Ghosts: Recent Hauntings by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60701-371-6
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2012-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

Haunted by his fame as “America’s Hamlet” even before his infamous brother became an assassin, Edwin Booth also had another ghost or two . . .

Booth’s Ghost

Karen Joy Fowler

One:

I have that within which passeth show.

On November 25, 1864, Edwin Booth gave a benefit performance of Julius Caesar. One night only, in the Winter Garden Theater in New York City, all profits to fund the raising of a statue of Shakespeare in Central Park. Edwin played the role of Brutus; his older brother, Junius, was Cassius; his younger, John Wilkes, was Mark Antony. The best seats went for as much as five dollars, and their mother and sister Asia were in the audience, flushed with pride.

Act 2, scene I. Brutus’ orchard. Fire engines could be heard outside the theater, and four firemen came into the lobby. The audience began to buzz and shift in their seats. Brutus stepped forward into the footlights. “Everything is all right,” he told them. “Please stay as you are.”

The play continued.

People used to say that Edwin owned the East Coast, Junius the West, and John Wilkes the South, but on this occasion, the applause was mostly for John. Asia overheard a Southerner in the audience. Our Booth is like a young god, the man said.

From the newspaper the next morning, they learned that the fires near the theater had been set by Southern rebels. Had they been in California, Junius said, the arsonists would have been strung up without a trial. He was for that. Edwin was for the Union. He told them that a few days earlier, he’d voted for the first time. He’d voted for Lincoln’s reelection. John dissolved in rage. Edwin would see Lincoln become a king, John shouted, and have no one to blame but himself. Their mother intervened. No more talk of politics.

The next night the Winter Garden Theater saw the debut of Hamlet with Edwin in the title role. The play ran for two weeks, three, eight, ten, until Edwin felt the exhaustion of playing the same part, night after night. He begged for a change, but the play was still selling out. This run, which would last one hundred nights, was the making of Edwin’s name. Ever after, he would be America’s Hamlet. It was more than a calling, almost a cult. Edwin referred to this as “my terrible success.”

It was a shame Shakespeare couldn’t see him, the critics wrote, he was so exactly what Hamlet ought to be, so exactly what Shakespeare had envisioned. One morning his little daughter, Edwina, was offered an omelet. “That’s my daddy,” she said.

There came a night when, deadened from the long run, Edwin began to miss his cues. He had the curtain brought down, retired to his dressing room to gather himself. “O God! O God!” he said to himself. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world.”

When the ghost appeared, Edwin was not surprised. He’d been born with a caul, which meant protection, but also the ability to see spirits.

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