served to educate audiences in both moral

matters and theatrical erudition. Additionally, Alter would seem to agree with many critics

that Booth's performance style was effecting a reclamation of theatre from the frame of the

purely spectacular, as exemplified by Niblo's production of The Black Crook, in that the

"shuttling between the stage space and the story space is regulated by our overall interest in

‘^-Alters I.

'"Alter 82.

317 theatre, projected on both spaces.'"'''' Alter further explains the perception of an actor's

"extraordinary mastery of style and technique” is transformed into an exceptionally powerful communication of an imaginary referent, which may explain the repeated commentary of

Booth's conception of the "ideal." .Alter explains that an audience's perception of an actor's extraordinary style may. in fact, banish concrete notions of the fictive character since the actor's performance has acted as a self referent which is not linked to our visualization of a specific fictive referent. The consequence is that the dciof s peiformance is then linked "to our almost abstract concept of an ideal referent, a class of possible referents; the class of a

special type of [emotion], or the class of a special image of Hamlet."''" In this light, it is

easier to understand how Booth may have effected the transcendent quality of his

performances that are the object of critical commentary, in that the perception of his new and

extraordinary style facilitates an audience's deeper understanding and "fuller appreciation

of theatre's semiosis. that is. its referential function." while being moved by a theatrical

performance, audiences "obtain a more vivid mirror image of the referential world, each

feature concretized in meaningful detail."'^'’ By this definition, witnesses to Booth's

performances may have better understood both the purpose and the effect of theatre.

The effect of Booth's celebrity as theatrical star, as scion of a legendary theatrical

house, and as brother to the most reviled criminal in American history also impacted

perception of his performances to mitigate the distinction between the real and the fictive

'^Alter 82.

Alter 82.

'-"Alter 85-6.

318 worlds with resonances for his audiences. As has been previously discussed in this chapter,

Carlson's "ghosting” effect is based on an audience's awareness of an actor's past performances as well as his real life experiences off stage. As Oggel asserts, public awareness of Booth's life is reflected and reinforced by the extraordinary' coverage he had in the public press:

With the exception of his acquaintance Mark Twain, Edwin Booth was far and away the artist best known by the American public during the last half of the nineteenth century. Though he shunned public attention, as Twain most definitely did not. Booth's comings and goings were reported by the daily press nearly as consistently as his performances were reviewed by them.*'

It is not surprising, then, that Booth's life and Booth's performances might have been obfuscated in the public mind. Consequently, as Bennett obser\es. an actor's public persona affects an audience's horizon of expectations, so that in performance "the audience is inevitably aware of a double presence[.. .]and it is generally the case, to a greater or lesser degree, that the audience is reading the actors' performance alongside the work being performed.”'’''* Additionally. Bennett posits that the immediacy of the actor and the ever­ present possibility of mistakes and variance makes tlie actor "always less likely to be subsumed by the character portrayed."'-’ For Alter, the existence of the duality of actor and character does not necessarily lead to a close integration, and at times, "the referential and performant functions always potentially compete for the attention of both spectators and

'^'L. Terry Oggel, Edwin Booth: A Bio-Bibliographv (Westport: Greenwood Press. 1992) 247.

'•’’"Bennett 162.

'^’Bennett 163.

319 performers.”'^ In the worst of cases, the intrusion of celebrity "floods the memory with all sorts of information about life in the real world," disrupting the oscillation cycle between the stage and the story world wherein the spectator abandons the intangible fictive space for the more easily accessed real space so that "[e]ven the stage loses its appeal as a specifically theatrical space that displays properly theatrical achievements.”"'' Unlike contemporary media, however, which facilitates the perception of intimate knowledge of celebrities, the limitations of nineteenth century press coverage succeeded in fostering Booth's ubiquitous presence without necessarily fostering a sense of familiarity. Indeed, his reclusive nature was part of what constituted his public perception, adding to the perceived tragic and mystic mythos of his public persona. Given this configuration, it is not difficult to conceive that

Booth's real life did not supercede his stage life in weighting the dual presence totally away from the virtual world, but supported, as Alter suggests, that in the commercial theatre of the nineteenth centuiy "from the greatest actors, reputed playwrights, or even notoriously provocative directors, the audiences also expected properly theatrical performances. combining acting or directing talent with personal seduction or an intangible charisma.”"’"

It is evident that neither Booth nor his characters were subsumed by the other stage presence, but coexisted simultaneously to create what appears to have been a distanced, intellectual, and critical reading of his performances.

'“ Alter 61.

""Alter 79.

""-Alter 75.

320 The construction and impact of the m\dtology of Edwin Booth on his acting will be discussed in detail in the concluding chapter, however it is worth noting here that the public perception of Booth as a conspicuously moral, private, and patriotic man haunted by recurrent tragedies influence the decoding of his characters, particularly seen in Hamlet and

Brutus. In some cases, ciitical commentary makes it difficult to ascertain whether attributes and motivations are intended to belong to Booth or to the character. However, it is also clear that his performances are not framed in a conventionally realist mode wherein the actor is seen to transform into or "becomes” the character given the opacity of Booth's artistic process. It is. in part at least, the audiences' perception of Booth as the preeminent actor of his period, and the guiding artistic/moral impetus of his theatre, which facilitates this dual existence as sign and signifier, creator and creation, occupying the same stage space. Public pronouncements of gratitude for Booth's effort to “sa\ e" American theatre (and by inference,

-American ethos) were so frequent that it is not difficult to imagine an audience endow ing his performances with a moral imperative which they could tangibly witness in his artistic creations. Booth the Artist was inextricably linked with Booth the Redeemer on stage, with the knowledge of his personal tragedies informing the actions of his characters.

It is also plausible that public knowledge of Booth facilitated his creation, either by

inference or impersonation, of a third presence on stage, a virtual creation of John Wilkes

Booth. Edwin Booth's evocation of his brother can be seen to have been actuated in at least

three ways. First, and most rudimentarily, is public knowledge of the family association and

physical resemblance. It is inconceivable to posit that Booth's audiences were likely to

construct an image of Edwin Booth without defining him, in some proportion, as the brother

321 of Lincoln's assassin. Although media references were rare, doubtless due to rules governing decorous public civil discourse, the aggressive exclusion of Wilkes* mention in connection to Edwin implies a palpable absent cause. The very- name of Booth had assumed the symbol for national outrage and depravity. Further, given the close physical resemblance between the two brothers, it is undeniably logical to assume that of all of Booth's “ghosts" that might inform his performances, the ghost of John Wilkes was the most immediate. Second, his choice of Shakespearean productions to revive in the 1871-72 season, all centering as they did around political assassination land with Julius Caesar and Richard III having direct performance links to Wilkes), would strongly evoke his brother’s presence. Even though, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, the New York Season was the only newspaper to explicitly mention the connection. Booth's decision to stage four plays focused on regicide could not have failed to engender the cognitive connection. Third, critical commentary suggests that Edwin Bootli's portrayals of Macbeth, Cassius, and Richard EQ were based in part on the personality and/or physicality of John Wilkes Booth. Working under this conjecture, Edwin Booth would have virtually incarnated the presence of his brother playing

these parts, allowing an audience to metaphorically witness John W ilkes' crime from seven

years' previous in the immediate present.

The efficacy of these extraordinary evocations is most closely connected to an

Aristotelean notion of purgation through witness and confrontation. As the psychological

implications behind the Catholic ritual of exorcism suggests, in order for the demon to be

controlled and eventually nullified, it must first be induced to appear and identified. To

continue the analogy, the “demonic" presence of John Wilkes Booth was evoked, with its

322 horrifie and painful connotations in the public memory intact, in order to be subsumed within the artistic/moral control of Edwin Booth. Booth did not attempt to lessen or justify the act of assassination in his productions, nor did he turn the portrayals of the assassins into stock

monsters, but presented them as fully human, powerful, and eminently recognizable creations

which were all the more horrifying for their possibility. As stated in standard

psychotherapeutic methodology, and implied in Aristotle's notion of purgation, the fearful

must be confronted in order for it to be recognized and the healing process begun. John

Wilkes Booth was the here noir in the American psyche, the apotheosis of the breaking of

the American democratic contract and the reminder of the fragility of a governmental system

which was less than a century in practice. It is conceivable that Edwin Booth confronted his

American audiences with the worst of their fears, and presented them with the opportunity

to encounter those fears critically and rationally.

The process of this encounter was facilitated by the safety of Booth's overtly aesthetic

approach. The theatrical frame was firmly in place, concretized by constant reminders in

architecture, scenic design. Booth's reputation, and primarily his insistence in displaying the

machinations of his own creative process. As Aristotle demonstrates with his example of

how spectators can derive pleasure from recognizing aesthetic process even if the subject is

fearful to witness. Booth provided a distancing mechanism whereby his audiences could

safely and critically participate in Shakespeare's meditations on assassination. It seems

evident that emotional response was actively discouraged in order to elicit a cooly rational

investigation of the motivations and consequences, decidedly deviating from critical

expectations of empathie identification and visceral response. By forcing his audiences to

323 think rather than feel. Booth the Redeemer was able to mitigate the threat caused by Booth the Assassin through the conveyance of metatheatrical distancing.

324 CHAPTER 5

After the financial Jisastor of Booth's Theatre and his subsequent bankruptcy, Edwin

Booth worked arduously, primarily through extensive touring, to recoup his financial losses and unequivocally establish himself as America's preeminent actor. For the remainder of the

1870s, Booth traveled to nearly every sector of the United States, taking engagements in limited tours and bookings in major theatres. In 1880, Booth returned to England to a much warmer critical reception than he met on his first trip, performing his usual repertory of popular roles such as Hamlet and Richelieu, and contracting with Henry Ir\ ing to alternate the roles of Othello and lago with Ellen Terry playing Desdemona. Returning to New York in June of that year. Booth found that his professional reputation had been augmented by his successes with Irving, while his personal life once again became the object of scandalous press due to the insanity, institutionalization and death of his second wife Mary McVicker on November 13, 1880. In the summer of 1881, he returned to England for a provincial tour, then proceeded to a tour of Germany (to which he returned in 1883). where he met with overwhelming success. In a letter to his friend David C. Anderson, Booth writes from

Hamburg, “My success is, if possible, increased here; the people (and, I am told, the press) seem wild over me. The stage-director, your very counterpart [.. .]who was pupil to Ludwig

Devrient (Germany's greatest tragedian), hugs me, kisses my hand, and calls me 'M eister.'

325 The manager, who saw and well remembers Talm a, does the same, and both declare me their equal. Much for two old fogies to admit. The actors and actresses weep and kiss galore also, and the audience last night formed a passage from the lobby to my carriage till I was in and off.” ' He was presented with gold and silver laurel wreaths in Berlin. Hamburg. Leipzig, and

Vienna where the members of the company begged him to remain and the managers implored him to return. He was sent invitations to tour in Russia. Italy. France, and Spain, but returned to the United States due to exhaustion." After a short rest. Booth resumed his extensive touring schedule from 1883 through 1885. In 1886. Booth was approached by

Lawrence Barrett with a proposition to mount a self contained tour of Booth’s most popular repertory, which continued to enormous financial success until Barrett’s death in 1891.’ It was from the frequent and exhausting touring of the Booth/Barrett tours that much of the

mythology supporting Edwin Booth as a national icon was firmly established. Lockridge comments that it is difficult to imagine “that any star of the stage could create a furor by his

mere passing: that the country people would flock to the rail lines merely that they might see

flit past the train which carried Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett. It is almost impossible

to understand that then, when they stopped in some city like Des Moines, theater-lovers came

‘Edwin Booth, letter to David C. Anderson. 18 February, 1883. in Edwina Booth Grossman. Edwin Booth: Recollections bv his Daughter (New York: The Century Co., 1902) 242-43.

"Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Plavers: Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1953)304-06.'’"

^Details of the Booth/Barrett tours are covered in John Chase Soliday, “The ‘Joint Star’ Tours of Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett,” diss.. U of Minnesota, 1975 and Katherine Goodale, Behind the Scenes with Edwin Booth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1931).

326 in from ail the rural communities about and crowded the hotels and paid willingly if not with enthusiasm, the high prices asked - five dollars for the orchestra seats, generally, and other prices proportionate."^ In its obituary article, the New York Morning Advertiser reports that

Booth's tour of the southern states "was by long odds the most brilliant tour the actor ever played in this or perhaps any other country. Not a box office was opened during this uip, all seats from pit to gallery being sold out weeks in advance. [...] women so thronged the hotels in which Mr. Booth stopped that it was almost impossible for one to move about."’ After

Barrett was taken ill. Booth toured with Helena Modjeska. still under Barrett's management, to great acclaim, and made his final appearance playing Hamlet at the age of 57, at the

Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 4.1891, Thereafter, Booth retired to his rooms at The

Players, which he had established in 1888. and after living in increasing seclusion among his fellow club members, died in the early morning of Tuesday, June 7, 1893 at the age of 59.

Critical commentary suggests that Booth did not undergo significant changes in his acting style from that which he established during his appearances at Booth's Theatre from

1869 to 1873. Charles Shattuck comments on the remarkable similarities in the responses to Booth's Hamlet by Charles Clarke, writing in 1870 after viewing repeated performances by Booth in his mid thirties, and Hamlin Garland, writing in 1885 after viewing repeated performances by Booth in his fifties. For Clarke, Shattuck observes. Booth's performance

"worked as probably Aristotle's remark about catharsis meant it should work; it released new

■‘Richard Lockridge, Darling of Misfortune, Edwin Booth: 1833 - 1893 ( 1932; New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1971) 301.

""Edwin Booth is No More," New York Morning Advertiser 7 June 1893, in "Tributes of the Press to Edwin Booth, 1893" scrapbook. The Players.

327 energies in him, awakened his powers of perception. The experience was exhilarating, and literally[. . .]health-giving.”'’ Toward the end of Clarke's detailed account of Booth's performance, he comments on "all that Booth has done to drill my mind, and put an edge upon my sensibility; and instruct my emotions, and inform my imagination," which, when he thinks of the effect Booth's performances has had on him, Clarke's first impulse is to

"arise and reach up my arms and cry with vague longing and admiration and humility. Oh

Booth! Booth! as if his identity and power were somewhere just overhead and I was looking up toward them as to some source of mental health and light." Closing his account of

Booth's performances, Clarke summarizes with a general definition of Booth's stylistic approach to the role:

Booth's Hamlet is not natural. Shakespeare's Hamlet is not natural. Shakespeare's Hamlet is full of art, full of rhetoric, full of versification. Booth's Hamlet is full of art. full of mechanical rhetoric, full of that poetry of way and method which in the actor is akin to the versification of the poet. Both are ideal - too ideal for life. Yet both are full of human nature.

It is unsafe and false to play H am let practically. I did not like Fechter, because he played it in a realistic way. No piece that is written in poetry can be played prosaically. It must be expressed in a higher form than the literal and commonplace expression of matter of fact. It represents possibility - not reality. It appeal to one's sense of what might be - it does not represent actual occurrence.

Booth's Hamlet is poetical; essentially lifelike, but life elaborated and thrown into rhythmical shape.**

"Charles H. Shattuck, The Hamlet of Edwin Booth (Urbana; U of Illinois P, 1969) 97.

Quoted in Shattuck 97.

^Quoted in Shattuck 97-98.

328 In explaining Clarke's description of Booth's Hamlet as "a man of first-class intellect and second-class will." Shattuck states that this indicates a Hamlet who is “capable of innumerable .mall determinations," such as confronting the ghost, ridiculing Polonius. or even impulsively thrusting his sword behind a curtain into a spy. However, when presented with the great challenges of the play, such as killing the king, almost by accident and without thinking, Hamlet "staggers from the throne irresolute and bewildered.'"^ For Clarke, Booth's

Hamlet was a poetic representation of human will unfit for the task that human intellect could recognize as its moral imperative.

After the passing of nearly fifteen years, Hamlin Garland would echo Clarke's

description of the seemingly transcendent nature of Booth's performances. Having wimessed

as many of Booth's appearances at the Boston Museum theatre as he could afford. Garland

commented.

What an education that was! With reckless disregard of the expenditure I paid my thirty-five cents and stood night after night in the semi-dark of my position taking no account o f aching limbs. I was only a brain. M y mind was at once a photographic plate and a phonographic film. Nothing escaped me. The grace, the majesty of Booth's movements, the velvet smoothness of his voice, the beauty and precision of his speech were precious revelations to me. Each night I staggered down the stairs, my limbs benumbed, my mind in a tumult, and found my way back home across the Common to my den like a sleepwalker, so profoundly stirred that nothing physical mattered.

As Shattuck points out, the effects of Booth's performances remain surprisingly constant on

the two observers over the years, while the primary difference is in Clarke's reading of the

character as a "beautiful young man caught in circumstances too terrible for his powers to

“^Shattuck 96.

‘“Quoted in Shattuck 303.

329 resolve," while Garland witnessed "a gray-haired Hamlet - settled in wisdom, strong and purposeful, far less pathetic and far more a subject for tragic admiration."" Given the differences in qualities that the mature Booth brought to the character. Garland attests to the effect that his sty listic approach had at the end of the evening; "As I listened to him, the roar of the city’s traffic died in silence, the brick walls were as mist, warring kingdoms seemed but the shadows cast by a passing cloud, and the whole mighty stream of hurrying humanity became like the passing of a shadowy whispering river rushing endlessly into night. I lost sight of Booth the player. The eternal thought which Hamlet voiced seemed the only reality before me."'- From Garland’s commentary, it appears that Booth maintained his ability to push the reception of the play into the realm of critical thinking on the dialectic arguments contained in the text, rather than eliciting an empathie response based on identification with

the character within the frame of the fictive world of the play. Both observers allude to the

spiritual and educational efficaciousness of witnessing Booth in performance, which is borne

out by repeated critical commentary, and especially in retrospective appraisals of Booth’s

acting following his death.

One other private collection of critical commentary of Booth’s performances is worth

noting for its indication of Booth’s consistency of stylistic approach over the years. Mary

Isabella Stone kept notebooks of her observations of Booth’s portrayals of Hamlet, Othello,

lago, and Lear from 1879 to 1884. Daniel J. Watermeier, in editing Stone’s comments,

admits that her comments on Booth’s Hamlet and lago are "redundant" in light of previous

"Shattuck 304.

‘-Quoted in Shattuck 305.

330 studies of Booth' s performances in these roles, and while her impressions of his Othello and

Lear are "evocative," they remain "too meager to warrant 'reconstruction'."'^ W hile the bulk of Stone's commentary is given to evoking Booth's physical appearance or visual effects, she was also impressed by Booth's "genius” as an actor, testifying, as Watermeier states, to the

"metaphysical or spiritual dimension of his portrayal."'^ In commenting on Booth's Hamlet of 1881, when he was in his late forties. Stone gives a more general impression of Booth's technique, as well as the effect that his style had on the viewer:

Booth's immense superiority as an actor over all his companions, make this characteristic of Hamlet, of course, more conspicuous. Even Horatio, dear chosen friend of Hamlet, though he be. is far from being Hamlet's equal as man to man. Hamlet's isolation is pathetic. In the confUct between his conscience and his filial piety, he is so utterly alone; there is no one upon whose superior judgement he can rely. Horatio is willing to do anything he wishes, but he cannot tell him what he ought to wish, ought to do. Like a demi-god he m oves among the lesser men around him.

