Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary, and John Wilkes Booth come together in an afterlife that resembles a decayed Lincoln Memorial. An angry, frustrated Booth cannot accept that he did not turn out to be the hero of the assassination drama in which he expected to star; he killed the "tyrant" Lincoln, but the plot unraveled when he broke his leg attempting to make his grand exit. By successfully fleeing to Canada, he claims, he could have rallied Southern patriots and installed a Southern president. Lincoln gently taunts Booth, refuting Booth's claim that he is an atheist and a despot. His wife Mary is more acerbic and less forgiving. The Lincolns have a loving relationship that disgusts and marginalizes Booth. Booth makes several futile attempts to change the course of history by re-playing the assassination in novel ways. The Lincolns even sardonically cooperate on one by substituting Mary for Abe. Along the way, Lincoln relates a horrific dream to Mary, a prescient vision of future social apathy on all sides and dark, brutal events. He blames himself, he tells Mary, for being a divider, not a uniter. Mary reassures him that each age determines its own course. Booth, who had failed spectacularly at creating, directing, and starring in his own heroic drama, has an epiphany: "The playwrights who write our scene over and over again in their choices are there [indicates the audience] ... and there ... and there." The play closes with a tableau of the assassination scene.
Keywords: historical, fantasy, philosophical, satiric, Lincoln
Running TIme: 100 minutes
Acts: 2
Male Cast: 2
Female Cast: 1