The Last Official Theatrical Booth Appearance

[Tom Bogar]

After looking at it from all angles, I have to dismiss the Marble Heart incident/account in Mary, Wife of Lincoln, in which Katherine Helm claims Booth threateningly approached the president one night in his box at Ford’s, causing Lincoln to quip, “He does look pretty sharp at me,” as apocryphal. She incorrectly describes the design of the box, its proximity to the stage--the sight-lines and distance of which would have made Booth’s threatening approach and gestures as she describes them impossible--and misstates Booth’s role as the villain of the piece.

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(02-22-2014 07:23 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I think I read that the name of the play Booth played in that night was The Apostate. Not being familiar with that particular play- is there some weird connection with that play and the Lincoln assassination? What is the play about?

The Apostate, in which Booth played Pescara, is Richard Lalor Sheil's 1817 dark, Moorish tragedy, and if anyone really wants to read it (a difficult, unrewarding slog, I have to say), it can be found at https://archive.org/stream/apostatetrage...t_djvu.txt As I see it, it would be a real stretch to connect its events to the assassination.