Booth's gesticulation is frequent and less varied than his facial expressions. The latter, as a general thing, he employs more when other actors are speaking - the former during his utterances. Possiblv a fault of his acting may be too frequent gesticulation; yet it is always most appropriate, and so graceful as to be rhythmic, poetical.

.A.t all times and in all situations Booth seems utterly oblivious of the audience and conscious only of the stage and other actors. This even when some rare bit of his acting calls forth rapturous applause. This, of course, is at it should be. If on first entering the stage he (as is usually the case) be greeted by applause, he never notices it, as most actors do, by even a slight bow or smile, or conscious expression.

Though Booth greatly alters his tones and manners in different scenes to suit varying moods, yet through any one play, he is always the same

‘‘Daniel J. Watermeier, Edwin Booth’s Performances: The Marv Isabella Stone Commentaries (Ann Arbor: LTMI Research Press, 1990) xv-xvi.

‘■‘Watermeier 2.

331 person. But when he comes to act in another drama; it is immense and fundamental, radical; he seems as if actually another individual, more so than would seem possible. You may say 'Of course,’ but I tell you it is by no means Of course' except with an actor of genius. Never does he remind you during a play of one of his other characters. In one or two instances, careful reflection afteru ards may suggest, in some gesture, or brief expression of countenance, that the same man was the actor in both cases. On the stage nothing betrays him but his voice, and this by its power, great flexibility, and the vast compass; its tones are not the same. Sometimes he even extracts from it that subtle element of one’s own personality (whereby we recognize our friends unseen) and as in ‘Richelieu’ assumes and sustains a complete ■false voice.

Stone’s commentary couples Booth’s superiority as an actor with Hamlet’s superiority over his contemporaries, blending the qualities of the character with the qualities of the actor into an aesthetic whole. His gestures, while perhaps seen as a fault, are viewed as "rhythmic” and

"poetical,” evincing support that even Booth’s physical traits added to the metanarrative of his portrayals, and while he did not directly acknowledge a relationship with the audience in his "radically’ different characterizations, his voice evokes the recognition of an "unseen friend.” Perhaps more important than the individual commentaries provided by Clarke,

Garland, and Stone is the fact that Booth’s performances elicited the desire in each, unaware of the others’ industry, to repeatedly observe his performances and studiously detail the impressions he made on them. As Furtwangler remarks on the three sets of obser\'ations,

"Each returned again and again to see him, studied his play, took notes, and then spent hundreds of laborious hours reconstructing his performances in a written record. This is an effect apparently unrivaled by any other actor in history. [...] What drove their authors to make them was an experience so deeply moving and mysterious that they had to expend

^Quoted in Watermeier 3.

332 enormous effort - actually had to reeducate themselves - in order to come to terms with it.”*'’

It is this effect, apparently in evidence from Booth's appearances shortly after the assassination, which shall be investigated for the remainder of this study.

The theoretical and philosophical foundations for the unprecedented effects of

Booth's postwar acting style can be found in Friedrich Nietzsche's 1872 treatise The Birth of Tragedy. There is no extant evidence that Booth was familiar with Nietzsche's work, although Katherine Goodale makes a brief reference in her memoir of touring with Booth during the Booth/Barrett star tour of 1886-87 that Booth "wandered among mazes of German thought without losing his way."' Whether Goodale is specifically referencing Booth's knowledge of German literature or philosophy is not made clear, although it is in reference to Booth's overwhelming success on his German tours and that the "German Theatre had been resident in his mind long before his German tour” of 1881 and 1883. If Goodale is correct in reporting that Booth had prepared for his German tours in advance, it is likely that he was familiar with its overriding aesthetic, as illustrated by Sylvester Baxter writing on

"The Stage in Germany " in the August. 1878 Atlantic M onthly. According to Baxter, classic drama is a mainstay on the German stage, with half of the productions usually devoted to

Shakespeare. In comparison to America, where Baxter contends Shakespeare has become

an increasing rarity, he finds it to be "hardly creditable to us that to see a Shakespearean

drama finely performed one must go to Germany. There is no run of Hamlet for a hundred

'"Furtwangler 140.

‘"Katherine Goodale, Behind the Scenes with Edwin Booth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.. 1931) 131.

333 nights, where people flock to the theatre to gaze on splendid scenery, to see a great actor make a machine of himself, and all the characters except the hero murdered long before the end of the play.'*"' Baxter asserts that the "great influence of Richard Wagner has not been confined to the opera alone. Many of his reforms have been quietly and almost unwittingly adopted in the province of the spoken drama,"''^ and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen's company is praised for its "wonderful fineness and finish of effect."-'* Baxter's assertion that the most marked characteristics of the German drama are "ideality, poetic sentiment, humor rather than wit, and freedom from cramping and restricting rules" must have struck a sympathetic chord in Booth. Indeed, as Booth had already been inferred by the reference to his exertion during the Hundred Nights' Hamlet, it is not unreasonable to assume that it is Booth himself who is referred to as "one of our most prominent managers, a cultivated gentleman who has a sincere interest for the advancement of the drama," and who makes the sad confession to the writer that in America, "Nothing of merit pays."-' Baxter finds that no matter how noble a theatre manager's ambitions are, "while his theatre is conducted on the basis of a private speculation everything else must be subordinate to the one object of making as much money as possible." Due to the lack of "hearty interest" by the American public for the drama,

"every actor of even less than mediocre talent seems to regard himself as a brilliant 'star,'

'"Sylvester Baxter. "The Stage in Germ any," .Atlantic Monthly August 1878: 181- 82.

•'Baxter 182.

-"Baxter 183.

■'Baxter 185.

334 and endless 'combinations* wander from ocean to ocean, threatening to degrade the profession deeper than in the days when to be an actor was to be a strolling vagabond.’*"

Baxter*s conclusion that improvement in American drama can only begin when every large city has "one theatre where the highest art standard is maintained, and this would exert a

powerful influence on the others.**-' following the German model, would surely have

resonated with Booth in considering his own dashed hopes for such a theatre. It is reasonable

to assume that if Booth were not familiar with Nietzsche, he would have found a correlative

philosophy in the twenty-seven year old professor’s writings which end as a "panegyric on

the rebirth of tragedy” in the person of Richard Wagner.’"* Certainly, in Nietzsche’s

dedicatory "Preface to Richard Wagner.” Booth might have found a mirror image in a writer

who answers anticipated objections that the aesthetics of tragedy should be taken so seriously

by saying of his critics, "they aie unable to consider art more than a pleasant sideline, a

readily dispensable tinkling of bells that accompanies the ‘seriousness of life.’ just as if

nobody knew what was involved in such a contrast with the seriousness of life.* Let such

'serious* readers learn something from the fact that I am convinced that art represents the

highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life, in the sense of that man to whom,

as my sublime predecessor on this path. I wish to dedicate this essay.** ^

"Baxter 185-86.

"B axter 186.

■■*Walter Kauffnann. trans.. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, by Friedrich Nietzsche (New York: Vintage Books. 1967) "A Note on This Edition.’*

^Friedrich Nietzsche. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books. 1967) 31-32.

335 According the Nietzsche, the tragic effect is linked to a duality between the

Apollinian and the Dionysian. The Apollinian represents the restrained, aesthetic illusion, associated with the s\Tnbolic imagery found in dreams which effects "healing and helping in sleep and dreams, [and] is at the same time the symbolical analogue of the soothsaying faculty of the arts generally, which make life possible and worth living."'" Although the symbolic imagery can engage the viewer with an empathie sense of "living and suffering” with the scenes he sees, there is always the "sensation of illusion" which indicate "how our innermost being, our common ground, experiences dreams with profound delight imd a joyous necessity."' The .Apollinian allows the obser\er to partake in the principium individuariunis, a state of almost trance like isolation from his surroundings in which "the calm repose of the man wrapped up in it receive[s] their most sublime expression; and we

might call Apollo himself the glorious divine image of the principium individuationis,

through whose gestures and eyes all the Joy and wisdom of "illusion," together with its

beauty, speak to us."'^

Conversely, the Dionysian is more aligned with intoxication than dream in offering

an exception to the cognitive form of phenomena which manifests in sufficient reason. W ith

the diminishment of discernment of form to apprehension of feeling, the viewer's

subjectivity vanishes "into complete self-forgetfulness." With this breakdown of the

■"Nietzsche 35.

■'Nietzsche 35.

^Nietzsche 36.

■''Nietzsche 36.

336 Apollinian individuationis. "not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but nature which has become alienated, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her lost son, man." The ultimate effect of the Dionysian is that "each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, and fused with his neighbor, but as one with him. as if the veil of maya (illusion) had been tom aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the primordial primal unity.”'"

These two natural forces are mediated tltrough the human artist, who controls and satisfies both the Apollinian and the Dionysian "first in the image world of dreams, whose completeness is not dependent upon the intellectual attitude or the artistic culture of any single being: and then as intoxicated reality, which likewise does not heed the single unit, but even seeks to destroy the individual and redeem him by a mystic feeling of oneness. [.. .]

[wherein] his oneness w ith the inmost ground of the world, is revealed to him in a symbolical dream image." For Nietzsche, every artist is an "imitator." and the artist who combines the symbology of Apollo with the ecstacy of Dionysus is one who can lead us to "understand and appreciate more deeply hat relation of the Geek artist to his archetypes which is, according

to Aristotelian expression, ‘the imitation of nature.T he ideal artist combines Apollinian

objectivity and Dionysian subjectivity who becomes simultaneously the creator and the

created, involved in the sweeping, primordial passions of the drama yet purposefully

cognitive of its symbolic import. Thus, the "genius in the act of artistic creation" combines

with the "primordial artist of the world" and gleans an understanding of the "eternal essence

’■"Nietzsche 37.

^‘Nietzsche 38.

337 of art." In this dual state, the artist is "like the weird image of the fairly tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself; he is at once subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator."'-

To Nietzsche, the purpose of tragedy is the affirmation of life through struggle. The creation of the Olympian gods was a reaction to the "terror and horror of existence," made the more overwhelming by the influences of arbitrary nature or inexorable Fate. The image of the gods, according to Nietzsche, do not reflect a deification of morality, since the gods to not exhibit a sense of good or evil, but valorize existence itself as its own end. Likewise, the purpose of art is seen "as the complement and consummation of existence, seducing one to a continuation of life." In this context, the tragic expression of suffering is transformed into an exultant evidence of individual will, so that "lamentation itself becomes a song of praise."" The blending of the illusor} beautiful with a com pelling ineffable terror achieves, for Nietzsche, a cyclical desire "for redemption through illusion, the more 1 feel myself

impelled to the metaphysical assumption that the truly existent primal unity, eternally

suffering and contradictorv'. also needs the rapturous vision, the pleasurable illusion, for its

continuous redemption."'^ The tragic hero is not punished because of a moral flaw or evil

act, but because he transgresses against Apollo’s dictum of measure, tottering between the

imperative to "know thyself' and "nothing in excess," characters such as Prometheus are

punished for his Titanic love for man, while Oedipus meets his downfall due to his excessive

^'Nietzsche 50-52.

"Nietzsche 42-43.

^Nietzsche 45.

338 wisdom in solving the riddle of the sphinx. However, it is the nature of the Dionysian, the

substratum of suffering and of knowledge, which pushes man to achieve the greatness which can both ennoble and destroy him. Thus, the Apollinian and Dionysian are interdependent

for their own existence.Their continual struggle between moderation and exuberance,

individuation and self negation, beauty and terror, achieves a sense of redemption through

the paradox of tragic joy, which is attained

not in phenomena, but behind them. We are to recognize that all that comes into being must be ready for a sorrowful end; we are forced to look into the terrors of the individual existence - yet we are not to become rigid with fear: a metaphysical comfort tears us momentarily from the bustle of the changing figures. We are really for a brief moment primordial being itself, feeling its raging desire for existence and joy in existence; the struggle, the pain, the destruction of phenomena, now appear necessary to us, in view of the excess of countless forms of existence which force and push one another into life, in view of the exuberant fertility of the universal will. We are pierced by the maddening sting of these pains just when we have become, as it were, one with the infinite primordial joy in existence, and when we anticipate, in Dionysian ecstasy, the indestructibility and eternity of this joy. In spite of fear and pity, we are the happy living beings, not as individuals, but as the one living being, with whose creative joy we are united.'*’

The purpose of tragedy is not to answer questions or to offer neatly packaged

.Aesopean lessons, but to combine image and concept into a higher significance, leading to

the "symbolic intuition of Dionysian universality” which culminates in the creation of the

"tragic myth; the myth which expresses Dionysian knowledge in symbols,”’ The need for

symbology is consequent to the purpose of tragedy being grounded in the pursuit of answers.

^’Nietzsche 46.

'"Nietzsche 104-05.

^Nietzsche 103.

339 rather than in their attainment. Tragic myth, in the form of symbolic imagery which aids in concretizing concepts, is central to the conception of the tragic. Comprehensible phenomena is secondary to the power of the tragic myth. Even the tragic hero, "the highest manifestation of the will," is capable of being satisfyingly negated because he is only phenomena, but the perception of the eternal life of the will transcends the tragic hero's annihilation. ’’^ The enemy to tragedy is not. as one might expect, the measured and controlling Apollo, but the scientific Socrates, whose follower's relentless pursuit to supply answers based only on the concrete and knowable has caused the annihilation of m\th, and, consequently, "poetry was driven like a homeless being from her natural ideal soil.""* The scientific movement, and its attendant preoccupation with phenomena, effects characterization in a way that impairs a metaphoric decoding:

The character must no longer be expanaed into an eternal type, but, on the contrary, must develop individually through artistic subordinate traits and shadings, through the nicest precision of all lines, in such a manner that the spectator is in general no longer conscious of the myth, but of the vigorous truth to nature and the artist's imitative power. Here also we observe the victory of the phenomenon over the universal, and the delight in a unique, almost anatomical preparation; we are already in the atmosphere of a theoretical world, where scientific knowledge is valued more highly than the artistic reflection of a universal law.'**’

For Nietzsche, the scientific promise to supply answers is a fundamental lie, which "combats

Dionysian wisdom and art, it seeks to dissolve myth, it substitutes fora metaphysical comfort an earthly consonance, in fact, a deiis ex machina of its own, the god of machines and

^“^Nietzsche 104.

’‘’Nietzsche 106.

■‘‘’Nietzsche 108.

340 crucibles[. . .]it believes it can correct the world by knowledge, guide life by science, and actually confine the individual within a limited sphere of solvable problems.'""

Just as he sees scientism's preoccupation with detailed phenomena and logically motivated, progressive behavior as indicative of its hollow and unsatisfying goal, Nietzsche

views the formal conventions of mvahic tragedy as intrinsic to its transcendent nature. The

chorus is seen as the best exemplar of the opaquely constructed world of tragedy, forming

as they do, "a living wall that tragedy constructs around itself in order to close itself off from

the world of reality and to preserve its ideal domain and its poetical freedom.'"*’ Nietzsche

opposes Schlegel's view of the chorus as the "ideal spectator,” holding that there is no

indication in the plays that the chorus represents, in any way, the audience for the Greek

plays, and further contends, "we had always believed that the right spectator, whoever he

might be, must always remain conscious that he was viewing a work of art and not an

empirical reality.'"** The preoccupation with the "natural and the real " on stage is at the

opposite pole of idealism, and amounts to little more than the "region of wax-work cabinets."

The condition of theatre which Nietzsche advocates exists in a realm “between heaven and

earth," in which its characters share a credibility akin to the metaphoric uses of the Olympian

gods, and whose reality is seen as being "under the sanction of myth and cult." Nietzsche

quotes W agner's theory of "nullification," an effect on the audience when it witnesses theatre

presented in this non-realist, poetic style, a process in which "the state and society and, quite

■*‘Nietzsche 109.

■‘■Nietzsche 58.

■**Nietzsche 57.

341 generally, the gulfs between man and man give way to an overwhelming feeling of unity

leading back to the ver\ heart of nature. The metaphysical comfort - with which, I am

suggesting even now. every true tragedy leaves us - that life is at the bottom of things,

despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable[.. .]despite

the changes of generations and of the history of nations.""

Part of this effect, according to Nietzsche, is produced by the presence of the actor,

who is seen in the half-light between myth and reality and whose transformative ability

encourages a '‘surrender of individuality" by an audience who both observ'es and experiences

the transformative process "so they can see themselves surrounded by such a host of spirits

while knowing themselves to be essentially one with them.’"*' The actor presents a conscious

display of his character and his character’s emotions and actions, while remaining

dispassionate and removed from the character, so that "before our eyes it transforms the most

terrible things by the jov in mere appearance and in redemption through mere appearance.

The poet of the dramatized epos cannot blend completely with his images any more that the

epic rhapsodist can. He is still the calm, unmoved contemplation which sees the images

before its wide-open eyes. The actor in this dramatized epos still remains fundamentally a

rhapsodist: the consecration of the inner dream lies on all his actions, so that he is ever

wholly an actor.’”^ The Apollinian desire to see the beautiful and the Dionysian need for

transcendence of the image is combined in the tragic artist, who with “the Apollinian art

"Nietzsche 58-59.

■‘^Nietzsche 64.

■^Nietzsche S3.

342 sphere he shares the complete pleasure in mere appearance and in seeing, yet at the same time he negates this pleasure and finds a still higher satisfaction in the destruction of the visible world of mere appearance."^ Nietzsche views the contemporary movement toward realistic representation of character, full of logically motivated psychological detail which is based on nature is reflective of the scientific impetus to demystify and thus demythologize life, replacing the metaphysical comfort of the tragic myth with a hollow cheerfulness in the optimism of science. Nietzsche posits. "If ancient tragedy was diverted from its course by the dialectical desire for knowledge and the optimism of science, this fact might lead us to believe that there is an eternal conflict between the theoretic and the tragic world and view: only after the spirit of science has been pursued to its limits, and its claim to universal validity destroyed by the evidence of these limits may we hope for a rebirth of tragedy.”'*''

Whether Booth was aware of Nietzsche's theoretical work or whether the two existed coincidentally to each other, it appears that Booth’s praxis, at least in part, exemplified

Nietzsche's formulation for the tragic world view. It is likely that Edwin Booth's reaction against the conventions of the Heroic school, resulting in his shift toward a realistic acting style before the war. demonstrated a shift from the Dionysian group ethos prompted by antebellum hero worship to an Apollinian sense of individuation caused by the imagistic creation of the actor transforming himself into discretely separate characters. Grounded in

logical motivation and idiosyncratic character traits. Booth's realistic portrayals would have

likely prompted an empathie response based on identification from his audiences.

■*'Nietzsche 140.

^Nietzsche 106.

343 heightening the individuistic reaction in his viewers. Although McConachie cites sociologist

Max Weber's contention that the charismatic hero encouraged a process of individuation in which the follower became "less a member of a specific class, church, and ethnic group, and more an isolated individual,"'*'* the evidence he supplies which support the theory that antebellum theatrical hero worship was partly responsible for a mob mentality in incidents such as the Faixen riot of 1834 and the Astor Place riot of 1849 seems to contest that theory.^’

The breakdown of social divides which McConachie sees as resultant of the performance styles of Forrest and the elder Booth do not adhere to the reflective response of the beautiful

image leading to Nieizsche's principiiim individuarionis, but is more indicative of the chaotic

Dionysian intoxication which, unimpeded by the restraint of Apollinian contemplation,

grows in intensity until "everything subjective vanishes into complete self-forgetfulness.'"'

