We are told that manila bay is open. We are to take the rest of our cargo to manila where the railroad bat conference have set up shop to put them together. So we sail around the south china sea. There is so the rock. A proud and sorrowful memory. Of American History tv visited fords theatre in washington, d c where Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded as he sat to in the president ial lose with his wife mary watching the comedy the american cousin. Commissioned it to mark the anniversary of lincolns assassination, this is about 30 minutes. Were at fords theater with james still and mary bacon. I want to ask both of you what it is like i will start with you, mary bacon, because i think this is a new experience for you, what it is like to produce a lincolncentered play in fords theater. With that flagdraped box right by you. What is that experience like . It is definitely, what is the word very aware of it. I am very aware of it. The first time i stepped into the theater, i was like, whoa. Why is there a picture of president washington up there . I dont know the specific history of the theater. I dont, i dont i did my research to do the role, but also, i have to say for me, i have thought a lot about how we turn a place into a shrine um because we know what happened there. But, there are a lot of places where we dont know what happened there, so it is a mixed thing. James has a line in the play and a lot of lines from his play come to me. When i look at the box, i think about him making him an idol. We have anticipated in that veneration, if that makes any sense. You have worked with the theater for a while now. You are accustomed to it to some degree. Does it ever really leave you, being get near that box . Being near that box . I did not know if i would have the same kind of haunted feeling being in the theater sitting there, but in this case, the widow lincoln incorporates the theater into the play. There is a double experience going on. You are watching mary lincoln remembering that night in fords theater and we are in the audience remembering that night with her in fords theater. That is a very unique experience for me as a writer. Sometimes at fords theater, they, if i can speak for them, they have to almost deny the box, in a way. If you are doing a play that has nothing to do with lincoln, yet you cant cover it up. You cant not light it. It is they are, always present. In the widow lincoln, what is wonderful and difficult in a certain way is it is meant to be present. It is meant to be part of the play. I think sitting in the audience, realizing there was a night on april 14 in 1865 that a president and his wife sat in that box and were watching a play just like we are going to be watching a play, and this terrible thing happened, that still moves me, i have to say. I am still moved by that. This play was commissioned for the 150th anniversary. Is there any additional poignancy because of the anniversary . Sure. There is a story about that. I had written another play about Abraham Lincoln that was set in 1862, the year he worked on the emancipation proclamation. I had always thought there was a second part to that play, not a sequel, but probably that i was not but i did not really know what that was. When fords came to me and suggested i write a play for the anniversary, i balked a little bit because i felt like i had written my Abraham Lincoln play, and i thought, well, we all know the ending. We know what happens. There is no drama in that. We dont the president was shot he died the next morning across the street. We know the country went into mourning. Researching that time, i had really become, i guess i will say attached to mary lincoln and curious about her, curious about the way that she had been maligned for so many years, and that people are so passionately opinionated about her even now 150 years after that event. I proposed that i had a slightly different idea, which was to focus on mary. President lincoln himself would not really be a character, although of course he looms large in the play. His absence looms large, but its really about mary. The poignancy about that, what that experience was for mary lincoln, it is experience. Would you explain the basic premise of the play . Tell us what the play is all about. The play is about the period of time that mary lincoln spent in the white house right after he was shot because she holed herself up in a room that she had not spent barely any time in for close to six weeks, 40 days, and did not leave. Even though johnson was waiting to move in with his family and start running the country from the white house. And thats how she dealt with , it, how she dealt with her grief. That is what it is about, and i guess it is about ones insistence on mourning in her own way. Did the people immediately like the idea, there will be no lincoln in our anniversary to the producers credit, he took about one second and said yeah, well do that. I think they know my work very well and they know how seriously i approach the subject. I think that paul and his colleagues were taken by the mystery of this. It is really an untold story. There is little written about it. I thought, certainly, someone has written extensively about that time. We dont know what happened. Mary herself only wrote about it in one surviving letter. It is a paragraph in which she describes the agony. She does not talk about it in detail. Her dressmaker, who was her companion during that time talked about it a little bit in her book, but that is it. You can imagine for me as a dramaturge, there was a lot to imagine. It was a room, when mary was sent back to the white house the next morning after the president died, she would not go into any of