The America Play

The Foundling Father, a Black man who is dressed as Abraham Lincoln, digs a hole that is “an exact replica of the Great Hole of History” (159). He is accompanied by a bust and a cutout of Lincoln. The Foundling Father had been told that he strongly resembles Lincoln, whom he calls the “Great Man,” and subsequently began dressing like Lincoln, calling himself the “Lesser Known” (159). The Foundling Father collected hair from his barber to fashion into beards, asserting that the amount of work required to create and maintain the beards made them as much his as if he had grown them on his face. The Foundling Father comes from a long family line of gravediggers and has a reputation for his expedience and efficiency at digging.

The Foundling Father imagines a world in which he was alive during Lincoln’s assassination, envisioning Mary Todd Lincoln calling to him, crying, “Emergency oh, Emergency, please put the Great Man in the ground” (160). He quotes Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. He also repeats the line uttered in the play Our American Cousin, “You sockdologizing old man-trap” (160), which Lincoln was laughing at when he was shot. The Foundling Father says sometimes while digging or eating dinner with his wife and son, he would slip away and listen for Mary Todd Lincoln’s call. He nods at the bust of Lincoln and notes that since people have told him his entire life that “he and the Great Man were dead ringers” (161), he’s certain that if he had been alive when Lincoln died, he would have been chosen to dig his grave.

The Foundling Father shows one of his beards and a pair of shoes, then comments that he gave his son a name “in a fit of meanspirit after the bad joke about fancy nuts and old mens toes because his son looked like a nobody” (162), because he had expected his son to take after him. The Foundling Father explains that everyone who lives leaves “a shape around which their entire lives and their posterity shapes itself” (162). The Great Man left a large hole, full of images from his life and his words, which have endured over time. The Foundling Father’s favorite hole is one that he and his wife Lucy visited on their honeymoon. Lucy, he explains, keeps secrets for the dead. They had decided that, with his gravedigging and Lucy’s secret-keeping, their son could perform as a mourner at funerals, and they could start a business. The hole they visited on their honeymoon was called the Great Hole of History.

The Great Hole of History was a theme park where average, unremarkable people could wave from the sidelines as major historical figures paraded by. The Foundling Father was struck by “the Historicity of the place the order and beauty of the pageants which marched by them” (162) and began to think seriously about his own role in history. Eventually, when the Foundling Father became more known, he started taking notes about his life in hopes that “he’d be of interest to posterity” (162). What he saw at the Great Hole reverberated in his head. That’s when he started to hear Mary Todd summoning him to put the Great Man in the ground.

The Foundling Father shows the audience a yellow beard, noting that some historical inaccuracies are too much for people, but others are “good for business” (163). Eventually, the call grew overwhelming, and the Foundling Father left his wife and son to go west, where he started digging his own Great Hole of History. People still comment constantly that he resembles Lincoln, aside from “his God-given limitations” (163), alluding to the fact that he’s African American. The Foundling Father tried to capitalize on his likeness, giving speeches, but no one wanted to give him money. He finally attracted people who would come out to see him in his hole and throw their old food at him. Then, one of his spectators commented that “he played Lincoln so well that he ought to be shot” (164), and the Foundling Father realized what he could do.

The Foundling Father would sit in a rocking chair in a darkened box. Spectators could pay a penny to choose one of several pistols and assassinate Abraham Lincoln. He became famous and successful overnight. A man enters as John Wilkes Booth. The Foundling Father laughs loudly as if he is watching a play. The man “shoots” him in the head, and he falls over in his chair. Then, the man announces, “Thus to the tyrants!” (165). The Foundling Father comments that his customers usually quote Booth like this. Another Booth enters, “shoots” the Foundling Father, and shouts, “The South is avenged!” (165), and then thanks him. The Foundling Father says that this Booth returns once a week and is always a stickler for performing historical accuracy.

Although he grew up being told that he looked like Lincoln, the Foundling Father hadn’t learned about him until he was much older. But he knew that “he wanted to grow and have others think of him and remove their hats and touch their hearts and look up into the heavens and say something about freeing the slaves” (166). So he learned about Lincoln’s life, hoping to leave a great historical legacy too. The Foundling Father talks about his fascination with the assassination in particular, but he’s interrupted by a woman dressed as Booth who shoots him and says, “Strike the tent” (167), which were Robert E. Lee’s last words. He continues to describe the assassination and is interrupted again by another woman who (as Booth) shoots him then screams “Lies!” and “Liars” (168) several times.

The Foundling Father switches to the yellow beard, noting that some inaccuracies bother people, but others are necessary. For instance, Lincoln wouldn’t have worn his hat in the theater, but people expect to see Lincoln in a stovepipe hat. The Foundling Father speaks more about the assassination, including Mary Todd Lincoln’s distraught state and subsequent madness, claiming that she could hear the voices of dead men until she was institutionalized. Another man enters, shoots the Foundling Father, and states, “Now he belongs to the ages” (169) before complaining about the blonde beard and exiting. The Foundling Father explains that the only lingering side effect from this job is slight hearing loss in one ear. He takes the beard off altogether, to appear like a young Lincoln, and muses that before he left his family, he had dug at least 723 graves.

A newlywed couple enters and asks if they can shoot Lincoln together. The Foundling Father doesn’t respond, as he only speaks to the regulars, but after a few moments, they play out the scene. The woman exclaims, “They’ve killed the president!” (170) and they exit. The Foundling Father comments that they’ll eventually return with their children when they have them, and slight deafness is a small price to pay. He feels like he’s trying to catch up with Lincoln, but he can’t because he’d have to go backward in time. He changes his beard to look more like Lincoln on the $5 bill. The man who comes weekly enters again. They play out the scene. The man leaves. Winking at the cutout, nodding to the bust, the Foundling Father thinks about his relation to Lincoln. If he could stop time, Lincoln might catch up, even assassinate him. He imagines that his bones might never be found, and Lincoln could go on. At the end of the act, there is a gunshot that echoes.