While Edwin Booth's earliest style may have emulated the roaring style of his father, he was

soon "obliged to watch himself closely in order to avoid actual reproduction of his father's

method and manner."^’ Booth acknowledges the influence that his father had on his acting

style, and his efforts to divorce himself from it, by saying, "[A] 11 my father's mannerisms and

imperfections I acquired by being so constantly with him. When they were pointed out to

■*‘*Bruce A. McConachie, Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820 - 1870 (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1992) 75.

^^cConachie 144-49.

-'Nietzsche 36.

’"Lewis C. Strang, Plavers and Plavs of the Last Quarter Centurv (Boston: Page, 1903) 18.

344 me. I watched myself closely and rooted them out.”’' In contrast to the Heroic actors who were predominantly themselves on stage, in his earlier style Booth "conceived his roles as characters in their own right. It was his obligation to submerge himself in them, not to identify them with himself. His task as an actor was to portray characters convincingly; to endow them with the illusion of reality; this was his doctrine of naturalness in acting.'”'*

Booth eschewed conventional practices of his father's generation which submerged the presence of the character within the presence of the actor. McConachie cites examples of the curtain speech and floral tributes on stage as primary rites of hero worship, bonding audiences to stars. By appearing in their actor identity throughout the play, the antebellum actor adhered to the belief that "Heroes were not to wear masks, not to engage in character playing before their publics, but to appear simply and magnificently as their individually unique selves. Curtain speeches and floral tributes partly satisfied audience hunger to see the stars as they 'really are.'"” In his acting before the assassination. Booth made the mask predominant, submerging his personality into that of his character while aiming for a colloquial naturalness in his portrayals. His distaste for curtain calls and the measures he

took in his staging to avoid his appearance interrupting the fictive world of the play became

a constant in his performances throughout his career. Acting within an antebellum

performance space of smaller houses and shared lighting. Booth may have reacted against

’^Quoted in Gamaliel Bradford, As God Made Them: Portraits of Some Nineteenth-Centurv' Americans ( 1929; Port Washington, NY; Kennikat, 1969) 182.

^Lloyd Morris. Curtain Time (New York; Random House. 1953) 261.

’’McConachie 76.

345 an environment in which an audience's primary goal was to "see one another,”^'’ and which. added to the personal communication between the presence of the actor and liis audience, induced an environment in which the audience could "ignore, harass, or applaud the performers, actions well within the accepted norms of spectator behavior."^ At least by

December of 1863, Booth seems to have accomplished the goal of transforming the audience from a vocal, exuberant collective into a collection of contemplative individuals, as evidenced by the observations of the critic for Harper's New Monthly Magazine.

Accompanied by a "rustic friend," the two attend performances on the same evening by

Edwin Forrest playing at Niblo's and Edwin Booth at the Winter Garden. For Forrest's performance of Damon and Pvthias. the theatre was "crammed with people. All the seats

were full, and the aisles, and the steps. .And the people sat upon the stairs that ascend to the

second tier, and they hung upon the balustrade, and they peeped over shoulders and between

heads, and every think v, ore the aspect of a first night, of a debut," even though the actor was

appearing in his "thirty or forty somethingth night of the engagement." Forrest's crowd is

in “perennial amazement." and his acting has "a palpable physical effect":

There were a great many young women around us crying in the tender passages between Damon and his wife. They were not refined nor intellectual women. They were, perhaps, rather coarse. But they cried good hearty tears. And when, upon the temptation to escape, Pxthias slapped his breast, and, pushing open the prison-door with what may be termed a 'theatrical air,' roared out. 'Never, never! - death before dishonor!' the audience broke out into a storm of applause.

■^McConachie 14.

^'McConachie 15.

346 In contrast, the author found Booth's house to be "comfortably full, not crowded," and the audience had an air of "refined attention rather than of eager interest." Booth is described as "pale, thin, intellectual, with long black hair and dark eyes," and the difference in his portrayal and its effect upon the audience was "striking." Unlike the vociferous crowd for

Forrest, Booth's audience had an attitude "appreciative and expectant of fine points, but not irresistibly swept away."''* In the midst of war, it appears that Edwin Booth had discovered the ability to effect an Apollinian reflective response of individuation in his audiences, dissuading them from the mob mentality that his father's generation of actors seems to have generated in eliciting something akin to a Dionysian abandonment of restraint and self consciousness.

Following the assassination. Booth abandoned a realistic, colloquial approach to his acting in favor of a highly poetic and overtly metaphoric approach, emphasizing musicality and meter in his textual reading, as well as, as some evidence indicates, in his physicality.

The Apollinian effect was heightened by Booth's foregrounding of the actor's process in creation of the role, achieved by the dual presence of actor and character in the shared stage

space, encouraging a distanced critical stance in the audience by emulation of the actor’s

critical distance from the character he was simultaneously becoming and creating. Booth’s

conscious treatment of the text qua text rather than organic dialogue positioned him in the

status of author!ity) creating a triangular interaction of creation among the playwright, the

actor and the audience wherein the fictive world of the play was virtually co-constructed.

-^"Editor's Easy Chair," Harper's New Monthlv Magazine December 1863, 132- 33.

347 By purposefully framing the character as a construct, dispelling any attempt to illusionistically replicate systems of behavior based on the audience's apprehension of their own reality. Booth transcended the Apollinian contemplation of the image into the Dionysian symbolic dream image, effectively transforming the decoding process from the concrete to the conceptual. In his approach. Booth positioned his characters as a referent to an abstraction, as critical commentary attests in observing, for example, that in displaying an emotion he did not give the illusion of the character actually experiencing the emotion as it

seemed to point to the idealization of that emotion. Hence, critical reaction to Booth's characters does not comment as much on the characters' behavior and motivation as it

comments on a philosophic stance which the characters represent.

While the popularity of Booth’s Hamlet has been attributed to fashion. Booth's

physical suitability for the role, or a Victorian Romantic vision of idealized virtue, it may

also lie in the character's illustration of Nietzsche's .Apollinian/Dionysian duality. Nietzsche

describes a "chasm of oblivion” which separates the worlds of everyday reality and of

Dionysian reality, and at the intersection of the two occurs a state of "nausea: an ascetic, will-

negating mood [which] is the fruit of these states.'” '’ He explains.

In this sense the Dionysian man resembles Hamlet: both have once looked truly into the essence of things, they have gained knowledge, and nausea inhibits action: for their action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things; they feel it to be ridiculous or humiliating that they should be asked to set right a world that is out of joint. Knowledge kills action: action requires the veils of illusion: that is the doctrine of Hamlet, not that cheap wisdom of Jack the Dreamer who reflects too much and, as it were, from an excess of possibilities does not get around to action. Not reflection, no - true

’“Nietzsche 59-60.

348 knowledge, an insight into the horrible truth, outweighs any motive for action, both in Hamlet and in the Dionysian man.^’

The metaphysical torpor prompted by such a glimpse into the universal chasm, ostensibly recognized simultaneously by both the character and by the audience in what the character represents, is mitigated and transformed by "art [which] approaches as a saving sorceress, expcii at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge of the nausea of absurdity."'’' With this explanation, it is possible to understand how Booth's apparent blending of the concrete and the abstract, the Apollinian image and the Dionysian concept. effected a reaction, as Shattuck observes, that "worked as probably Aristotle's remark about catharsis meant it should work."'’" Although Shattuck does not explain the cathartic effect beyond awakening powers of perception and release of new energies, it is apparent that

Nietzsche viewed the effect of the Apollinian/Dionysian duality as one of redemptive healing. The object of Booth's redemptive art might be seen as the fragmented and

increasingly dislocated self identity of the American psy che precipitated by the assassination

of a president who represented "the noblest of ends: the preservation of the unity of the

nation and the emancipation of Americans from bondage. The mixture of humble man of

'’‘’Nietzsche 60.

'’‘Nietzsche 60.

^"Shattuck HEB 97. Shattuck is commenting on the effects that Booth's Hamlet had on Charles Clarke, although he does not use Nietzsche as a theoretical frame for his observations on Booth's acting.

349 the people, might} commander, great emancipator, and moral leader of a hesitant, divided, and doubting nation was at the core of progressive expectations of the President.''"' National expectation of unity and forgiveness gave way to deeper divides and vengeance, followed by the painful processes of southern reconstruction, a growing sense of fragmentation due to urbanization, devaluation of traditional views of the individual in the face of industrial corporation and mechanization, and unprecedented divisions among economic classes creating a distinct caste system of hierarchies."^ Real or perceived, the American perception of its own mythology changed dynamically following Lincoln's assassination, and Edwin

Booth's own mythology contributed to an attempt in its healing.

While Booth's presence may not have approached the exotic strangeness of

Nietzsche's satyr chorus yvho live "in a religiously acknow ledged reality under the sanction of myth and cult" and contribute, by their Otherness, to the healing tragic effect."' public perception of him constructed an image of sufficient mythological stature, to which his association yvith Lincoln's assassin yvas a primary contributor, that the image/concept duality could have only been facilitated. Furtyvangler's pondering of the “peculiar half-light" in yvhich the aggregate critical and journalistic com m entary places Booth's acting"" might be

"'James Oliver Robertson, American Mvth, American Reality (New York: Hill & Wang, 1980) 310.

W hile not all of them take a positivist approach to the cultural Daryvinian causalities attributed here. Robertson. Levine. McConachie, Rose, and Potter describe these effects in the last half of the nineteenth century.

""Nietzsche 58-59.

""Furtwangler 129.

350 explained by Roland Barthes' exploration of the semiotic process of myth. For Barthes, the mythological formula is a "semiological schema" which consists of three parts: form, concept, and signification." The form (or tangible image) is not a symbol, but becomes incorporated and transformed, "made almost uansparent," as it becomes an "accomplice to the concept.""'^ As an example, the "form" of Booth as actor becomes subordinate to the

"concept" of Booth as representation of national identity or patriotism or artistic suffering.

The ambiguity of the concept is unavoidable in that "what is invested in the concept is less reality than a certain knowledge of reality: in passing from the meaning to the form, the image loses some knowledge: the better to receive the knowledge in the concept. In actual

fact, the knowledge contained in a mythical concept is confused, made of yielding, shapeless

associations. One must firmly stress this open character of the concept; it is not at all

abstract, purified essence: it is a formless, unstable, nebulous condensation, whose unity and

coherence are above ail due to its formation.""'^ Form and concept exist in a perpetual state

of flux, each altering the other, and each contribution to a combined "meaning" or

"signification." For myth to operate successfully, however, the signification process must

be overt and observable, distinguishing it from the symbolic process. Barthes exemplifies

the idea with the image of traveling in a car and observing the passing sceneiyc

[I]f I am in a car and I look at the sceneiy through the window, I can at will focus on the scenery or on the window-pane. At one moment I grasp the

" Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. (New York: The Noonday Press, 1993) 117.

"^Barthes 118,

"‘'Barthes 119.

351 presence of the glass and the distance of the landscape; at another, on the contrar)', the transparence of the glass and the depth of the landscape; but the result of this alteration is constant; the glass is at once present and empty to me. and the landscape unreal and full. The same thing occurs in the mythical signifier; its form is empty but present, its meaning absent but full. ”

The ultimate meaning of the signifier (form and concept) is "motivation,” which is comprised of cultural variables such as history, psychology, race, gender and other mechanisms which lead to a richly "ambiguous signification.” ' Interpretation of myth also involves a symbiosis in which the world supplies a "historical reality, defined, even if this goes back quite a while, by the way in which men have produced or used it; and what myth gives in return is a natural image of this reality.” ' Barthes sees the efficacy in myth based on its function to "not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact.”'^

Perhaps part of Booth's ephemerous quality that frustrated Furtwangler lies in the ambiguity of mythical meaning which both depends on and alters its signifying form. The abstraction of the mythic significance is contextualized and decoded by a multiplicity of cultural frames, and it is pertinent to investigate some of the mythologies surrounding Edwin Booth in order to glean an understanding of how they might lead to a depoliticized purification of events.

"Barthes 123-24.

‘Barthes 128.

'“Barthes 142.

"“Barthes 143.

352 Edwin Booth served as a representation of unification for Americans as an idealized type of national ethos. As Oggel points out.

Inasmuch as he was a true American - bom in the East, apprenticed in the West, renowned in all points between, especially in his last years when he toured with Lawrence Barrett with immense popularity; known in England and Europe as The American Actor—inasmuch as he was all this, he provided a point of contact for one American with another; a point of unity, even of identity, for .\.mericans as Americans, different from Europeans. Thus was he triply united to perfection for the national and stage roles he played. .And thus the success and the misfortunes of Edwin Booth the actor were as much the result of his ability to meet the needs of his age as they were the result of the eccentricities of his life as a man. ■*

Furtwangler offers a somewhat different perspective to account for the unprecedented

popularity of Booth's tom's. He acknowledges the iconic representation that Booth possessed

for the national identity, but goes further in observ ing that part of the public's response to

him was related to the assassination;

[L]ike Mark Twain or General Sherman, Booth was one of the most widely seen persons in America in this period. In that sense he was better known that any president. People saved to buy tickets and then traveled miles to see Booth. Thousands of them did it again a year or ten years later. What they came to witness was not only an evening of theater but a larger public event, the appearance of the great American tragedian in both art and life, the actor who had rivaled all other serious starts in America and abroad - and, not least important, the survivor who still rose to the heights of decency after his brother's cruel treason. The burden of making a noble response to a corrupting crime is of course the heart of Hamlet. W hen Booth arrived in town to perform in Hamlet he might well have called up deep resonances out of his own life and the nation's. -

■‘Lynwood Terry Oggel, “Edwin Booth and America's Concept of Shakespearean Tragedy," diss., U of Wisconsin, 1969, 112.

^Furtwangler 129.

353 Furtwangler limits his observ ation to Booth's portrayal of Hamlet, however it is clear that

Booth's popularity, while most preeminent as the brooding prince, was not based on this solitary portrayal. Rather, his attraction for the American public and the redemptive efficacy of his performances were enhanced by an ancillary mythology connected with those constructed around Lincoln and Booth's brother John Wilkes.

Lincoln's assassination almost immediately transformed him into a figure of martyr, hero, and deity . As Furtwangler notes, what has become known as the Lincoln orthodoxy exhibits a process which

enshrines Lincoln as not only a hero but a prophet or a divinity. His deep reading of Shakespeaie gives way to his deep reading of the Bibles as the mental and moral discipline that fitted him to interpret and defend the Constitution. He is the son in whom the Founding Fathers were well pleased; the haunting, transfigured presence of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic'; the American word of law made flesh, that dwelt among us. On Good Friday 1865 he was put to a lingering death, but he is still alive in his words. They line the walls of his temple in the capital. Our children recite them as our creed. His image circulates everywhere on our humblest coin.

Lloyd Lewis bases the image of the transfigured Lincoln on the cross cultural myth of the dying god. as examined in Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough. Lewis summarizes the trope as one in which heroes or kings rose to the stature of gods who had “come disguised as men, to live awhile with their chosen people and then to sacrifice their lives in order that the common folk might regain the Almighty’s favor." While this myth is "one

of the oldest, one of the commonest, in the chronicles of foLk-beliefs," Lewis posits that

.\merica, while eager to "repeat the ancient formula," had been unable to do so. The nation's

'^Furtwangler 76.

^Lloyd Lewis, Mvths After Lincoln (New York: The Readers Club, 1941) 350.

354 efforts to deify Washington. Jefferson and Jackson had failed for various reasons, most notably in the fact that "all these heroes had lived too long. By no stretch of the imagination could their passing be construed as mysterious or sacrificial. Neither in life nor in death had

they touched anything that could be interpreted as miraculous.” It was not until the

intersection of Lincoln’s history, personality, and murder met that American’s were able to

create their first true martyr-deity:

After the fashion of older dying gods in older worlds, he had come stalking up from among the people, often mocked, unrecognized for what he was until death had claimed him. It was not until Abraham Lincoln had been killed and his body shown to the people that he was understood by the American masses to have been their long-awaited folk-god. As they saw him stretched to his giant’s length in the coffin, they remembered with awe how cool and strong he had seemed through those four years of terror, now miraculously ended. Remembering how he had been abused in his lifetime, and how even his friends had mistaken his patience for weakness, the people began to worship him. Seeing his body go back to the common soil amid such sobbing pomp, they understood, in a flash, that he had sacrificed himself for them. Dimly, but with elemental power, they felt that he had died out of love for the people.

While Chesebrough’s survey of sermon rhetoric following the assassination reveals that

”[t]he biblical figure to whom Lincoln was most compared was Moses.”“ the archetypal

referent contained in the dying god trope most predominant, and arguably most accessible

to the American public, is clearly that of Christ. It may have been an issue of delicacy or fear

of sacrilege which prevented more overt comparisons, although references to Lincoln’s

"^Lewis 351-52.

■"Lewis 352-53.

**®David B. Chesebrough. “No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow”: Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln (Kent: The Kent State UP. 1994) 35.

355 martyrdom and his position as “Savior of the People” are repeated images in eulogistic rhetoric following his death/'

Just as the assassination deified Lincoln. Lewis contends it demonized John Wilkes

Booth, awarding immortality to the god-slayer. While Lewis observes that previous attempts

to create a mythic villain had failed in the persons of Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr,

Booth's martvTdom of America's patron saint elevated him to the status of America's

Judas.’^- The process of Booth's mythologization began promptly after his escape from

Ford's Theatre, and Booth himself seems to have been aware of (and perhaps believing) his

own mythos. as on April 17. 1865 he notes in the journal he kept during his escape and

hiding. “Our country owed all her trouble to him. and God simply made me the instrument

of his punishment.”’^' His entry dated Friday. April 21 records his reaction to the newspaper

accounts of the assassination and himself, which he read vociferously during his attempt to

escape, the newspapers being provided to him by his friend Thomas A. Jones. Booth notes.

“I think I have done well, though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me."**^

Booth's comment indicates his awareness that his action has transformed him into something

beyond a murderer or even political assassin, but is associated with the biblical “first

*‘See Chesebrough 34-40. and Williamson. Abraham Lincoln 260-99 for examples in clerical and lay eulogistic discourse of the Christ comparison.

*'Lewis 353-54.

*^John Wilkes Booth. “Right or Wrong. God Judge Me": The Writings of John Wilkes Booth, ed. John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper (Urbana: U of Illinois P. 1997) 154.

*^Booth 155.

356 murder," appropriate for the first martjxdom in the country's experience. Thomas Reed

Turner observes that press reports, government directives, and rumors of Booth’s location before his capture placed him in such disparate places as in flight to Baltimore, on a train to

Fairfax, on his way to Canada, and in hiding in Washington, D.C. Reports circulated in several cities that Booth had been seen disguised as a woman. Several men, including two conductors of the Central Railroad, a man in New York City, a man in Detroit, the son of the sheriff of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and a man in Rochester, New York, were arrested because they resembled John Wilkes Booth. He was reported to have escaped Washington via air balloon and was reported to be hiding in a Chicago "house of ill fame" disguised as a prostitute.'*^ Booth’s ubiquitous presence and chameleon like ability to disguise himself, no doubt based on the fact that he was an actor, indicates that he was perceived as a national bogeyman, wandering freel\ in the country's cities and avoiding capture.