the rooms where she had any associated memories. Her own bedroom, any of the rooms. She found herself in this particular room, a small room, on the second floor, that had been appointed as a writing room for lincoln for the summer. She went in and would not leave. Before we get to that part of the story, isnt it true that while lincoln was dying across the street from where we were, i dont know if this was victorian lore, but they would not let her be with her husband . She was in the room right next door. They did not tell her he was dying. She knew it was grave. They did not tell her. Right after they announced his death, she said, why didnt anyone tell me he was dying . You can tell when someone is in that stage. She was banished from the room. She was weeping and upset. She would come in periodically and collapse, panic, anxiety, grief. They would shuttle her out. This room right next door. I would say in the play, that is quite an event, that she was kept out. There was a southern tradition for being with that dying person, to be in that room with your beloved, and the fact that she was denied that is just one more thing that i think mary lincoln felt, in my play, i am talking about, felt that other people were taking control of her. It is quite an event in the play. Because i found a report that one of the attending doctors kept a notebook of his pulse through the night, these numbers. In the play, interspersed with marys desire to be with her husband during those moments. I spoke about acknowledging the lincoln scholars and all of the lincoln wannabe scholars in the country. You chose some that were very wellknown, giving you dramatic latitude. Did you do that intentionally . It is a big, intimidating you are absolutely right. There will always be people who know more about all of this than i do. On the other hand, that is not really my job. My job as a storyteller and a writer, to bring mary lincoln and that time in her life to life for the audience. But i have to say after the first play, there was so much available to me about lincoln. You can read for the rest of your life. With mary, it was a different experience. I did appreciate having a little bit of room to do my own imagining about her. So what was your source of information . You found small notations. What Research Went into my style with a period piece is to start specifically with things that were written in the time rather than starting with things that are 21st century lens looking back. Many of those wonderful writers, scholars, and historians, are doing what i am doing, looking at sources and creating a lens through which to tell the story. Rather than cheat so obviously and take them at their word, what they made of mary lincoln i went back newspapers of the day, you can read all of those. There are many books that were published right after lincolns death. Many people wanted to jump on that bandwagon and join the many who thought they had something original to say about lincoln. Some of them, not to many, wrote a tiny bit about mary. She was often not in any of their books. That was interesting and a big clue to me as well, how often she was missing from the story of lincoln. One thing that i found very interesting is i went back and i found about seven or eight plays that had been written right after the assassination about lincoln. Just reading how they treated the story of the civil war, in some ways mary lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, some of the plays were wild. That liberated me as well because i realized there were writers 150 years ago trying to make sense of this time in a theatrical language as well. That was freeing. Then i started to read books that were written in the 20th century. Carl sandburg wrote a beautiful, slim volume. He was part of a new wave of writers starting to reconsider the image and reputation of mary lincoln. Maybe she had gotten a bad deal in terms of for about 50 years after lincolns death, there was so Much Negative that was written about her. I started to find some of the things that, if not positive, at least were looking at, maybe there are two sides to this. There was enough source material that i felt like i could find interesting things. What was the time from, yes i have this commissioned, to the opening debut . I would say it was about three years, maybe, that i had. I spent a solid year researching. I went back to springfield illinois, to the president ial museum. I went to lexington to the todd house. I also spent time with one of the largest privates collectors of lincoln memorabilia. She was able to let me look firsthand at some of mary lincolns, her comb, her bible the gloves she wore to the inauguration. That was incredibly moving to me. How many players are in your play . There are eight actors who play a variety of characters. Are all the characters historically accurate . Were all of them known to have gone into that room . No. Queen victoria is in the play. She wrote a letter to mary lincoln that was very famous and she appears to mary in the form of that letter. But in three dimension. An actress from our american cousin, which was the play at fords that was being acted when the tragedy happened, and the fact that they were linked forever by that event, i was very intrigued why those women at what they might have to say to each other. After the tragedy happened, was the play produced again . That was the most produced play in the country and there were many versions of it. They were booked to do a performance. They were all suspects, and she was brought back to washington. Mary bacon, how did you get involved with the project . I did a play called iron kisses i cant remember how many years ago. I knew him. When the audition