Previous
Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The America Play, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
History, Narrative, and Multiplicity
Race and American Identity
Theater and Reality
Family, Trauma, and Personal Identity
Death, Mourning, and Resurrection
Summary
Analysis
After an epigraph from philosopher John Locke, who said that “In the beginning, all the world was America,” the play begins “In the middle of nowhere,” in a hole that is “an exact replica of The Great Hole of History.”
Locke’s quote raises the question of what defines America in The America Play: he sees it as a kind of metaphor or model for the whole world, but he was specifically referring to native Americans before colonization in this passage in order to make a state about humankind’s “natural” way of being. The play’s cryptic setting—“an exact replica of the Great Hole of History”—evokes emptiness rather than an expansive wholeness and suggests that perhaps Locke’s view of the world either leaves out some of history (relegating it to a “Great Hole”) or is simply out of touch with historical reality (which he turns into such a “Hole”). Indeed, it is ironic that Locke opportunistically justifies his arguments for liberty and equal rights by citing a people who have had their liberty and rights taken away by the American government—which takes its concepts of liberty and rights for all from Locke himself. In this sense, the juxtaposition of Locke's quote and the play's setting highlights the irony in American ideas of rights and equality, which have never been truly extended to everyone in the United States.
Active
Themes
Dressed as Abraham Lincoln, the Foundling Father utters a series of cryptic, chiasmic phrases, and “takes a “rest” between each pair. Three are from the dictionary, including, “I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed,” and one is his own invention: “He digged the hole and the whole held him.” The Foundling Father notes that “he sported” a goatee “when he died,” which is “not my favorite,” and then repeats his line, “He digged the hole and the whole held him.”
The play’s mysterious opening scene looks remarkably different on the page and on the stage. Notably, Parks explains the chiasmus that she is using (and the origins of the Foundling Father’s different lines) in footnotes, which allow her readers to understand the conceptual structure of this introduction and connect it to the way Abraham Lincoln and the Foundling Father are dependent on one another for their identities in this play. Similarly, while the Foundling Father’s name is clearly symbolic to readers—it recalls the “Founding Fathers” of American democracy (of whom Lincoln was not one), but also suggests that he has been orphaned or abandoned—theatergoers might never actually hear the Foundling Father’s name or have the opportunity to make any of these connections.
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father speaks of a man who looked like Abraham Lincoln—he shared “the Great Mans” long legs and big hands and feet. The man carries a box full of beards, which he made from hairs his barber sold him, and which “were as authentic as he was, so to speak.” Like his family members in the “Small Town,” this “Lesser Known” is a gravedigger. The Foundling Father pauses and declares, “a wink to Mr. Lincolns pasteboard cutout,” then winks.
The Foundling Father notes that “It would be helpful to our story if” the Lesser Known got to bury the Great Man—he imagines Mary Todd Lincoln saying, “Emergency, please put the Great Man in the ground,” and digresses about Lincoln’s family and the end of the Civil War, noting that Lincoln died while he was laughing “at thin jokes in bad plays: ‘You sockdologizing old man-trap!’ haw haw haw.” After repeating the “Emergency” line, he remarks that “it is said that” the Lesser Known would leave “his digging,” or his family dinner, to hide and listen to the calls of “Emergency.”
Get the entire The America Play LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
“It would help,” the Foundling Father continues, if Mary Todd Lincoln had “summoned” the Lesser Known to go “gawk at the Great Mans corpse.” But he concludes that “none of this was meant to be”—he abruptly announces and performs “a nod to the bust of Mr. Lincoln”—because the Lesser Known was born long after the Great Man’s death, so “couldnt hear” if there was “summoning.” He wished he could have been dug the Great Man’s grave, since he’s a gravedigger and people always told him “that he and the Great Man were dead ringers.” He comments that his holiday beard and shoes are “a little much” together and notes that Lincoln’s son did not look like him. He mentions that it’s “always slow on Sunday” before again winking to the cutout of Lincoln.
Active
Themes
After a pause, the Foundling Father declares that all lives have their “shape”—Lincoln moved from “his log cabin” to the “Big Town,” and is remembered through “his words and image,” while “The Lesser Known had a favorite hole. A chasm, really.” It was “one he’d visited” when he was newly married to Lucy, and they were planning to “build a mourning business.” They found “A Big Hole. A theme park. With historical parades.” Impressed by the beautiful park’s size and “Historicity,” he cheered from the sidelines of the parades. This all “gave a shape to the [Lesser Known’s] life and posterity.” He shows the audience his beard and shoes, and notes that the Lesser Known started “record[ing] his own movements” just in case.