Even after his capture and death at Garrett's farm, rumors persisted that John Wilkes

Booth was alive, and that the government had either orchestrated or obfuscated his escape.

In 1907, Finis L. Bates wrote a book purporting to prove that "John Wilkes Booth was not

killed on the 26* day of April, 1865, at the Garrett home in Virginia, but that he escaped,

spent a roving life in exile, principally in the western part of the United States of America,

and died by his own hand, a suicide, at Enid, Oklahoma Territory, on the morning of the 14*

day of January, 1903, at the hour of 6:30 o'clock a.m.'"*^ As recently as 1996 attempts were

**‘Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weening: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1982) 1(X)-11.

*^*Finis L. Bates, Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth. Assassin of President Lincoln (Memphis: Pilcher Printing Company, 1907) 309.

357 made to exhume Booth’s body in order to satisfy rumors that he had survived and lived under an assumed identity/' Lewis explains that John Wilkes Booth's mythologization and the subsequent legends of his survival frame him in a different category from other presidential assassins such as Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz (and Lee Harvey Oswald) due to "his victim's deification." The myth of the assassin's survival is particularly connected to older patterns in which ordinary death is not felt to be punishment enough for the assassins of god- heroes because they have been "too monumental in their villainies to suffer man's conventional penalties. They must always wander on. tortured by remorse, shunned by the world, to wretched deathlessness or to suicide."'^’* A last linkage in the synergistic mythologies of Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth is seen in the collection and display of personal items belonging to victim and assassin. Thomas Mallon. writing about the transformational process of ordinary objects connected to Lincoln and Booth on the night of the assassination, likens the desire to designate utilitarian objects such as Lincoln's spectacles and blood soaked shirt as well as more nefarious objects such as Booth's derringer and knife with the impulse in the early Middle Ages to preserve saints' relics as a material warder against "an incomprehensible and terrifying universe." Mallon maintains that while the Lincoln/Booth objects do not carry the talismanic powers associated with holy relics, they

"provide the only human bulwark against time: continuity. They are proof of connection.

"Court Rejects Opening Booth's Grave. " The Washington Post 5 June 1996, final ed.: D03.

^Lewis 354.

358 signs not only of fealty, but. more important, of provenance and legitimacy.”*''^ What the sacrilized frame of these objects seems to legitimize is the mythological status attributed to the principal actors in the nation's first Mystery play enacted in the Presidential box of Ford's

Theatre.

Edwin Booth's mythos resulted from a self conscious construction combining his own history, his personality, and his association with Lincoln's assassination. Booth's public identity as an iconic national prototype found its locus in his having no formal education, traveling from the East to seek his apprenticeship in the rough and tumble environs of the

.American West during its gold rush days, returning to and establishing himself as a success in the accepted urban testing grounds of New York. Boston, and Philadelphia, his building of Booth's Theatre as a symbol of .American theatrical development, his subsequent overcoming of financial ruin by exhibiting earnest labor in his incessant touring, his triumphant return to European cities where he served to dispel the inferior image of the

American actor in contrast to established Old World models, and finally his founding and gift of The Players as a place to elevate the status of the actor to one of equal rank with

American men of letters, commerce, and industry. Booth's professional identity was interwoven with public knowledge of his personal history as the son of a popular but insane actor father, his marriage to and the early death of his chi Id-bride Mary Devlin and his devotion to his daughter Edwina. his renouncement of youthful drunkenness and libertinism

in favor of an abstemious (with the exception of tobacco) lifestyle, his marriage to Mary

McVicker and the death of their son shortly after birth in a badly handled delivery. Mary

**^Thomas Mallon, “Sanctified by Blood," Civilization Jan/Feb 1996: 36.

359 McVicker's descent into madness and her eventual death in an insane asylum, a carriage accident in 1875 which permanently disfigured his left hand and forearm, an attempt on his

own life during a performance at a Chicago theatre in 1879 from a man who fired two shots

at Booth from the audience, his stroke during a performance of Othello in Rochester in 1889,

and his life of seclusion in the rarified company of America's elite within the protective walls

of The Players.

The combination of Booth's professional success and personal trials would have been

sufficient to establish him as a Romantic figure, not unlike that accorded to Kean, Macready

and Forrest, but is was the assassination which transfigured him from artist to redeemer.

After returning to the stage after mounting public demand for his reappearance, and then only

after citing financial obligations to raise his motherless daughter. Booth never again

performed in Washington despite repeated invitations from influential people there including

President Arthur.'*’ Edwin Booth's connection to the assassination was to remain constant

for the rest of his life, emerging in press biographies in America as well as on Booth's

European tours.'’' Rumors of John Wilkes Booth's escape resurfaced from time to time,

often finding their way into the press. A series of reports about sighting Wilkes in various

parts of the country and calls for exhumation of his body prompted the New York Tribune

to publish a series of front page articles about the rumors, culminating with a letter from a

'"’Furtwangler 118.

'"See Booth's letters to William Winter from Louisville, 14 March 1876; from Boston, 6 December 1881; and from Paris, 1 May 1883 in Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William W inter, ed. Daniel J. Watermeier (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971) 58-59, 198, 246.

360 woman claiming to be the widow of John Wilkes Booth and mother of "a daughter and a son, now grown to womanhood and manhood." all of whom had lived “in seclusion and under a false name for twenty years.’"'' After this publication. Edwin Booth wrote to his friend Laurence Hutton, indicating that the appearance of this widow was one in a series of them to have contacted him since Wilkes’ death, and is “the beginning of another blackmail scheme, of which I had some intimation from a Boston lawyer some months ago. That horrible business will never be buried.’"" He carried an aversion to images of Abraham

Lincoln. " and could not bear mentioning or hearing mentioned the name of John Wilkes

Booth. A typical incident is recounted by the actress Eliza Eldridge who recalls Booth accidentally mentioning his brother’s name when reminiscing about his boyhood in

Maryland. After beginning a sentence with “Yes. my brother John and-.’’ Booth became still, except for a slight movement of his hand while he looked straight ahead. Booth slowly repeated. “Yes. my unfortunate brother. John." then dropped his head, the company of

listeners noticing that there were tears running down his face.''^

m:,The Widow of John Wilkes Booth. ” New York Tribune 5 December 1885, 1.

‘'’Edwin Booth, undated letter to Laurence Hutton, in George S. Bryan. The Great American Mvth (New York: Garrick & Evans. 1940) 363-64.

"Launt Thompson recounts that when Booth saw a portrait of Lincoln in his home, he left and would not return until it had been removed [in Smith 351] and William Dean Howells mentions Booth’s discomfort when he inadvertently admired a bronze cast of the president’s hand. [William Dean Howells, Literarv Friends and Acquaintances (New York: Harper & Brothers. 1902) 107.]

"^In Smith 351-52.

361 Booth may have envisioned himself as a tragic figure in real life, creating a cyclical feeding and response to the public mythologv' built around him. As Oggel notes. "Booth's own personality actually encouraged their highly-wrought imaginations, for he almost never defended himself and occasionally implicitly agreed with his critics by punishing him self for deeds not his own doing."‘^ Booth gave some indication that he viewed his struggles as comparative to the family curses of classic Greek tragedy. After the death of his second wife

in 1881. Booth wrote to William Bispham asking. "What more sorrow claims acquaintance at my hand which I know not?" and in 1883 he responded to news that a friend's health had

worsened and his daughter's engagement had been canceled by saying. "God help us! W hat

a curse is on the Booths, and for what? We must go back beyond any records that I have

found for the cause of all the horrors that are heaped on us!""' Ellen Terry, who performed

with Booth during his appearances witli living in Othello, gives some impression that Booth

understood and perhaps enforced his enigmatic presence by stating Booth had "a sort of pride

which seemed to say. 'D o n 't try to know me. for I am not what I have been.""* Even W illiam

Winter, arguably Booth's most sycophantic admirer and one of his earliest biographers,

describes Booth's personality as “isolated, introspective, strange, wayward, variable,

moody." and one which had been developed "[ujnder the discipline of sorrow.""" W hether

""Oggel. "Edwin Booth and America's Concept..." 108.

"’Quoted in Ruggles 293. 310.

"*Ellen Terry. Ellen Terrv's Memoirs, ed. Edith Craig and Christopher St. John (New York: Putnam 's. 1932) 159.

""William Winter. Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1893)132.

362 he consciously constructed this image in the belief that he was a victim o f some cosmic tragic plot, or was simply so framed by popular impression and did nothing to dispel the impression. Booth's tragic Otherness undoubtedly contributed to the triangular mythological model of which he. Lincoln, and Wilkes were the mutually contributing points.

It should also be noted that if McConachie is correct in contending that “Jacksonian

Americans used the Jackson-Forrest mirror to reflect back a heroic image of the themselves.""" Edwin Booth serves as a similar double reflection of both Lincoln and the country's shifted perception (or hoped for ideal) of itself. The Booth/Lincoln mythic image presents a character who is introspective, soft spoken, intellectual without formal schooling, awkward in public but kind to his personal circle of friends, and both martyred to their calling. In Bishop Simpson' eulogy at Lincoln's funeral, he cites. "His education was simple. A few months spent in the school-house, gave him the elements of education."""

Simpson continues to describe Lincoln's moral power as one which "led [men] to yield to his guidance. As has been said of Bobden. whom he greatly respected, he made all men feel and own the sense of himself, and recognize in him. individually, a self-relying power."'"'

This comment is not far removed from Edward H. Sothem 's estim ation that "Edwin Booth's genius shone like a good deed in a naughty world."nor from Henry A. Clapp's comment

'""McConachie 89

'"'In Williamson 249.

'"'In Williamson 250.

'"'Edward H. Sothem. The Melancholv Tale of "Me": Mv Remembrances (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1916) 333.

363 that Booth was "Pure, generous, high-minded, incapable of vulgar arts, either of defense or display, he lived up on the stage of the world, even as on the mimic stage, an ideal life/'""

Henry Ward Beecher's comment that while Lincoln was surrounded by "lukewarm patriots, imbecile generals and divided counsellors [sic], he maintained on the whole, a straightforward and elevated course,""'^ resonates with pervading critical opinion that

Booth's management failures were due to the ineptitude of those he entrusted, as well as almost constant commentary that the companies of actors he gathered were inferior to him in ability.'"^ It might be said that the greatest connective thread between Booth and Lincoln was caused by the attempt on Booth's life while he was playing Richard II at McVicker's

Theatre in Chicago on April 23. 1879."’ Booth infers the relationship between his own

"’^Henry A. Clapp. "Edwin Booth." in Famous American Actors of To-dav. ed. Frederick Edward McKay and Charles E. L. Wingate (New York: Crowell. 1896) 50.

"’'In Williamson 297.

’"^In a letter to E. C. Stedman. Booth writes, "As Irving is blamed here [in England], as I am at home, for having (with the Terry exception) a company of sticks, I presume I shall be credited with at least the desire to serve the Shaksperian [sic] cause." 4 September 1880, in Grossman 213.

"’"An eyewitness account from an audience member describes the event: "I was seated near the front of the house, and, looking around, saw a man leaning over the balcony railing, and raising his pistol for a second shot. The shot was fired, and then Mr. Booth slowly rose, stepped to the front of the stage, and looked inquiringly towards the balcony. He saw the would-be assassin, saw the pistol raised for a third shot, turned quietly around, and very deliberately walked back out of sight. In the meanwhile, his assailant was seized from behind, and was not permitted to pull the trigger for the third time. What particularly impressed me about the whole affair as the coolness displayed by Mr. Booth, and the deliberate way in which he betook himself to a place of safety. He was acting the part of a king, and did not for a moment forsake the kingly impersonation. One cannot help wondering what memories of the tragedy that had so darkened his past life flashed upon his mind at the moment." “P," letter to the editor, Chicago Dial 16 June 1893, in "Tributes" scrapbook. The Players.

364 assassination attempt and the successful one accomplished by his brother by writing, "What a series of narrow escapes I've had! And how tragical & sorrowful have been the events of my life. Think of my poor old motlier. with all the horrible Past recalled so vividly by this newly averted horror!"'"'' If Lincoln was the tragic hero who became deified due to his death at the assassin's hand. Booth was the tragic hero who became mythologized due to his escape from the assassin's hand. The similarities between the two incidents undoubtedly brought parallels between Lincoln and Booth into stark relief.'"'’ While McConachie recognizes that the Forrest/Jackson double mirror reflected the "traditions of republican and liberal ideology” in antebellum America,"" he concludes that the hampering of a historical understanding of

Booth's acting is because "much o f his relation to his bourgeois critics and audiences hinged on their need to sacralize representatives of high culture.""' It may be as plausible to conclude that the sanctification process of Booth by his audiences and critics was prompted

'""Edwin Booth, letter to William Winter, 28 .April 1879, in Between Actor and Critic 127.

'""An interesting discursive comparison between Edwin Booth and Lincoln appears in an article shortly after Booth's death. The writer of "Howard's Column" for the New York Recorder states, "As the time is not yet come when Abraham Lincoln's character and motives can be dispassionately discussed. [...] [s]o is it impossible just now without causing more or less social friction to analyze Edwin Booth as an actor, and especially if one were to attempt to show what he might have done and failed to do." 8 June 1893, "Tributes of the Press" scrapbook. The Players.

"‘McConachie 89.

'"McConachie 239.

365 by Booth's mythic relation to Lincoln and the double mirror they reflected to an America which had recognized and rejected the frontier brutality of the antebellum ethos.“■

By reading the Boothian mythology as a cumulative process which combines his standing as an American nationalistic prototN^pe. the public perception of his endurance, his continued connection to the mythology of John Wilkes Booth, and his transfiguration into an imagistic Lincolnian double mirror, it is easier to understand how Booth conforms to

Nietzsche's interpretation of the tragic hero as it facilitates the redemptive process. For the tragic effect to operate, the tragic hero must represent “how necessary is the entire world of suffering, that by means of it the individual may be impelled to realize the redeeming vision."" ' In the Classical mold, the tragic hero is caught in a vone.x between the .Apollinian injunction to “know thyself and “nothing in excess," so that the tragic hero's suffering is

in consequence to an excess likened to Prometheus' excessive love of man or Oedipus' excessive wisdom in solving the riddle of the sphinx. The suffering brought upon the tragic

hero reveals the Dionysian substratum of suffering and knowledge,"'* with the ultimate goal

of tragedy found in the celebration of the consummation of existence, a transfiguring mirror

"'Som e indication of this is seen in Booth's obituary notice in the 7 June 1893, New York Herald: "New York had developed into civilization and was no longer satisfied at observing passion tom to tatters. Edwin Forrest was a great actor, but he belonged to a rough era and suited himself to its tastes by a riotous tempest of expression. The arrival of young Booth on the stage marked a new era in the tragic drama. He attracted a cultivated audience that was entirely pleased with his refined and aristocratic bearing, his romantic air, his poetic style and natural method of elocution." In “Tributes of the Press" scrapbook. The Players.

"^Nietzsche 45.

"■^Nietzsche 46.

366 in which a cry of lamentation becomes an exultant song of praise, and even the tragic hero's death cannot negate the exemplar and exaltation of the will to survive.'*' In this reading, the mythology of Booth's personal life is more closely aligned to the Oedipus myth than with that of Hamlet."" Nietzsche uses the Oedipus myth to explain his understanding of “Greek cheerfulness " which he compares to a person who stares into the sun being suddenly blinded, and then turns away and sees dark-colored spots before his eyes "as a cure, as it were.” In this reading, "the bright image of the Sophoclean hero - in short, the Apollinian aspect of the mask - are necessary effects of a glance into the inside and terrors of nature; as it were, luminous spots to cure eyes damaged by gruesome light."" Given this premise. Nietzsche states that Sophocles "understood the most sorrowful figure of the Greek stage, the unfortunate Oedipus, as the noble human being who. in spite of his wisdom, is destined to error and misery but who eventually, though his tremendous suffering, spreads a magical power of blessing that remains effective even beyond his decease.""' In the "infinite transfiguration" of the Oedipus character at the end of Oedipus at Colonus. we see a conclusion in which

The old man. struck by an excess of misery, abandoned solely to sitjfer whatever befalls him, is confronted by the supraterrestrial cheerfulness that descends from the divine sphere and suggests to us that the hero attains his

"'Nietzsche 43.

"^Although a convincing argument could be made that there are parallels in the plot of a politically ambitious close relative killing a paternal figure and the intellectual and sensitive son seeking to avenge ("redeem”) his assassination.

"Nietzsche 67.

"'Nietzsche 67.

367 highest activity, extending far beyond his life, though his purely passive posture, while his conscious deeds and desires, earlier in his life, merely led him into passivity. Thus the intricate legal knot of the Oedipus fable that no mortal eye could unravel is gradually disentangled - and the most profound human joy overcomes us at this divine counterpart of the dialectic.

Like Oedipus. Edwin Booth may have been seen to have exhibited excess in his youth, perhaps by being granted superior theatrical abilities by his father and his early rise to prominence in critical and popular estimation. Unlike Kean and Forrest, however. Booth exhibited his noble character by his resolution to lead an abstemious life after his first wife's death, and was known for the moral imperatives in his theatrical representations. For his gifts, he was forced to wander in a wilderness of sufferings, the harshest of which, like

Oedipus' blinding, occurred in his youth with his brother's assassination of Lincoln. After

years of enduring sufferings heaped on him. and exhibiting an indomitable will which

allowed him to overcome, or at least endure them in a noble fashion, he was at last

transfigured in old age. sequestered in the sacred private space of his own domain, into a

semi-divine representation of the .American ability to survive when met w ith the cruelest

vicissitudes. It is this interpretation of Booth's mythology, exhibiting Barthes' formulaic

triangulation of form, concept, and signification, which facilitates Nietzsche's view of the

tragic effect as effectuated by the image of the noble, enduring tragic hero. While a

pervasive view holds that Booth was America's Hamlet, it may be more appropriate to view

him as America's Oedipus.

Whether Nietzsche's contention that art can have redemptive efficacy, or that Booth's

application of Nietzsche's formulas in his postwar acting style produced a spiritual

“’Nietzsche 68.

368 transcendence for his audiences, can be justifiably questioned on the grounds of whether any art form has efficacy beyond an aesthetic or diversionary frame. However, it seems clear that critical and public perception of Booth's acting inferred a moral imperative for the general

public. It is especially useful to sur\ ey commentary on Booth's acting by his contemporaries

following his death in order to gain an aggregate estimate of the impression that the

combination of Booth's mythology and Booth's acting style imprinted on his audiences.

Lyman Abbott, a Congressional clergvTnan who worked with the American Union

Commission to engender more sympathetic reconstruction policies in the South, and later

worked with Henry Ward Beecher as editor of the Christian Union and replaced Beecher as

editor in 1881 whereupon the publication's name was changed to the Outlook, became a

widely respected editor, writer and lecturer at the turn of the century. In 1922, the year of his

death, Abbott published Silhouettes of mv Contemporaries, a series of essays in which he

comments on the lives of nineteenth century notables, most of whom are clergy. Edwin

Booth is the first entry in his series of "Silhouettes," and Abbott asserts, largely drawing on

the collection of Booth's letters published by his daughter, that "there are abundant

indications in his daughter's charming biographical sketch and in letters she has published

that from the first a religious impulse inspired him."'-” Abbott sees Booth's Theatre as a

tangible representation of Booth's spiritual mandate:

The spirit of consecration of what he believed was a divinely given power to a divinely ordained purpose inspired and guided him through the ordinary experiences of his life. A clergyman once wrote him asking if he could not be admitted to his theatre by a side or rear door, as he preferred to run no risk

‘■“Lyman Abbott, Silhouettes of mv Contemporaries (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922) 20.