came, just knowing the writer, it is a new play of his, that makes you interested immediately, if you like him, if you believe in their voice on the strength of their play. Also, for me, my late motherinlaw, my husbands mother was a really wonderful woman. Judy lindsay. She was in new york city. She went to the theater, she read everything. She was trying her hand at playwriting after a career in journalism. She was actually writing a play about mary lincoln. I never got to talk to her about it because she died unexpectedly about four years ago. It was really creepy that when this came up, i felt obligated to explore, at least it did make me pause. What was she so taken with . She herself experienced the death of her first husband untimely death of her first husband, at the age of 36, and the untimely death of her second husband. She was married to her first husband one year longer than her second husband. I thought maybe it was the grief that she went through that was something she was interested in. I do not know. She was very taken with Mary Todd Lincoln. You do an audition. And then you get up on its feet, because the way james is writing, it reads like poetry. If i may say, because he is writing, years writing this is a very poetic play. He is writing peoples feelings. Mary is putting her feelings into words, which is poetic. I have said this a million times. It is beautifully written. I wanted to feel how it felt as drama, you know, as drama up on my feet. Sometimes i dont know until i am up on my feet in an audition. That was intriguing. Those are the two things i brought to it. Is this your first historical character . Gosh. My first historical character . If it doesnt immediately come to mind this has to be one of the bestknown historical characters you have played. People have opinions and they have heard a lot about it. How did you prepare yourself to play this role . I found my motherinlaws we pulled down a box of her stuff and she had four biographies. I started looking at them. And then i found that biographers really have a hard time keeping their own opinion outfit. And that was clear as i read about the same event from two different perspectives. So, i just read. Then i researched biographies and i tried to discern which ones i felt were going to be more evenhanded, i guess, which ones appealed to me more. So i did that. , i read what was basically on the internet. I rewatched lincoln. Because i think sally fields did her a great service. I think sally fields portrayed her as very bright. What i loved about her portrayal was she had a reason. When she had a fit, to get her husband to do something. It was not just being emotion. She was emotional, but what i loved about her portrayal is she had a reason for behaving the way she did when she had a fit to get her husband to do something, or to do something, change something. I liked that a lot. I took from all these different places. Actually playing the role, i will tell you, i have not had to work that hard in terms of, i have freed myself completely. I guess i do as an actor, but completely from trying to be like mary lincoln. I dont look anything like her. We have brown hair. Body type we are completely , different. That has not been the focus. I think with your previous play, when you are playing lincoln you have to look like lincoln. You have to approximate some semblance. Because he is you know but, Mary Todd Lincoln had a very distinct look. That has not been part of this. What i want to say about james play is i feel like all i have to do is live in the text. It is all there for me in terms of creating a character. I am not creating one and putting it on top of the words i say. It is evident if i just say those words. And the experience to the best of my ability and truthfully if i can she just emerges, her , character. How old was she when the assassination happened . 47. Is a question for both of you. Going back to what happened in that box, it is almost unbelievable to think you are sitting and watching a play and your spouse would be shot dead at close range in that environment. How do you capture, how do you understand what kind of emotions people would go through . How do you translate that in what you wrote and what you are producing on the stage . I guess starting with me, that was a very big clue to me when you think you are holding your loved ones hand in the moment before he is killed. Its not hard to imagine how traumatic that would be. That is a way in for me to at least have empathy for mary lincoln. I may not understand everything she did. I may not agree with it. The play does not try to make her out to be nicer than she really was. I dont have an axe to grind. I did not come into this with an agenda, i want to set the record straight about mary lincoln. I really wanted to tell the story about this incredibly smart, savvy, political mother and wife who witnessed her husbands death and what she might have gone through to try to get on with her life. Part of the tragedy with mary lincoln is that my play is focused on these 40 days, but as most of us know, yes, she left the white house, but her life did not get better. In many ways, it became even more challenging. That also meant the play, at the end, ok, the sun comes out, and everything is fine. She leaves the room, and that is something. That is a step in her life, but its not over. It is not an easy one. So, how to do that on stage, how to create that, it is terrifying, you know . It was very terrifying to write. It was hard to live with. I felt like it was my obligation to take that on, as somebody who would live that threedimensionally. I wanted to do it as fully as i can. We were talking earlier about the wonderful handoff that happens