369 of being seen by any of his parishioners; to whom Mr. Booth replied, ‘There is no door in my theatre through which God cannot see.' The theatre while it continued under Booth's control was maintained as one which should be lay open to God's sight.'"'

.A.bbott indicates that anti theatrical prejudice was still strong in America a dozen years after the assassination, saying. “The prevailing attitude of the Church toward the theatre and the acting profession was one of bitter hostility in 1877. much modified «ince; but it elicited

from Mr. Booth no word of ill temper or counter-hostility." Abbott cites Booth's January

21,1877 letter to his friend F. C. Ewer as an indication that Booth was aware of the church's

stand against the theatre: "If the Church would teach discrimination between the true and

the false in my profession, instead of condemning both as worthless, to say the least, the

stage would ser\'e the pulpit as a loyal subject, and both go shoulder to shoulder not with

frowning brow to brow' tlirough the fight."'" Booth's comment infers Booth's belief that

the theatre could, like the church, effect change in its audience/congregants, placing it in a

position of proactive leadership rather than of one subject to fashion and popular tastes.

Abbott refers to Booth's endurance through trials, particularly citing the legacy of his father's

alcoholism, by observing, "Self-control to such a man is not the easy virtue it is to simple

natures. He had inherited the drink appetite from his father; conquered it completely, but not

without a hard battle."'"' In this comment, Abbott seems to place Booth beyond the frame

of ordinary ("simple") humanity, and later adds to this thought by incorporating it as a reason

'■'.\bbott 22.

'“ Quoted in Abbott 23.

'^Abbott 26.

370 for Booth's power as an actor by saying, "The very ability to interpret different human passions was the mark of a composite character.” Abbott concludes his biographical commentary on Booth by saying.

I have wished in this sketch to introduce the man to readers to whom he is known only as an actor. For the re-reading of Mr. Booth's letters has not only reawakened my admiration for this great interpreter of the greatest literature, but also a new

Abbott's conclusion would indicate a perception that part of Booth's mission was to redeem a theatre still viewed as wicked by the majority of American clergy who did not have the

vision, according to Abbott, to recognize the purity and bravery of Booth's pursuit. Abbott

views Booth as a reformer of both society and the theatre, whose stance as an outsider from

ordinary humanity and moral superiority gained through adversity enriched his artistic ability.

Much of .Abbott's essay reads as a defense of Booth against the American clergy, which

would logically lead to a questioning of whether Bootli's quest, real or perceived, had any

effect. The only indication that Abbott gives to the contrary is that the church's anti theatrical

stance of 1887 had been "much modified since." although it appears that Abbott viewed

Booth, at least while Booth lived, as a singular champion operating outside of general clerical

support.

It is in the immediate press coverage following Edwin Booth's death that the mixture

of Booth's personal mythology, his connection to Lincoln's assassin, and evaluation of his

'-"Abbott 27.

‘^Abbott 27.

371 acting can be seen to converge into a tautological whole. A surv ey of clippings collected in the "Tributes of the Press to Edwin Booth - 1893" scrapbook at The Players reveals a discourse on Booth's career which may have been deemed indelicate to publically state during the actor's life, but which was allowed seemingly free reign almost immediately following his death. Reports of Booth's decline in health was covered by newspapers throughout the country , sharing front page space with the Lizzie Borden murder trial and the

Chicago International Exposition. .4$ Booth's health took a marked turn for the worse and his death seemed inevitable, articles appeared in the Little Falls, Iowa Times, Atchison,

Kansas Patriot, Chicago, Illinois Journal, Record, and News, Cincinnati, Ohio Gazette,

Detroit, Michigan Journal, Freemont, Ohio News, Houston, Texas Post, Kansas City,

Missouri Journal, Star and Times, Louisville. Kentucky Commercial, Memphis, Tennessee

Commercial, Oakland, California Tribune, San Francisco, California Call and Chronicle,

Spokane, Washington Chronicle, Virginia, Nebraska Chronicle, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Tribune, New York Post, Baltimore News, Des Moines, Iowa Leader, Dubuque, Iowa

Times, Heling, Arkansas World, Jackson, Tennessee Whig, Liverpool, Ohio Crisis,

Louisville, Madison. Indiana Herald, Moorhead. Minnesota Argus, New Orleans Picavune,

Oakland, California Tribune, Attawa, Dlinois Journal. St. Joseph, Missouri Herald. St. Paul,

Minnesota Press, Topeka, Kansas Press, Poughkeepsie, New York Press, Reynoldsville,

Pennsylvania Volunteer, .Arlington. Virginia Clipper, Columbus, Nebraska Telegraph.

Madison. Illinois Plain Dealer. Kingston, New York Times, Lincoln, Nebraska Democrat.

Rochester Minnesota Post, Salt Lake City, Utah News, and Marshall, Missouri, Journal.

While reports of Booth's decline were covered in the more expected venues of major

372 newspapers in urban centers such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, this sampling from The Players* scrapbook testifies to the national interest placed on the actor's imminent passing.

As the morning newspapers announced Booth's death in the early hours of June 7,

1893, their retrospectives of his career blended evaluative judgement regarding his contributions to American theatre with concretization of his attendant mythology. Macon

McCormick of the New York Morning Advertiser said, "Some of those who knew him most intimately in the prime of life say that after John Wilkes Booth, his brother, killed President

Lincoln Edwin became a changed man. He became more retiring than ever, yet he was never uncompanioable." McCormick links the effect of Wilkes' crime to Booth's life by reporting,

"Some actors believe that Mr. Booth was uncommonly superstitious. The only proof they are able to give in support of their theor\' is that, when playing in Ford's Opera House in

Baltimore, he invariably refused to occupy the apartment reserved for the star, because its door is the one that hung in the private bo.\ in which President Lincoln sat on the night he was shot by John Wilkes Booth." While the writer evaluates Booth's acting in expected

terms of being more quiet and poetic than actors such as Forrest, and attributing his talent

as "hereditary and God given rather than acquired by reading," he closes his article by

reporting an incident from Booth's early career which is indicative of Booth's patriotism and

didactic purpose by saying, "Just before South Carolina seceded from the Union Mr. Booth

played a long engagement in that city. At the time a large number of young Southerners were

studying medicine there. WTien he played Richeheu they were almost nightly patrons of the

373 theater, and when he delivered the speech, 'Tlirow' away the sword. States can be saved without it,' they used to make the building ring with their cheers and applause."'""

John Russell Young of the New York Herald took the opportunity in his obituary article to compare the effects of Booth's acting with that of Forrest, seeing them as representatives of the old and the new school of acting. Forrest's "sneer, the imperious stride, the half hour Macduff and Richmond and Laertes combats to the joy of a quivering pit: the sedate, the pedantic pauses, the odd emphasis upon words and questionable phrases that modem taste would have eliminated" eventually vanished "under the refined and gentle influence of Booth." The dramatic school emulated by Forrest was "rugged, harsh, crude, amorphous, with a power which awakened wonder, admiration, at times terror and pain."

Booth's style, in Young's view, was exemplified as "gentle, refined, spiritual, seeking for dramatic effect by deep, philosophical inquiry — a school of poetry, aspiration — and in it we feel not alone the strength of art, but its sublime harmonies and truths." Young's comments attest to the totalizing effect brought about by Booth's acting as a means to dialectic investigation. For Young, the consequences of Booth's performances extended beyond the confines of an aesthetic appreciation, and Booth's abnegation of the crowd pleasing theatrical effects of Forrest's generation is seen as effecting "an advance in our civilization. We had seen Niagara and were lost in bewilderment and awe. We were to see the mountain hemmed plain, the solemn mysteries of sea, and sky, nature itself, and over it all a beauty, as of peace.

‘■"Macon McCormick. "Edwin Booth is No More." New York Morning Advertiser 7 June 1893.

374 and an inspiration to nobler deeds and a truer life."'- It appears that Young believed the poetic approach employed by Booth, based on a process which somehow foregrounded the philosophical arguments contained in the texts over a representation of individual character, serv ed to engender change in his audiences extending beyond the final curtain.

The writer for the New York Press blurs the distinction between the fictive and the real as elements contributing to Booth’s mythology by commenting that the theatrical talent

Booth inherited from his father also contained "hereditary taints that cast a sorrow over his earlier life." The writer alludes to the Booth “curse" by explaining, "There was insanity in his family, a predisposition that ultimately tempted his brother John Wilkes into perpetration of the most awful crime in American history." The inference of this comment is that the inherited power passed down from the elder Booth gave Edwin his tragic status due to the perception that he "struggled with and splendidly conquered it," whereas Wilkes was consumed by it. The real/fictive distinction is further softened in the critic's comment,

"Great in his art, he was great also in his personal character," and for forty years Booth was

"the possessor of all that is dignified in nature and in art. This is the more remarkable when it is considered that his life was never free from sadness and disappointment." Booth’s artistic imperatives are framed as being directly consequential to the assassination, when "his

beloved brother, suddenly developing insanity, committed an act that threw the nation into

woe. As a relief from the anguish of these sorrows the actor bent all his energies upon the

establishment of a stage which should be without peer in the annals of the drama for the

‘-'John Russell Young, "What He Did for his Art: Booth's and Forrest's Schools Compared, ” New York Herald 7 June 1893.

375 performance of Shakespearean plays."‘‘^ The New York Sun echoes this construction of

Booth's mythology by stating the secret of his "morbid melancholy" is discovered in that fact that "he inherited his father's tendency to madness, and that his life was a constant fight against dangerous excesses."'*'^ Although not explicitly stated, the writer infers that Edwin and Wilkes were linked by an insanity inherited from their father, and it was their divergent reactions to this insanity which caused Edwin to become the country's greatest tragic hero and Wilkes to become the country's most nefarious villain. The Dionysian chaos originating in the elder Booth was acknowledged but contained by Edwin's Apollinian control, while it consumed and destroyed John Wilkes who succumbed to its primal call.

The New York World attests to Booth's status as a nationalist emblem by starting its

article in saying. "Edwin Booth was not only a great actor. He was a great man. By his death

not only does the American stage lost [sic] the most brilliant star that has shone upon it since

the war. but .America loses one of the citizens of whom she has the highest reason to be

proud of as a man." The distinction between Booth and his most famous character is blurred

by the critic's mention. "Great as Booth was as Hamlet, he was equally as great as Edwin

Booth. Tried by sorrow nearly all his life, he kept his temper sweet and his soul pure. He

was gentle, modest and generous to a fault." As mentioned by other critics. Booth's loss of

his first wife and the assassination are seen as contributory factors to his personality,

inferring an effect that was to be seen in his acting:

'-'^"Edwin Booth Died Early This Morning." New York Press 7 June 1893.

’■’“Death of Edwin Booth." New York Sun 7 June 1893.

376 Mary Devlin died years ago. One of the greatest Presidents of the United States died years ago. A nd among those closest to the tragedian it has always been said that the bitterest moments of his life were connected with those two deaths. Ten years later the slight, pale youth of Lawrence Barrett's early days, with soft, brown eyes full of tenderness, was a sad. quiet man. with a settled look of sorrow on his face that never left it afterward. And he was just then rising to the full height of his glory.

The writer details the public reaction to Edwin Booth in relation to his connection to

Lincoln's assassin, framing Booth in terms reminiscent of Nietzsche's enduring tragic hero.

Wi!ke<' crime

placed [Edwin Booth] for years in a false position to his fellow-countrymen. He was a brother of the dashing, handsome assassin of a President-a young man adored by women and said by those who knew him intimately to have inherited a big portion of his distinguished father’s talent, with his father's strangeness emphasized. The greatest proof of Edw in Booth's real, honest greatness as a man as well as an actor, was made during those trying days after the assassination of ,A.braham Lincoln. His dignity and personal rectitude finally conquered all the prejudice in the North which had grown up to the mention of the name. Never once he complained, though it is said that during the Winter Garden Theatre experiences he was more than once subjected to insult.

"The consequence of Booth's behavior following the assassination, according to the writer,

was that he "came out of this vicarious ordeal honored and beloved. His dignity and beauty

of character compelled admiration. He was sweet and strong-a rare combination in a man."

The perception of Booth's sacrifice for the American public as seen in his management of

Booth's Theatre is concretized by the writer stating, "The venture was a failure and success

at the same time. It ruined Booth financially. It enriched the American stage," and although

bankruptcy was the eventual outcome of the venture, "the glory of having given such a

temple and such a series of revivals to the American stage will be linked inseparably with

the renown of Edwin Booth." The writer echoes the actor-priest model of Booth's building

377 of his theatre by saying, "Pride in his art was always foremost in the heart of Edwin Booth.

When he reared the finest theatre on the continent at the cost of over S1.000,000, his one idea was to build an enduring temple to that art to which his life had been devoted." While the writer ascribes part of Booth's failure in his theatre to his ineptitude at finances and the dubious nature of those who were in charge of overseeing his operational budgets, there appears to be some blame placed on the American public, since. "The result was failure. He lost his valuable time and money in trying to educate the public up to a proper appreciation of what the stage should be. but in vain. He produced play after play to a beggarly account of empty boxes. He was obliged to succumb to 'The Black Crook' and song-and-dance men and kicking artists, who crowded other places of amusement." Framed in this manner, the writer continues to sacralize Booth's messianic venture for the betterment of the American public and point to his ability to transcend struggle by saying. "So Booth went into bankruptcy, but afterw ards paid every dollar of his indebtedness, when he could have shirked from doing it. if it had been his nature so to do." The writer sees Booth's establishment of

The Players as an extension of his desire to erect a space dedicated as “an abiding place for all people who can show their title clear to honorable work upon the stage or in connection with dramatic art. The big theatre was a disastrious [sic] failure. The club is a success. The gift cost Booth a great sum of money." However, it is to the effect of Wilkes' assassination on Booth's life and career that the writer returns:

Every once in a while during all his patient, quiet life he was forcibly reminded of that terrible tragedy, indissolubly connected with the name of Booth. But, as far as the world ever could see, he outlived the sorrow of losing his father; he outlived the sorrow of losing his young wife of his early days; he outlived the unhappiness which grew of his union with Mary

378 MacVicker [sic]; he outlived the terrible tragedy of his brother's life and death. He was calumniated often, and he was upbraided for being morose and exclusive and selfish in keeping so much to himself.

According to the writer, even Booth's introverted nature is seen in sacrificial terms, commenting, "His sorrows and the privacies of his heart he kept to himself, as in a sanctuary.

No one ever was allowed to intrude.” After briefly recounting the successes of Booth's career and his most famous roles, the writer concludes by stating, "Some people say his end was hastened by excesses in smoking. Others say it was hastened by the successive shocks he had early in life. He would not be sixty until next November.”'’" In his obituary, the writer for the World succinctly capsulâtes the mythology which had been constructed around

Booth, positioning the assassination as the primary locus of his greatest struggle, and valorizing him for enduring and eventually overcoming the public's view of the Booth name and theatre in America. There is even some hint toward collective guilt that the American public did not recognize Booth's efforts to improve or educate them in his establishment of

Booth's Theatre. Booth's early death is suggested to have been caused by his endurance of misfortune, perhaps even inferring a misfortune at the hands of the American public, thus sacrificing his own life for the edification of the greater American good.

Montgomery Phister of the Cincinnati, Ohio Commercial claims a personal friendship with Booth, and recounts lengthy reports of conversations between himself and the actor.

In his biographical sketch, Phister recounts Booth's building of his theatre and his brother's assassination of Lincoln as the two signal tragic events in the actor's life. Booth's Theatre

was, according to Phister, Booth's "cherished scheme of building an American theater, which

‘^"“Edwin Booth Dead,” New York World 7 June 1893.

379 would be the noblest home of the drama in the world," but was an endeavor for which "the unappreciative public left his theater empty and flocked to see the cheap and nasty sensational plays that third-rate ‘barnstormers' and 'hamfatters' produced at rival houses."

Phister further reports, "his best critics are positive in their declarations that he never seemed to have fully recovered from the chagrin of the failure of his famous Twenty-third Street

Theater, New York." Immediately following his recounting o f the failure of Booth’s Theatre,

Phister details the effects of Wilkes' assassination on Booth, giving it equal space in the article, and reporting what seems to be public knowledge of Booth's reaction for the remainder of his life:

The assassination of President Lincoln by Mr. Booth’s brother, John Wilkes Booth, at Ford's Theater, Washington City, is a fact too well known to call for any lengthy rehearsal at this time. It was one of the saddest memories of the great tragedian's life, and never afterwards could he be persuaded to play at the Nation's Capitol nor. indeed, mention that unfortunate brother's name. Baltimore he visited but rarely, and Washington City w as always avoided in his travels. In fact, it is said that his great dread of the chance interviewer arose through the fear that, inadvertently, some allusion might be made to his best loved, though misguided brother, or the scenes of that tragedy that so shocked the world.

In concluding his article, Phister positions Booth as an artist in the tragic heroic vein,

enduring the struggles which beset him with a calm equanimity, balanced by a modest

reaction to his successes in what appears to be reflective of accepted American gentility.

Phister closes his paean to Booth by stating, "His disposition, however, was never soured by

reverses of fortune, nor his modesty overthrown by the applause of greatest triumph, while

his generosity broadened with declining years, and the most enduring monuments built to his

memory are his own self-sacrificing achievements in behalf of the profession he so loved and

380 honored."” ' For Phister, Booth's actions to redeem his profession are equal to or even outweigh his artistic achievements, and both are seen in the sacrificial discourse of a saint or martyr.

The writer for the Minneapolis Spectator observes. 'The tragic incident of his brother

J. Wilkes Booth, shooting President Lincoln ever had a depressing effect upon Edwin Booth's

life, and it is a matter of history that he has never played in the capital since that evening."

Booth's depoliticized m\ahology is highlighted by the writer's reporting, “Mr. Booth never

gave politics any attention. In all his life he cast but one ballot and that was for Abraham

Lincoln in 1864." In positioning Booth outside the frame of political discourse. Booth is

seen as having been on an efficacious mission extending beyond the limits of entertainment,

as exemplified by the writer stating, "H is greatness was due to more than art. It cam e for the

genius of a noble soul, with highest artistic development and earnest purpose." While

Booth's "earnest purpose " is not named, the writer ends his tribute by giving an indication

of Booth's acting style, and seems to link that with Booth's intention to redeem the

perception of his profession as well as it having an edifying effect on his audiences: “With

the rhythm and beauty of a perfect poem, flowed the expression of his art. Long will the

hallowed memory of his work remain to honor the profession which he ennobled; and ever

with exalted pleasure will those who witnessed his grand creations recall the wonderful

manifestations of his art and genius."”' While the rhetoric is somewhat effusive, it does, at

‘^‘Montgomery Phister, "Disturb Him Not: Let Him Pass Peaceably," The Cincinnati Commercial 7 June 1893.

‘^'"King of Tragedians," Minneapolis, MN Spectator 10 June 1893.

381 least, give some indication of Booth's style, and links his acting with the perception of Booth having a mandate to improve his profession and his audience.

The writer for the Saint Louis Republic effectively weaves Booth's mythology into his biographical narrative, lending substantial evidence to support that Booth's private misfortunes had become public knowledge and had become inextricably linked to the actor's public perception as a haunted tragic hero. The writer prefaces his article with a short biography of Junius Brutus Booth, who "could depict blazing passion and thrill the souls of his hearers with fiery eloquence," but was also "eccentric almost to the verge of insanity. He was given to fits of melancholy. He played fast and loose with the public. He was intemperate." According to the writer, Edwin Booth "frequently accompanied his father on long professional journeys, and had more influence over him in his sullen and excitable moods than any other person." It appears that the younger Booth's influence for moral betterment was presaged in his experiences with his father, as the writer contends that of the

"new" generation of actors following the elder Booth, none "has had a more honorable career, or set a better example in the pursuit of his calling, than Edwin Booth." In describing

Edwin Booth's acting style, the writer indicates he provided a model for good actors in the use of a codified system of symbology, which for an actor to emulate he must "possess a recognizable symbol for every passion and emotion and every shade of feeling, and never misplace a symbol; he must understand his physical self perfectly, control every muscle, and know exactly the effect produced by every gesture, every pose, every tone of his voice, and every change of feature; he must have in short, perfect command of himself and put all his resources to harmonious use." The critic offers further illumination into Booth's style by

382 comparing it against critical objections that the actor was apparently not “natural.” and explains or defends it by stating, "When envious detractors used to say of him glibly that he

acted rather from the traditions of the stage than from any ideal of his own. they missed the

exact truth, and their shafts fell short of the mark. Edwin Booth had exalted ideas of his

own. The intellectual actor, who reasons about his work, has stronger ideals than the one

whose best powers are intuitive, whose genius is his only guide, and who creates striking

effects by processes that defy analysis.” This comment especially contradicts the contention

that Booth was “old school.” or a stylistic replication of his father's acting approach. The

writer infers that while Booth was keenly aware and utilized some traditional precedents, he

was engaged in synthesizing an approach which was uniquely his own. Booth’s opaque

technique is referenced by the writer stating, “Booth used his voice as a Joachim used his

violin; he knew it thoroughly, and he played upon it witli exquisite art. To see him act was

not 'like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightening.’ but the thoughts of the great poet

were illumined with a steady if not dazzling light, and all the melody that belongs to his verse

was preserved.” Clearly, the reference to Hazlitt’s critique of Kean indicates a consistent

totality in Booth’s performance, rather than an adherence to the “point” system of the

previous generation. The writer states that Edwin Booth was “the last of the tragedians,”

explicating his remark by contrasting Booth with the contemporary generation of realistic

actors who are “impersonators first of all; the tendency of the modem stage is toward the

elevation of the ‘character actor’ ; Edwin Booth and his predecessors were, beyond everything

else, interpreters of poets.” The writer specifically references two actors identified with the

realist approach, noted for their idiosyncratic portrayals based on “natural” models, and

383 compares them to Booth by saying Booth's acting “was not electrifying and romantic, like

Fechter's uneven but telling portrayal; it did not have the stamp of modem thought or the sympathy with modem art that Irv ing's odd but fascinating Hamlet has." The writer moves from an evaluation of Booth’s stylistic approach to the symbiotic influence of Booth's personal mythology and professional career:

He had the Booth name, at once a great and honored name and an abhorred one. Although Edwin's mother was always recognized as his father's wife, yet another woman claimed that position and Edwin's friends have thought that he was always very sensitive about his birth and exaggerated the family dishonour. He realized with bittemess that the infamy of his younger brother served to advertise him. and he hated the advertisement. His natural disposition was modest and retiring: he had a morbidly sensitive nature. His private life was clouded by calamity. The death of his first wife was a cmel blow, and he did not have a tranquil existence with his second wife, whose unreasonable jealousy was a mania, and who died demented. He became morose and gloomy. He could not bear affliction philosophically, and. moreover, he was constantly at war with the worser part of his nature. Yet he was regarded affectionately by all who knew him well. He was loved and respected by the people. History will speak well of him.’’ '

In closing the article, the writer offers several anecdotes about Edwin Booth's reaction to

reminders of his brother in later life, which seem to have worked their way into the fabric of

his overall public mythology . What is most valuable in this appraisal of Booth's acting is

the actor's standing outside of both the “new" realist acting style and the “old" style of his

predecessors, indicating that Booth was engaged in a stylistic approach that was uniquely his

own.

‘^^“Booth is Dead," Saint Louis Repubhc 7 June 1893.

384 The San Francisco Chronicle frames Booth as a symbolic representative for a particular genre of theatrical art which mingled aesthetic presentation with efficacious imperatives. In the obituary article, the writer states.

The public have not only lost a man they would not willingly let die; the stage, art, the profession, all suffer a kind of eclipse. To those who view the stage as something with a higher purpose than to stir or to amuse. Booth seems to be the vanishing spirit of legitimate art. He leaves behind as the drama a turgid, seething melange of vulgar face, polished, vicious comedy, puerile emotion, spurious sensation of all kinds. Some few struggle, with a trifling success, to keep up the classic in acting, but it is hard, for they have not the commanding power of him who was its exponent for so many years. 1 X I

The comparison between Booth’s acting and the evident predominance of realism is again made in the New York Musical Courier critic’s statement, "We prate of realism, truth to life, characterization; and Ibsen, with his galleiy of pathologic and psychic horrors, is a new cross added to the weary shoulders of the dramatic critic. To be poetic in this last decade of the century is to be old fashioned. Booth was ever poetic, yet he never seemed antiquated. He

is gone, and, ’the rest is silence.’"'^^ The comment indicates, again, that Booth’s "poetic”

style was not reflective of a previous generation, but the designation of "old fashioned" is

garnered in its juxtaposition to the dominant realist stvle as typified, to the writer, by Ibsen’s

psychological/social studies,

M least as frequent, if not more so, than the critical evaluations of Edwin Booth’s

acting legacy are the connections made to his brother’s assassination of Lincoln which

contribute to the construction of his public mythos. The London Chronicle, perhaps evincing

‘^ “Death of Edwin Booth," San Francisco Chronicle 7 June 1893,

‘^'New York Musical Courier 14 June 1893,

385 recognition of Booth as a nationalistic symbol after his successful collaborations with Irving, frames Booth as a representative for a new, more civilized America emerging from the rough and tumble foundations of its beginnings by stating, “Bom just as the Republic under that rugged specimen of Western civilization, Andrew Jackson, was emerging from its provincialism, and fusing into a nation, with the prestige of a great name to force a hearing.

Booth visited California in the mad days which followed hard upon the rush of ‘Forty-

Niners' to the Golden Gate." The writer continues by observing how Wilkes' assassination effected both the private personality and the public perception of Edwin Booth. sa\ing it was

“an event which developed the morbid, the emotional side of an already eccentric personality, and once more enveloped the actor in a new atmosphere; marked him in the eyes of a people inclined by early experience and early education to take either a broadly humorous or a deeply tragic view of life, as one apart from other men, an ideal exponent of that Hamlet which had been familiar to them from childhood when the Bible and

Shakespeare were their only text-books." The writer posits that Booth's position as being

“apart from other men" contributed to his national idolization, so that even Booth's

“extravagant" financial terms did not deter the public from attending his performances during

his later career, to a degree that “scarcely a town in the United States boasting a thousand

inhabitants, failed to subscribe the required sum. and secure a performance, in some cases

his audience being drawn from a section of territory almost as large as England." However,

the writer concludes the article by reminding his audience of the duality of Booth's appeal,

stating, "People came for miles to hear him, often camping out all night before the booking

386 office, and then paying extravagant prices to see one who was not only the great actor, but the brother of John Wilkes Booth."' "

The effect of Wilkes’ crime on Edwin Booth’s personality, at least in the public perception, can be seen in a letter from an unnamed Chicago physician who claims to have known Booth, and who argues with the opinion that his relatively early death was brought about by his hea\ y smoking. According to the physician. "Mr. Booth's life was not an even life. It was turbulent and irregular; and it was overcast by the melancholy that arose from his brother's acts and from the other misfortunes of his family[.. .]In addition. I never knew a man who suffered so harshly in a physical sense from what might be called sentimental grief.

It pervaded his life and made his system, although he was naturally strong, less able to

withstand disease. He was always the melancholy Dane."' ' Similarly, the writer for The

Critic contributes to Edwin Booth’s tragic martyr status as effectuated by Wilkes’ crime by

staling. "The assassination of Lincoln overwhelmed him with shame and horror, and

although no sane person ever dreamed of associating him even remotely with that atrocious

and idiotic butchery, his sensitive nature impelled him to expiate it vicariously by a life-long

seclusion. Even now that he is dead, it is best to pass quickly and lightly over the agony of

those days."'^** In contrast. J. H. Mead, writing for the St. Joseph. Missouri Herald pointedly

reminds his or her readers that Edwin Booth’s death "recalled one of the most sensational

events in the countrv's historv. Yet verv little has been said of the assassination of President

'^"’’Death of Edwin Booth. ” London Chronicle 8 June 1893.

' ’ Letter to the Editor. Chicago Post 10 June 1893.

'^'^The Critic 10 June 1893.

387 Lincoln by J. Wilkes Booth, brother of the great actor." Stating that before the assassination,

Edwin Booth was a "gay and careless young man, who only saw the bright side of things," he was afterward, "austere, retiring and moody. Even his most intimate friends rarely saw him smile in after years." The hyperbolic exaggeration of Booth's personality can be seen as supportive of the attendant myth that Mead is constructing, particularly in his statement,

"A ll the interest he had in life he gave to the stage, and at last he fought down the unjust prejudices of so-called ,A.mericans who seemed to look upon him as a sort of an accomplice of his brother." In this locus. Booth's dramatic industry is seen as a reaction to the disastrous effects of his brother's assassination, and Booth's sacrificial status is concretized in Mead's estimation. "The frequent outbursts of ill-feeling pained him deeply, but at the same time

strengthened his determination to win, and at last when he conquered there was no more in

life to interest him."‘^‘* For Mead. Booth's expiation of his brother's crime consumed his

life, achieving an Oedipai "tragic paradox" in achieving his desired goal of restoring honor

to the Booth name and at the same time effecting his own destruction by his efforts.

The trope of Edwin Booth's unjust suffering and heroic struggle as a result of Wilkes'

act is repeated by the writer for the Potsdam, New York Courier, who begins the article by

stating, "The name of Edwin Booth will ever remain revered in American history as the

greatest Hamlet, and by a strange irony of fate that of his brother Wilkes will go down the

centuries as the most dastardly assassin in America’s progress." Booths' martyr status is

inferred in the writer's description of the assassination as a deed "that caused a sob of

‘■‘'J. H. Mead. "Booth's History: Edwin’s Life Was Clouded by His Brother’s Crime," St. Joseph, MO Herald 11 June 1893.

388 anguish to sweep around the world, and the fair honor of the name of Booth was blotted out with the life of the murdered president.” The writer gives equal weight to the effects of

Lincoln's assassination on the nation and the effects it had on Booth's reputation, as well as his personal reaction to his brother's crime:

The people of America and the heart of all Christendom suffered in it a terrible shock and bitter bereavement. Consternation, grief, and rage swept over the land. The excitement of that hour was wild and indiscriminate; the relatives of the maniac who took the life of President Lincoln suffered under the odium of unjust suspicion and popular resentment. The knowledge that a brother was thus steeped in guilt and ignominy was a heavy weight of woe to Edwin Booth. Immediate and superficial troubles incident to the hideous experience could be endured and surmounted: but the sense of the crime itself, as done in all its awful wickedness and madness by one of his own kin, imposed upon his sensitive, conscientious nature an acute, irremedial anguish. For a time his hard-earned reputation, the honor of his name and the station and repute of his family seemed destroyed. Life in the present was a blank, and beyond the present a waste of misery stretched into the future.

The writer concludes that Booth only returned to the stage as a result of his personal obligations to his daughter. The resumption of his career was aided by a growing public awareness of Edwin Booth's nobility, as the writer states, "The softening influence of public sympathy, which presently began to set toward him in a strong tide of interest, made the duty of a reappearance more practicable and more tolerable than it could otherwise have been.”

In this light. Booth's return to the stage is seen as a "duty” in which the American public is seen as having a place in making, if not demanding, its fulfillment. The obligatory nature of Booth's return to the stage is foregrounded by the writer's conclusion that if there were not "an imperative necessity that Edwin Booth should return to the stage he would never have acted again,” thus framing the rest of Booth's career as an act of reluctant sacrifice.

‘■^"The Last Booth,” Potsdam, NY Courier 14 June 1893.

389 To the writer for the New York Advertiser. Edwin Booth's refusal to perform in

Washington after the assassination was "a costly remorse which did him honor" for which the writer knows "of no similar evidence o f the historical and moral quality in the histoiy; of the stage." Booth’s decision never to play in Washington is contrasted with the announcement made by John T. Ford to reopen Ford's Theatre "before the blood of Lincoln was well scoured from the floor, and this led Secretary Stanton to buy the theater, in order that the scene of Lincoln's murder might not become a variety show." The writer contends that Booth "was fitted to become a noble actor by natural e.xperience and suffering." who. in contrast with his brother, "was very little seen among the haunts of men or picking up friendships in the barrooms." The writer concludes his article by equating Edwin Booth's sacrifice in the name of nobility with the financial loss he incurred by refusing to appear in

Washington:

Washington could have given Edwin Booth from 55.000 to S 10.000. perhaps 520.000 every year he lived, subsequent to the dastardly act of this brother, but with the feeling which Secretary Stanton had. that his brother had outraged hospitality, like Macbeth, and desecrated with the name of Booth the public capital [sic], he refused for all the remainder of his life to wear his theater trappings or take toll at the theater gate in the city of Washington. You can compute at 55.000 a year, for twenty-five years how Edwin Booth sacrificed 5125.000 to the name, not of this brother, but of Mr. Lincoln, for whom he voted when Lincoln ran the second time for President. If he could have made 510,000 a year out of Washington City, and I think it quite probable, he sacrificed $250,000. It might be said over his grave, “Here lies an actor who would rather have reverence than money.'

For the writer, the name of Booth was desecrated along with the public capitol and, in consequence. Booth's refusal to appear in Washington was not in response to liis brother, but

‘■“"Booths, Father and Sons," New York Advertiser 16 June 1893.

390 in deference to the memory of Lincoln. While the motives for Edwin Booth's action can be seen as stemming from his brother's act. the means in which he responded to the act transcended, for the writer, his connection witli Wilkes and aligned him more directly with

Lincoln and public honor. In this way, the private consequences of Wilkes' murder on the

Booth name is transformed into a public act of redemption by Edwin's responses.

The critic for The Nation took a generally less laudatory view of Booth's career, particularly finding fault in the fact that "after being the foremost tragedian of his country for more than thirty years, he has not only left behind him no successor whose shoulders are worthy of bearing his mantle, but no group of disciples, not even one young man or young woman who can be said to illustrate the effect of his example." The writer feels that Booth might have used his position and influence to found "a stock company which would have been an ideal school of acting, and have fostered a healthy public interest in the poetic drama, which is now languishing for the lack of competent expositors," leading the writer to conclude that Booth was “unmindful of the broader obligation of serving the art that had served him." The accusation leveled against him is somewhat ameliorated in the writer's observation that Booth's "retiring disposition and contemplative habit were the logical outcome, doubtless, of the sorrows and trials that beset him. And the same causes, perhaps, cooperated to make him a great actor rather than a great manager or an ardent reformer."

Even though Booth left no successor or training school behind him, thus becoming the last practitioner of the poetic tragedy with which he was most closely associated, the writer feels

"he helped to elevate the profession of which he was so bright an ornament, not only by the splendor of his stage career, but by the purity of his personal character, his devotion to his

391 family, his patience under affliction, his unfailing courtesy and gentleness, his sweetness of temper, and his wholesome freedom from the conceit which is the besetting sin of lesser theatrical performers."'^- This view is taken by the writer for New York Churchman, who sees Booth's contribution to his profession by him making "the name of 'actor' clean and wholesome in society" compounded by his ability to compel "men to forget, for the time, their personal cares and troubles, and to enter into the broader sphere of the common humanity, and the amazing variety of the common human life."‘‘‘'

While many other testimonials and eulogies from Booth's friends and co-workers

sur\ ive, this sampling from the journalistic press serves to exemplify the public perception

of Booth on the occasion of his death. The aggregate impression garnered from these notices

indicates a public perception that Edwin Booth was profoundly effected by his brother's

assassination on a personal and professional level, and the remainder of his illustrious career

was spent in an effort to redeem its deleterious consequences on his family's reputation, the

standing of the actor and the acting profession in .American society, and, more obliquely, the

national consciousness. Booth is positioned as an exotic Other generated by the inherited

peculiarities of his father which accorded him special insights into theatrical practice while

prompting his brother to commit the nation's most infamous crime. The dual nature of the

Booth gift/curse underscores Edwin's ability to utilize its Promethean power for moral good,

in juxtaposition against Wilkes' inability to harness it and thus bringing about his own and

the nation's near destruction, while exemplifying Nietzsche's contention that the tragic hero

‘■‘-"Edwin Booth." The Nation 56.1459 (15 June 1893): 435.

'■‘^The Churchman [New York] 17 June 1893.

392 must endure suffering due to the supernatural gifts which have been accorded him. Booth is seen to have endured his successive trials with increasing humility, patience, and moral rectitude, providing a model of behavior reminiscent of the mythos constructed around the ideal of the martyred Lincoln which transcended the fictive boundaries of his stage roles.

Booth's celebrity, by most accounts, crossed class and gender boundaries, and while some part of it can doubtless be ascribed to a morbid curiosity to see the brother of Lincoln's assassin, it is also evident that Booth was a figure of public hero worship. However, the nature of his hero status seems fundamentally different from the formula of identification and proximity posited by McConachie for antebellum theatrical stars. Whereas Forrest used public knowledge of his personal difficulties to empathically link himself with the public.

Booth's refusal to publically comment on his private life, and his increasing withdrawal into seclusion except for his theatrical performances, served to elevate him into a semi-divine status. The exoticism of his public persona, combined with the perception of a moral imperative in his acting and an iconic nationalism in his extensive domestic touring and lauded representation abroad, can conceivably have augmented the success of Nietzsche's tragic effect when "ghosted" with Booth's overtly poetic, distanced, and metaphoric approach in theatrical style.

What, precisely, the outcome that Booth's or Nietzsche's tragic effect produced is impossible to determine. Nineteenth century critical terminology is particularly slippery, and such emotionally qualified reactions as "sublime" can be interpreted in a Marxist frame as

a commodified reward bestowed by a bourgeois audience to its favorite star.'^ Some critics.

‘■^McConachie 75.

393 such as Andrew Carpenter Wheeler, seem to have defined tragedy in terms of form, thereby declaring in 1890 that the modem public had "outgrown Shakespeare" and had no tolerance for the heightened poetry, overwrought passions, cruelty and fatalism in his tragedies, and that modem playwrights had rightly invented Melodrama as a comfortable substitute.