between a writer and an actor. We are in that process right now. I am handing this off. She is very lincoln. It is not my mary lincoln now. It is hers. I will let you talk about how you do that. Well, how do you do that . How do you create the traumatic experience on stage . To imagine living through that, how do you capture that without experiencing something that horrific in your own life . Well, i am an actor. I will say that any good actor can portray anything that can happen to a human being. It is the actors craft. Everyone goes about it a different way. When i was younger, it was about trying to recreate. I have been through more tragedies since then, more death and grief. I am not as surprised by tragic events. Is it different when you put the costume on . Painful. Yes. Yes and no. There is a hard time when you leave the rehearsal room. You have created everything with the rehearsal. You have a relationship to that skirt. You have put a lot of emotional investment into it. It can be very jarring actually. Now that we are here and we are in it, it has been helpful. It is just how i have dreams about being in this time period. I feel very emotional watching them in costume because there is something about that silhouette, historical silhouette, especially in terms of what women wore then. It is not something i think about all the time, but seeing it three dimensionally, it is haunting. The restriction is really one thing, the corset, but it is also the weight of the clothes. It is so heavy. You could not move very much. You are so weighed down. How you can move, it is limiting. It is how women were confined physically. In so many ways. That is one of the things the play is about. Victorian america, how limiting that was for a woman like mary lincoln, who was educated. It makes me admire her all the more for working with what she had, how she did make herself look beautiful, knowing to put flowers in her hair. She worked it. I have a great admiration for that now. I can see how, what the challenges were. This play will be staged for a short period of timed for the anniversary. What happens to it after this . What will its future be . I wish i knew. As a writer in the theater everything i write, i have to imagine and hope it will have life beyond its first production. I hope this one is no different. It is a very special production of this play, but this play can be done and hopefully will be done in other theaters. They wont have this firsthand relationship with the event, but, you know, it is a big country, and a lot of people have a lot of feelings about mary lincoln. In springfield, illinois, at the museum, there was a play done by local actors. I was so moved because i did not know until i saw it in springfield how often the word springfield came up in the play. I was sitting with all these townspeople. It was really about springfield. When it was here, it was about washington. I think it will find, hopefully, its home in different places for people that it might have meaning for. Hopefully for people who experience the play, what do you want to leave them with . What is the ultimate message for them . I will risk sounding i have kind of given up on the idea that i can even wish that. What i do hope is that knowing that many people have big opinions about mary lincoln, i hope the play will at least engage those opinions, and if not change them, for a couple of hours, they might consider who mary lincoln was, might have been, and maybe look at her little differently. Are there universal messages in the play . Absolutely. What you hope they would be . Grief is a process. Grief is both very private and very public. No one can do it for you. You have to go through that. As mary said, mary lincoln did it on her own terms. That did not please a lot of people, that she did it on her own terms. I think there is a message in there as well, that sometimes you have to do it. She basically said, i will do this my own way. I dont care if a new president has to come into the white house. You absorbed this character, learning how to prepare and stage. What do you want people to take away from your performance . One thing about playing this role, i have just imagined being a woman in this set of circumstances. I think in some ways, i hope people will see an ordinary person, just a person going through these circumstances, that all women go through grief, women who lose their husbands, the main source, it was their world. Many men or women have to pick up and set their identity without someone for mary lincoln, she was based in Abraham Lincoln. No pension after he died. Victorian times, what was available for her to do . If she could have found something to do, i think she would have had an easier time. She talks about being the widow, the quiet, charming widow, and what your options are. I hope they will take away a sense of the misogyny of the time, which has a lot to do with how she was perceived and portrayed in that time. Now we would never question that a woman needs to grieve, or how she is behaving. It makes complete sense. To me, playing it has always made complete sense. How she behaves in this play is very rational to me. I am hoping they will take that away. There is a moment in the play where she says very sincerely, whats to become of me . That is a genuine question for mary lincoln in this moment, and i think it is a universal question that we all feel in those moments of intense loss and grief. What is to become of me . Where will i go . Will i love . So, i feel like those are universal things. Thanks to both of you, the playwright and the actress of mary lincoln. Thank you for your time. They discuss the film so most portrayal of events and the role Lyndon Johnson played