George Odell, while not specifically defining his conception of tragedy, observed, "The passing of Booth and Barrett closed an epoch in American theatrical history. If, as Garrick is said to have said, tragedy died with Mrs. Cibber, in America it died with Booth and

Barrett."''"' Furtwangler believes that Lincoln’s assassination marked the waning of tragedy in America. His contention, although not so stated, echoes that posited by Duerrenmatt in his "Problems of the Theatre” treatise on the impossibility of tragedy in modem society.

Furtwangler theorizes that Lincoln’s assassination coincided with enormous westward expansion which made a unified societal ethos, necessary for the tragic effect to succeed, impossible. He also posits that the real life tragedy of the assassination diminished the effect that any fictive tragedy might have by comparison. Finally, the mythology constructed around Lincoln after his assassination gave him the stature of a "nonpareil American martyr," and the Constitutional ideals his death ratified, specifically the impossibility of "inherent superiority of one person over another," makes the perception of individualized heroism,

"particularly tragic heroes who must assimilate and symbolize the identity of an entire

‘■‘"’A, C, Wheeler, "The Extinction of Shakespeare,” .Arena I (March 1890) 423-31.

‘■'^George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage, XTV (New York: Columbia UP, 1945)5427

394 people,” an impossibility in America's enormous and "emphatically democratic” societyi-i?

For some understanding of how late nineteenth century America viewed tragedy, and how Booth's approach coincided with that conception, it is valuable to reference Oggel's symbiotic model between the two. Oggel studies the promptbooks and critical notes that

Booth made on several of his tragic roles, particularly Othello and Macbeth, and compares

Booth's approach with major critical statements on tragedy made in the last half of the nineteenth century. Oggel focuses on Booth's interpretations in the early 1880s, feeling that this period was one in which Booth "was in the flower of his artistry and at the height of his pow-er.”’’*''' In his study, Oggel finds that Booth was more concerned with executing his parts with a fidelity of interpretation than for the sake of applause, subordinating "theatrical” to

"dramatic” success in such a way that "[a]n understanding of the play preceded success on the stage.”''*'’ Booth’s cuts in Othello highlighted the central theme and conflict of the play,

reducing or eliminating scenes which were not germane to the central issue, and increasing

the likelihood that "middle and late 19th-century audiences would applaud Booth's refining,

compacting devices of juxtaposing cause and effect and of distilling the title character's

conflict by a reduction of sub-plots and sub-conflicts. The important thing to note is that in

place of these cuts bombast, rhetoric, and action were not substituted.”'^" Booth's textual

'"* Furtwangler 145-47.

'■‘^Oggel, "Edwin Booth and America's Concept...” 127.

'^"Oggel 161-62.

''"Oggel 163.

395 changes evince an attempt to “make Shakespeare even more credible, and perhaps to avoid the possible criticism of sentimentality which Shakespeare himself is liable to.”'''* Oggel's position that Booth attempted to avoid sentimentality, particularly as connected with the

“romantic" school of acting, coincides with the distanced, objective approach which has been posited in Chapter 4. Oggel also notes that Booth's excision of sexual innuendo and bawdy puns in the text were reflective of Booth's awareness of the theatre's questionable standing in American culture after the war. As Oggel states. “Throughout 19th-century .America, a stigma surrounded the theater. It was felt to be corrupting and licentious. Booth was made aware of this attitude directly and indirectly constantly, and no doubt it was a strong

motivation in his attempts to make the theater acceptable as an art form."'-" Oggel further

posits that Booth's editing of offensive passages rested on Booth's theory of the purpose of

tragedy, and it was from Booth's “conviction that good tragedy depicted moral issues—and

was therefore a kind of moral lesson, though expressed naturally, not didactically, as his

notes made abundantly clear—that Booth cleaned up Othello. The elimination of Bianca, the

cutting of gross puns by Othello and, especially, by lago were due as much to this concept

of tragedy as to Victorian tastes."''’^ William Winter states that Booth's Othello “was

affluent with feeling, eloquent, picturesque, and it was admirable for sustained power and

symmetry. [...] Shakespeare's Moor is the hero of a poetical tragedy - a tragedy that deals

with the facts of life, not in their commonplace, everyday form, but in an exalted and

‘^‘Oggel 164.

‘^'Osael 166.

'"Oggel 166.

396 exaggerated To this end, it seems reasonable for Oggel to conclude that “to focus on perversion in [the] play is to weaken the focus on the healthy and positive values of the drama.”'" Booth played Othello as a bronzed Moor, not a black African, which, as Oggel finds in comments contained in Furness' Variorum edition of the play, coincides with a decidedly racist but apparently predominant critical contention which held “that a black

Othello was necessary for a portrayal of a barbaric nature and bronzed Othello indicated a passionate but human nature.”'"'' As Winter observes. Booth’s Othello evinced a love for

Desdemona which was not “a sensual love, nor [was] his sacrifice of her beautiful and

blameless life an act of ferocious slaughter.” but when the scene arrives for Othello to kill

her in her bedchamber, "it is as an act of inexorable justice, and not as an act of murder, that

the blow is struck.”'" In concluding his study of Booth's Othello. Oggel states. “Booth's

texts show the actor seeking to portray a very human hero - not an animal behaving on a sub­

human level. To this end. Booth emphasized Othello's love for Desdemona; likewise he

stressed Macbeth's love for his wife.” '""

It is in Booth's Macbeth that Oggel sees a close parallel to nineteenth century theories

of the tragic effect, and a distinct break on Booth's part from the traditional portrayal of the

character as typified by Forrest. As Winter explains. "In the presence of Macbeth we

'-^Winter. Life and Art 194.

'""Oggel 167.

'""Oggel 167.

15 Winter 193.

‘""Oggel 185.

397 confront a man whose views are noble, whose language is by turns tender, pious, poetic, and sublime, but whose deeds are infernal, and whose life suddenly supplements a career of spotless personal purity and admirable heroism with a culmination of frantic depravity and hideous wickedness.”'"' To this end. Booth's plan, like Shakespeare's was "to depict a great and noble nature, containing the germs of evil, and to show it in agony and ruin, under the victorious influence of an infernal malignity. Macbeth, viewed as a man who wades by choice through a sea of blood, may present a terrible spectacle, but he is far less sublime and pathetic, and therefore far less a magnificent creation, than Macbeth viewed as a man of grand attributes, and even of tenderness, helpless in the hands of a cruel and horrible destiny.

Macbeth suffers.”'"" In this view. Booth's Macbeth meets Nietzsche's criteria of the enduring tragic hero, and Booth's foregrounding of the philosophical dialectic in the text is demonstrated in his portrayal of a Macbeth who realizes the monstrous evil of his crimes as well as "the appalling consequences to himself that must result from them. It is not until he becomes frenzied with desperation that he yields to the mad impulse of indiscriminate and illimitable havoc. Up to that time his condition and conduct present a perfectly heart-rending example of the discomfiture and gradual defeat and ultimate ruin of a great soul that is conquered by the powers of hell.”'"'

Oggel concludes that Booth's conception of tragedy coincided with those held by the leading dramatic and literary critics of his age, as exemplified by William Winter, and that

‘-nvinter 186.

"W in te r 187.

'"‘Winter 187.

398 foremost among its requisites was that "drama was a moral force, and that ‘morality’ is at the center of all serious drama."'"- Booth's emphasis on suffering and calamity connects his concept of tragedy with that as stated by A. C. Bradley in his 1904 Shakespearean Tragedy, in which he believes Shakespeare’s tragedies are "essentially a tale of suffering and calamity conducting to death."Oggel also notes the similarity in Booth’s approach to that stated by Parke Godwin, who posits that the purpose of the tragic art is to present humans rather than beasts, who are "perverted by evil, hardened by crime, wholly bent away from goodness and truth, and yet capable of both goodness and truth, and at their worst exhibiting, perhaps, masterly intellect, heroic courage, sublime defiance, strong affection—are like Milton's fallen angels. ‘The excess of glory obscured.Finally, in his examination of the predominant critical opinion of Booth’s period. Oggel notes, “several significant men of letters, representing a cross-section of the arts—and writing within the same general period of time— are seen to be agreeing that character is the primary motivating factor in a work of art—in tragedy specifically for Booth. Godwin. Lowell. Matthews. Bradley, and Melville."For

Oggel. Booth’s "close attention to textual and interpretive matters [and] his restoration of

several of Shakespeare’s original texts" complement his "more character-orientated

'"-Oggel 233.

''Oggel 235.

‘"^Parke Godwin. Memorial Celebration of the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Birth of Edwin Booth (New York: Players. 1893) 36: quoted in Oggel 237.

165 Oggel 239.

399 performances, and his emphasis on the importance and value of the acting profession.”*'^

Moreover, although he does not reference Nietzsche in his study, Oggel's interpretation of

Booth's approach as reflective of a nineteenth century American theory of tragedy, closely resembles Nietzsche's theory of the tragic effect as fundamentally character driven, with a moral imperative to foreground the durability of the human will in the face of successive trials.

A final observation regarding Wheeler's and Odell's comment that the age of

American tragedy ended with the age of Booth might be made in considering the social frame

of the country contained within the boundaries of Lincoln's assassination and the beginning

of the twentieth century. McConachie states, "If tragedy, by definition, requires that the

protagonist helps to cause his or her own fate, the role of villainy and the unseen hand of the

Almighty in shaping the martyrdom of Forrest's yeoman Christs mandate a nontragic form

for Metamora. Jack Cade, and The Gladiator. In effect, Jacksonianism shifted Forrest's

vehicles out of the world of romantic tragedy and into the form of heroic melodrama.”""

While McConachie offers a valid interpretation that Forrest's vehicles invite their Jacksonian

spectators to applaud the efforts of the "common " man to throw off the oppression of

paternalistic control, he does not mention the possibility of a reestablishment of an

Aristotelean tragic effect as represented in the acting style of Edwin Booth.'"** A possible

'""Oggel 240.

lo'McConachie 103-04.

'""It is my contention that Nietzsche's explanation of the tragic effect is an explication of that found in the Poetics.

400 explanation for this is in the perception of a cosmic, or at least a national order, which would facilitate an easier segue into the fundamentally conserv ative melodramatic form. Jacksonian

America, albeit rough hewn, valorized a vision of an ordered society in which self-made

Americans vanquished threats from foreign shores and the principles of a Constitutional democracy could be seen as tangible in the concept of Manifest Destiny. Even the conflict and eventual resolution of the Civil War, as Boorstin has pointed out, was seen as a reinstatement of the Constitutional system to accommodate sectionalized ideologies.'"'' The assassination, and its subsequent threats of social upheaval as explored in Chapter Three, obliterated the national perception of Constitutional and social order, which was not restored until the establishment of economic hierarchies and a renewed faith in scientific progressivism near the end of the century.' " It was within the gulf of the perception of chaotic disorder from the mid 1860s through the late 1880s, the period in which Booth was at his artistic zenith, that the tragic effect was facilitated in America. To understand this, it is useful to turn to Bert O. States' definition of tragedy and tragic vision. For States, the tragic vision "springs from an awareness that time and value cannot be called back and the belief that Being has no other' except Nothingness."''' Rather than framing this as a cynically pessimistic postulate. States believes it is closer to the understanding of an indifference in the causal order to the order of human value. As he explains, "If there were

'"‘'Daniel J. Boorstin, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago; U of Chicago P, 1958) 131-32.

'■"See Levine 171-242.

' 'Bert O. States, "Tragedy and Tragic Vision: A Darwinian Supplement to Thomas Van Lann,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism VI.2 (Spring 1992) 10.

401 a direct relationship between causality and human value, if there were a clear sense in which we all get ’what we deserve' in a world with a dependable set of rules, there would be no need for tragedy and nothing in life to arouse a tragic vision. ' The second proposition for tragic vision is that the tragic visionary accepts the above condition unintimidated and self- reliant. “without the least suppression, subterfuge or whimpering.[...] For the moment any of these various subterfuges appear, we leave the tragic vision and enter the religious, the

mystical, the pathetic, the ethical, or some other sphere."' ■ Once accepting of this condition,

"it is a tragic truth that we do. in part, author our own fates, and this is one of the factors that

allows us to resist giving the name of tragedy to natural disasters, to casual or mass slaughter,

or to most naturalistic plays and novels with social agendas."' ■* In tandem with the concept

of self agency is the implication of “a certain factor of recognition, or awareness - if nothing

else, an awareness that each "single and peculiar' life, despite the indifference of the causal

order, has. after all. its own intelechial shape."' " This definition resembles Nietzsche's

position in that it does not equate "recognition" w ith "affirmation." which would transform

his redemptive healing into a religious transcendence, but is closer to a sense of "self-

consciousness" rather than causality, in which frame, as States observes, "its patron saint is

Prince Hamlet."' '’ For States, like Nietzsche, the redemptive effect of tragedy is in the

''-States 10.

'^States 10.

' ■'States 11.

'"States 11.

""States 11.

402 recognition of sheer existence in the ever present, rather than in a hope for transcendence in the always future. When staring into the Dionysian abyss brought about by the titanic changes in the perception of social order after the assassination, it is possible to conceive how an American audience could witness the real and fictive example of Booth's endurance as a validation of existence itself, redemptively healing the consequences of Wilkes' action into significations of survival against seemingly unconquerable obstacles, and transforming cries of hunent into songs of praise.

In conclusion, this study suggests the possibility that Edwin Booth's contribution to

-American acting should be reconsidered as being beyond the reductive compartmentalization of "classical, " "formal," "intellectual," or "romantic" with which it is most often associated

in surveys of nineteenth century American theatre. The received image of Edwin Booth is

still primarily based on Eleanor Ruggles' 1953 sentimental biography, with no extensive,

scholarly réévaluation of his acting or his life appearing since. While Booth is often heralded

as the model for an American acting style of underplayed realism, the critical evidence

suggests that he abandoned this approach at least by the time he built and managed Booth's

Theatre, and remained consistently in a non-realist frame for the remaining nineteen years

of his career. The documentation also suggests that Booth was not following popular fashion

in theatrical tastes, for he did not succumb to the financial lure of such entertainments as The

Black Crook nor did he adopt the steadily pervasive move toward psychological realism as

exemplified by Ibsen's growing popularity. Rather, Booth was considered the model for his

profession, and most tragic actors who had garnered any popular notice were compared to

his touchstone in technique and repertoire. Booth achieved unprecedented, and arguably

-103 unmatched, preeminence as America's foremost actor, while aggressively avoiding the public attention sought after and achieved by such contemporaries as Mark Twain and Sarah

Bernhardt. While part of Booth's fascination must be attributed to his status as brother of

Lincoln's assassin, this does not logically account for his elevation into mythic hero status by the general American public, nor for the unsolicited private testimonials of the transformative power of his acting as recorded by Clarke. Garland and Stone.

Edwin Booth began his career by consciously distancing himself from his father's

Heroic style of thrillingly opaque theatricalism intended to engender a shared community between actor and audience through a symbiotic relationship of repeated effect and response.

After apprenticing in a variety of theatrical venues for frontier audiences. Booth returned to the East having settled on a repertory of predominantly tragic Shakespearean plays from which he did not substantially deviate for the rest of his career. His slight build, intellectual bearing, and reserved personality led him to adopt a more quiet and introspective approach in his acting, which meshed with the public's interest in the growing popularity of realism in the late 1850s and 1860s. His tutelage under Adam Badeau introduced him to the benefits of studying critical writings, portraits, works of realist artists, and depictions of locales in order to achieve historical accuracy in his characters' appearance and in his settings. Badeau also valorized realism as a distinctly American art form and instilled in Booth the idea that he was its best representative. Mary Devlin Booth replaced Badeau as Booth's tutor and chief critic, and urged him to continue in his pursuit to adopt a conversational, colloquial

approach in his line readings while impressing in him a moral imperative in his theatrical

labor. While she encouraged him to find new plays, specifically to avoid plays which echoed

404 a classical formalism which she felt were inaccessible to American audiences, she admonished him not to do texts in the immoral “French” mode dealing with courtesans and the demi-monde. Booth maintained his largely classical repertory', and critical response placed him among the rising stars of the realist school, although some critics found his approach unsuitable for his classical texts. His style appears to have achieved the effect of experiencing genuine emotions on stage, and he was lauded for his closeness to nature, his consistency of performance, and his development of justified psychological causality in his motivation. Booth became the character through a transformative process in which he subsumed his own personality into that of his character, and elicited an empathie, sympathetic response from his audiences.

Shortly after returning to the stage following his brother's assassination of the president. Edwin Booth created an acting style which appears to have engendered a distinctly different reaction from his audiences. His performances were noted for their intense intellectualism which shifted the audience's focus from identification with the character to contemplation of the dialectic arguments in his texts. Booth foregrounded the actor's process of artistic creation while he was performing, achieving a dual presence of both actor and

character on stage, disallowing the audience to become enveloped in the fictive world by

reminding them the work they were witnessing was, in fact, a construct. By approaching his

poetic texts as poetry rather than dialogue. Booth appears to have shifted his characters from

signifiers of emotion to signifiers of thought, becoming a metaphoric sign system in which

his characters represented a philosophical argument. His design of Booth's Theatre, and the

settings and stage machinery which he employed for his productions there, served as

405 metatheatrical devices which constantly reminded the audience of the presence of the actor as authonity ) of the productions as well as the various mechanical processes involved in the creation of theatrical illusion. After the theatre's financial failure. Booth continued to tour domestically and internationally, achieving a following which was tantamount to deification, although he assiduously avoided practicing measures which might be expected from an actor who wished to promote himself to the public. WTiile nineteenth century American audience may have lacked critical discourse to accurately convey the effects of Booth's performances to a contemporary reader, the effects he engendered appear to have been profound and passionate. Without a basis to contextualize and quantify Booth's U'agic effect, they were limited to terms of spirituality, edification, education, ennoblement, or the poetic. It might be suggested that their failure to adequately describe the theatrical experiences they shared with Booth is due to its efficacy on a non-cognitive level. Nietzsche's attempt to discursively approximate the tragic effect is an act of staring into the abyss with a cry of exultation.

While evocative, this is still only an attempt to make the ephemeral comprehensible, and one

suspects it is a pale representation of the concept he saw. or fell, within.

The purpose of this study is to suggest that part of Booth's status was caused by the

real or constructed perception of efficaciousness in his post assassination acting style, with

an imperative aim of redemptive healing as explained by Nietzsche's examination of the

tragic effect. Combining a non-realist, distanced approach which encouraged critical

thinking on the dialectic arguments presented in Booth's fixed repertoire of tragic texts, with

a mythologized presence of exotic Otherness which blurred the distinction between the

fictive and the real. Booth appears to have effectuated a blending of the Apollinian image

406 with the Dionysian concept to produce Nietzsche's "nausea." closely approximating

Aristotle's notion of catharsis. Although Booth's moral imperative was sometimes framed in Christian discourse, evidence suggests that he was neither a member of nor embraced by any particular religious organization. His moral didacticism might be seen as a valorization of existence, then, rather than transcendence, aligning him with the purposes of Nietzsche's

tragic hero rather than with the Christ-like imagery constructed around him consequent to

his connective mythology with Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.

Edwin Booth, and the effect he had on his nineteenth century audiences, will remain

forever unknowable. What is known is that his theatrical performances engendered a

reaction which is arguably unprecedented and unmatched in the history of American theatre.

While this enigmatic figure warrants continued investigation and inquiry from a multiplicity

of frames, whatever constituted the effects of his peculiar brand of tragedy was generally

acknowledged to have died with his death.

407 BIBU0GR.4PHY

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Bates, Finis L. Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, Assassin of President Lincoln. Memphis: Pilcher Printing Co., 1907.

408 Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. New York: Routledge. 1990. Boorstin, Daniel J. The Genius of American Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Booth, John Wilkes. "Right or Wrong, God Judge Me": The Writings of John Wilkes Booth. Eds. John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper. Urbana: University of Dlinois Press, 1997.

Booth, Marv' Devlin. The Letters and Notebooks of Marv Devlin Buulh. Ed., L. Terry Oggel. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987.

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Carlson, Marvin. Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre .Architecture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.

Chesebrough, David B. "No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow": Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln. Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1994.

Clapp, Henry A. "Edwin Booth." Famous American .Actors of To-dav, Frederick Edward McKay and Charles E. L. Wingate, eds. New York: Crowell, 1896.

Clarke, Asia Booth. John Wilkes Booth: A Sister's Memoir. Terry Alford, ed. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1996: and The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth bv His Sister. New York: Putnam, 1938.

Cole, Toby and Helen Krich Chinoy, eds. Actors on Acting: The Theories, Techniques, and Practices of the World's Greatest Actors, Told in Their Own Words. 1949. New York: Crown Publishers, 1970.

Daly, Joseph Francis. The Life of Augustin Dalv. New York: MacMillan. 1917.

Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 2 vols.. New York: D. Appleton, 1912.

409 Dictionary of Shakespearian Quotations Exhibiting the Most Forcible Passages Illustrative of the Various Passions. Affections and Emotions of the Human Mind. Philadelphia: Cla.\ton. Remsen & Haffelfinger. 1877.

Diderot, Denis. The Paradox of Acting. Tr. by Walter Herries Pollock. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957.

Dukore, Bernard, F. Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotovvski. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.

Dunn, Esther Cloudman. Shakespeare in America. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1939.

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Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Methuen Press, 1980.

Ferguson, W. J. 1 Sa\y Booth Shoot Lincoln. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930.

Furtwangler, Albert. .Assassin on Stage: Brutus, Hamlet, and the Death of Lincoln. Urbana and Chicago: Univ ersity of Illinois Press, 1991.

Good, Timothy S., ed. We Savy Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness .Accounts. Jackson: Uniyersity of Mississippi Press, 1995.

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Grossman, Edwina Booth. Edwin Booth: Recollections by his Daughter and Letters to Her and to His Friends. Nevy York: The Century Co., 1894.

Hanners, John. ‘Tt Was Play or Starve": Acting in the Nineteenth-Century American Popular Theatre. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Press. 1993.

Harris, Neil. Cultural Excursions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1990.

410 Honaker. Gerald Leon. "Edwin Booth. Producer - A Study of Four Productions at Booth's Theatre: Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. Richelieu, and Julius Caesar." Diss. Indiana University, 1969.

Howells, William Dean. Literary Friends and .Acquaintances. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1902.

Hutton. Laurence. Edwin Booth. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893.

Jeffer'jon, Joseph The Aiitohiogranhv of Josenh Jefferson. New York: The Century Co.. 1897.

Kimmel. Stanley. The Mad Booths of Maryland. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1940. Rev. & enl. ed.. New York: Dover. 1969.

Koon. Helene Wickham. How Shakespeare Won the West: Plavers and Performances in America's Gold Rush. 1849-1865. Jefferson. NC: McFarland & Company, 1989.

Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchv in America. 1988: Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1990.

Lewis. Lloyd. Mvths .After Lincoln. New York: The Press of the Readers Club. 1941.

Lloyd Evans. Gareth and Barbara. The Shakespeare Companion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1978.

Lockridge. Richard. Darling of Misfortune: Edwin Booth: 1833-1893. New York: The Century Co.. 1932.

Loewenberg, Peter. Decoding the Past: The Psvchohistorical Approach. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 1996.

Matthews. Brander. A Study of the Drama. Cambridge: The Riyerside Press. 1910.

McConachie, Bruce A. Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820 - 1870. Iowa City: U niyersity of Iowa Press, 1992.

McFeely, William S. Grant: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1982.

McTeague, James H. Before Stanislaysky: American Professional Acting Schools and Acting Theory. 1875 - 1925. Metuchen. N. J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1993.

Miller, Jonathan. Subsequent Performances. New York: Viking, 1986.

411 Moody, Richard. Edwin Forrest: First Star of the American Stage. New York: Alfred A. Knoph, I960.

Morris. Lloyd. Curtain Time. New York: Random House, 1953.

Mullin, Donald, ed. Victorian Actors and .Actresses in Review: A Dictionary of Contemporary Views of Representative British and American Actors and Actresses. 1837-1901. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Murdock, James E. The Stage, or Recollections of .Actors and .Acting From an Experience of Fiftv Years: A Series of Dramatic Sketches. New York: J. M. Stoddart & Co., 1880.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.

Odell, George C. D. .Annals of the New York Stage XFV. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.

Oggel, L. Terry. Edwin Booth: .A Bio-Bibliographv. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992. '

— . "Edw in Booth and America's Concept of Shakespearean Tragedy." Diss. University of Wisconsin, 1969.

Potter, David M. Division and the Stresses of Reunion, 1845 - 1876. Glenview, EL: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1973.

Robertson, James Oliver. American Mvth. American Reality. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980.

Rose, Anne C. Victorian .America and the Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Royle, Edwin Milton. Edwin Booth As I Knew Him. New York: The Players, 1933.

Ruggles, Eleanor. Prince of Plavers: Edwin Booth. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1953.

Russell, Douglas A. Period Stvie for the Theatre. 2"'*ed. Boston: AUyn and Bacon, 1987.

Samples, Gordon. Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1982.

412 Shattuck, Charles H. The Hamlet of Edwin Booth. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1969.

—. Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the Hallams to Edwin Booth. Vol. I. Washington: Folger, 1976. Shakespeare on the American Stage: From Booth and Barrett to Sothem and Marlowe. Vol. 2. Washington: Folger, 1987.

—. "The Theatrical Management of Edwin Booth," The Theatrical Manager in England and America: Plavers of a Perilous Game, Joseph W. Donohue, Jr., ed, Princeton: Princeion University Press, 1971; 143-38

Skinner, Otis. The Last Tragedian: Booth Tells His Own Storv. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1939.

Smith, Gene. American Gothic: The Storv of America’s Legendarv Theatrical Familv - Junius. Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Soliday, John Chase. "The ‘Joint Star' Tours of Edwin Both and Lawrence Barrett," Diss. University of Minnesota, 1975.

Sothem, Edward H, The Melancholv Tale of "Me": Mv Remembrances. New York; Scribner, 1918.

Sprague, Arthur Colby. Shakespeare and the Actors: The Stage Business in His Plavs ( 1660-1905). Cambridge: Har\ ard University Press, 1945.

— and J. C. Trewin. Shakespeare's Plavs Todav: Some Customs and Conventions of the Stage. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1970.

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Strang, Lewis C. Plavers and Plavs of the Last Quarter Century-. Boston: Page, 1903.

Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. New York; Random House, 1990,

Taubman, Howard, The Making of the American Theatre. New York: Coward McCann, 1965,

Tebbel, John William. A Certain Club: One Hundred Years of The Plavers, New York: W ieser & Wieser, 1989.

413 Tern', Ellen. Ellen T ern's Memoirs. Edith Craig and Christopher St. John, eds. New York: Putnam 's. 1932.

Tovvse. John R. Sixty Years of the Theatre. New York, 1916.

Turner. Thomas Reed. Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1982.

Wallack. Lester. Memories of Fiftv Years. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1889.

Watermeier. Daniel J.. ed. Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1971.

— . Edwin Booth's Performances: The Marv Isabella Stone Commentaries. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Pres. 1990.

Williamson. David Brainard. Illustrated Life. Services. Martvrdom. and Funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Sixteenth President of the United States. With a Portrait of President Lincoln, and Other Illustrative Engravings of the Scene of the Assassination, etc. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 1865.

Wilson. GarffB. A Historv of American Acting. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1966.

Winter. William. Life and Art of Edwin Booth. New York: MacMillan and Co.. 1893.

— . Shakespeare on the Stage. First. Second and Third Series. New York: Moffat. Yard and Company. 1911 - 16.

LETTERS AND JOURNAL ENTRIES

Badeau. Adam. Letter to Edwin Booth. 15 June 1857. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Edwin Booth. 14 April 1858. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

— . Letter to Edwin Booth. 15 August 1858 [?]. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Plavers, New York.

414 — . Letter to Edwin Booth. 7 October 1858. The Ham pden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 24 November 1858. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 18 April 1860. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Brioth. 8 May I860. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

Bispham. William. Letter to Edwin Booth. 15 April 1865. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

Booth. Edwin. Letter to Adam Badeau. 27 December 1861. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

— . Letter to .Adam Badeau. 3 March 1863. The H am pden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. "Apology to the Nation.” ts. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

—. Letter to "My dear Sir." 2 March 1866. The William Charvat American Fiction Collection. The Ohio State University Libraries.

—. Letter to Henry Ward Beecher. The Christian Union December 1878.

—. Letter to William Winter. 17 July 1886. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

Booth, Junius Brutus. Jr. Letter to Edwin Booth. 24 April 1865. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

Booth, Mary Devlin. Letter to Edwin Booth. June 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 7 June 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 16 August 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

415 — . Letter to Edwin Booth. 7 October 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Edwin Booth. 16 December 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Edwin Booth. 28 December 1859. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 4 Januar.’ I860. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Edwin Booth. 24/25 February 1860. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Journal ms. 6 November 1860. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Emma F. Cary. 30 August 1861. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Emma F. Car}'. 1-2 October 1861. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Edwin Booth. 2 March 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Mary L. Felton. 22 March 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Emma F. Cary. 26 March 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Mary L. Felton. 13 May 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 7 December 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

—. Letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 24 December 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

416 —. Letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 30 December 1862. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

— . Letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 7 January 1863. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

—. Letter to Elizabeth Stoddard. 19 January 1863. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players. New York.

Godwin. Parke. Letter to Edwin Booth. iS April 1865. Tne Hampden-Boulh Tlicaitc Collection. The Players. New York.

"Outraged humanity.” Letter to Edwin Booth. 1 May 1865. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Plavers. New York.

JOURNAL AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

"The Acting of Mr. Edwin Booth.” The Nation [New York] 29 May 1866: 395-96.

"Amusements.” New York Star 26 September 1871.

"Amusements - Theatiical: Julius Caesar at Booth's Theatre.” New York Times 20 January 1872.

"Art and Drama: Booth's." Woodhill & Clafiin's Weekly 13 January 1872.

Baxter. Sylvester. "The Stage in Germany. " Atlantic Monthly 42 (August 1878); 177-87.

"Booth in ‘Macbeth.’”New York Globe 20 October 1871.

"Booth In "Richard m . " New York Post 2 May 1872.

"Booth is Dead,” St. Louis Republic 7 June 1893.

"Booth's.” Boston Times 17 September 1871.

"Booth's.” New York Democrat 20 August 1871; IS September 1871.

"Booth's.” New York Sunday Times 10 December 1871.

"Booth's Cassius,” New York Era 10 March 1872.

417 "Booths, Father and Sons.” New York Advertiser 16 June 1893.

"Booth's Richard in." Home Journal [New York] 8 May 1872.

"Booth's Richard HI - Weekly Review." New York Tribune 4 March 1872.

"Booth's Theatre." Home Journal [New York] 13 March 1872.

"Booth's Theatre." Irish People [New York] 16 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre." New York Dispatch 10 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre." New York Era 17 June 1870: 1 July 1871; 20 .August 1871 ; 2 December 1871: 18 December 1871: 6 January 1872: 6 May 1872.

"Booth's Theatre." New York Express 9 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre." New York Republic 9 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre." New York Star 5 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre - Hamlet." New York Tribune 5 December 1871.

"Booth's Theatre - Last Night of "A Winter's Tale." New York Tribune 27 May 1870.

"Booth's Theatre - Review of the Season." New York Tribune 4 July 1871.

"Booth's Theatre." Sundav News [New York] 11 June 1870: 3 May 1872.

"Booth's Theatre - ‘Henry VTII." New York World 26 September 1871.

"Booth's Theatre - Julius Caesar." New York World 28 January 1872.

Boston Dailv Times 23 June 1871.

Brennan. John C. "John Wilkes Booth's Enigmatic Brother Joseph." Maryland Historical Magazine 78 (Spring 1983) 26-29.

Brinkerhoff. R. "Boothenian Entertainment - A Sell." Editorial. Herald [Mansfield, Ohio] 28 April 1858. Journal Book No. 2. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Plavers. New York.

418 Carlson, Marvin. ‘The Haunted Stage: Recycling and Reception in the Theatre.” Theatre Survey 35.1 (May 1994): 12-20.

Chicago Post 10 June 1893.

The Churchman [New York] 17 June 1893.

City of Brooklyn 20 January 1872.

"Court Rejects Opening Booth's Grave," The Washington Post 5 June 1996, final ed: D03.

The Critic [New York] 10 June 1893.

Curtis, George William. "Editor's Easy Chair." Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 28 (December 1863): 131-133.

— . “Editor’s Easv Chair.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine (April 1865). Helen Weston Souvenir Scrapbook. The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection. The Players, New York.

"Death of Edwin Booth, " London Chronicle 8 June 1893.

"Death of Edwin Bootli,” New York Sun 7 June 1893.

"Death of Edwin Booth,” San Francisco Chronicle 7 June 1893.

"Edwin Booth.” The Nation [New York] 56.1459 (15 June 1893): 435.

"Edwin Booth as Brutus,” Evening Journal [New York] 28 January 1872.

"Edwin Booth as Hamlet, " New York Herald 6 December 1871.

"Edwin Booth as Mark Antony,” New York Republican 10 March 1872.

"Edwin Booth Dead,” New York World 7 June 1893.

"Edwin Booth Died Early This Morning,” New York Press 7 June 1893.

"Edwin Booth is No More.” New York Morning Advertiser 7 June 1893.

"Edwin Booth The Great Tragedian.” Watson's Art Journal 23 December 1871.

"A Good Record,” New York Express 24 June 1871.

419 "Hamlet at Booth’s.” New York Globe 13 December 1871.

"Hamlet at Booth’s.” New York Sun 8 December 1871.

"'Hamlet' at Booth's Theatre.” New York Times 5 December 1871.

Home Journal [New Yorki 28 June 1871 ; 7 February 1872; 20 March 1872:27 March 1872; 8 May 1872.

"Howard's Column." New York Recorder 8 June !

Hufstetler, Loren. Physical Description of Booth's Theatre. New York. 1869 - 1883,” Tlteatre Design and Technology 43 (Winter 1975); 8-18.

"Hundredth Night of Hamlet.” New York Evening Post 22 March 1865.

"■Julius Caesar' at Booth's. " Home Journal [New York] 10 January 1872.

"Julius Caesar at Booth's Theatre. " New York Express 20 January [?] 1872.

"■Julius Caesar' at Booth's Theatre." Watson's Art Journal 13 January 1872.

"King of Tragedians.” Minneapolis Spectator 10 June 1893.

"The Last Booth.” Potsdam [NY1 Courier 14 June 1893.

"‘Little Nell and the Marchioness' at Booth's Theatre. " New York Standard 13 August 1871.

"Local Review.” New York Mercurv 11 June 1870.

"Lotta at Booth's.” New York Democrat 26 August 1871.

"Lotta at Booth's Theatre,” New York Evening Mail 13 August 1871.

"Macbeth at Booth's Theatre,” New York Era 8 November 1871.

Mallon, Thomas. "Sanctified by Blood,” Civilization (Jan/Feb 1996); 32-37.

Marker, Lise-Lone and Frederick J. Marker. "Edwin Booth's Julius Caesar: A Promptbook Study, " Nineteenth Centurv Theatre Research 4.1 (Spring 1976): 1-21.

420 McCormick, Macon. “Edwin Booth is No More." New York Morning Advertiser 7 June 1893.

Mead. J. H. “Booth's History: Edwin's Life Was Clouded by His Brother's Crime." St. Joseph iMOl Herald 11 June 1893

Morris. Clara. “Some Recollections of John Wilkes Booth." McClure's Magazine XVI (1901): 303.

"Mr. Booth's Hamlet." Jewish Messenger INcw York] 13 December 1871.

“New Books: Edwin Booth in Twelve Dramatic Characters." New York Express 8 January 1872.

New York Advertiser 22 February 1872.

New York Albion 8 December 1860.

New York Citizen 9 December 1871; 30 December 1871; 8 Januaiy 1872; 3 Februaiy 1872.

New York Commercial 31 December 1871.

New York Cosmopolitan 30 May 1872.

New York Courier 9 March 1872; 3 May 1872.

New York Dispatch 25 June 1871.

New York E.xpress 28 February 1872.: 13 March 1872; 2 May 1872.

New York Herald 29 November 1860; 18 March 1862; 26 December 1871; 5 March 1872; 7 June 1893.

New York Mail 11 September 1871; 27 December 1871.

New York M irror 29 December 1832; 206.

New York Musical Courier 14 June 1893.

New York Season 30 December 1871.

New York Sun 22 March 1872.

421 New York Sundav Mercurv 11 February 1872.

New York Sundav News 12 May 1872.

New Y ork Times 5 April 1865: 4; 13 August 1871:

New York Tribune 27 November 1860; 11 April 1865: 4

"Mr. Edwin Booth's Reentry." Boston Advertiser 28 March 1865.

Outerbridge. Laura. "Acting Legacy of Booth Family Given Center Stage by Thespians," Metropolitan Times [Washington] 8 May 1995: Cl 1.

"P.” Letter. Chicago Dial. 16 June 1893.

Phister, Montgomery. "Disturb Him Not: Let Him Pass Peaceably." Cincinnati Commercial 7 June 1893.

Quinn. Michael. "Self-Reliance and Ritual Renewal: .Anti-theatrical Ideology in American Method Acting." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism X.l (Fall 1995): 5-20.

"Reappearance of Miss Charlotte Cushman." New York Times 26 September 1871.

"Revival of Julius Caesar.'" Yonkers Gazette 6 January 1872.

"Richard HI at Booth's Theatre." New York Telegram 2 May 1872.

Shattuck. Charles H. "Edwin Booth's First Critic." Theatre Sur\ev 7.1 (May 1966): 1-14.

States. Bert O. "Tragedy and Tragic Vision: A Darwinian Supplement to Thomas Van Lann. " Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism V1.2 (Spring 1992) 5-22.

Spirit of the Times [New York] 15 December 1860; 12 March 1862; 23 May 1874.

Turf. Field and Farm 1 December 1871; 6 April 1872.

Watson's Art Journal 19 September 1871; 10[?] December 1871; 3 February 1872; 9 March 1872.

"Weekly Review." New York Tribune 27 May 1870; 10 March 1872.

WJieeler, A. C. "The Extinction of Shakespeare." Arena I (March 1890) 423-31.

422 "The Widow of John Wilkes Booth.” New York Tribune 5 December 1883: I.

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