On the train home from his honeymoon, the Foundling Father explains, he could not stop thinking about “the Reconstructed Historicities he ha[d] witnessed,” which went past him—“not 'on past’ him but past. Behind him. Like an echo in his head.” At home, he “hear[d] the summoning,” which (unlike the echoes) turned out to get “louder not softer.” (He shows the audience his yellow “fancy beard,” which “deviate[s] too much” from Lincoln’s dark hair to convince his audience.) All alone, he continues, “the Lesser Known […] went out West” seeking “his own Big Hole,” and “the Westerners” always told him he looked like Lincoln. (He even put “a false wart on his cheek” to look like Lincoln.) “Goatee,” he remarks, before repeating two of the phrases from the beginning of the scene: “He digged the Hole and the Whole held him,” and “I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed.”
Each evening, the Foundling Father “would stand in his hole reciting” Lincoln quotes and wondering if he could get paid to impersonate him. He decided to try “inviting [people] to come and throw old food at him while he spoke,” and found “moderate success.” When someone told him “he played Lincoln so well that he ought to be shot,” he discovered his new act: he let people “pay a penny” to “‘Shoot Mr. Lincoln.’” This made him “famous overnight.”
Suddenly, “A Man, [dressed] as John Wilkes Booth, enters” and “point[s] the gun at the Foundling Father’s head.” The Foundling Father starts laughing boisterously, until the man shoots and he “slumps in his chair,” as though dead. The other man jumps up and declares “thus to the tyrants” before leaving. The Foundling Father comments that most people repeat that line, and others also say “The South is avenged!” (which are John Wilkes Booth’s other alleged words after killing Lincoln).
The reenactment repeats: the same man enters dressed as John Wilkes Booth, the Foundling Father laughs, “Booth shoots,” and “Lincoln ‘slumps in his chair.’” This time, the man yells “The South is avenged!” and then thanks the Foundling Father for his time—“till next week,” he says, and he leaves. The Foundling Father notes that this man “comes once a week” and “always chooses the Derringer” and says the same two lines. “He’s one for history,” the Foundling Father concludes: “As it Used to Be. Never wavers. No frills. By the book. Nothing excessive.” He nods at his bust of Lincoln.
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father explains that he is putting on Lincoln’s “beard of uncertainty,” the one he used in the early days of the Civil War. He remembers “not knowing much about” the Civil War, except that he looked like Lincoln and “wanted to make a great impression” like him. He explains that this led him to study “all aspects of” Lincoln’s life, and he notes that he found the murder the most interesting—but a woman dressed as Booth interrupts him to reenact the murder. He laughs, she shoots, and she proclaims, “Strike the tent.”
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father continues talking about details of the murder (the distance Lincoln and the stage, the people sitting with him, the principal actress of Our American Cousin, and the play’s plot). Another woman interrupts him to reenact the murder, and the now-familiar scene replays—except now she repeatedly screams “LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES!” and “LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS” after shooting him.
Active
Themes
After this woman exits, the Foundling Father decides that it is time to “wear the yellow beard,” for “variety.” He notes that Lincoln did not really wear his famous hat indoors, “but people dont like their Lincoln hatless.” He apologizes to Lincoln but decides that he will “pretend” he was blonde. The Foundling Father quotes from his own unpublished writing about Lincoln’s radiant hair and comments on how John Wilkes Booth “broke his leg” jumping from Lincoln’s seat onto the stage, and how Mary Todd “hysteric[ally]” screamed for him and grieved when her husband died before talking to their son Tad—and then ended up institutionalized. “‘Emergency,’” the Foundling Father repeats, “‘please put the Great Man in the ground.’” A man enters, shoots the laughing Foundling Father, and then proclaims, “Now he belongs to the ages,” before noting that Lincoln isn’t supposed to be blonde.
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father tells the audience that he has “no side effects” from his job, besides “a slight deafness in this ear.” He takes his beard off and goes “clean-shaven,” since “the face needs air.” He remarks that “the Lesser Known […] dug over 7 hundred and 23 graves,” plus the Big Hole and “hundreds of shallow holes” for “faux-historical knickknacks.” A pair of newlyweds enters and holds the gun together, then shoots the laughing Foundling Father. The woman exclaims, “Theyve killed the president!” The Foundling Father predicts that this couple will “bring their children here” to see him in the future and repeats that “slight deafness” is his only “side effect,” so he “cant complain.” He repeats that he records his life, in case “posterity” cares about him and nods to Lincoln.
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father contrasts the Great Man’s life in “time immemorial” with his own in the present, which has become an exercise in “trying somehow to equal the Great Man in stature, word and deed.” But he does not know if he is “catch[ing] up” or “running too fast in the wrong direction.” In fact, when he was told “that he ought to be shot,” the Foundling Father repeats exactly as before, he felt that “the Great Mans footsteps had been suddenly revealed.” He repeats his description of the performance and recalls that it made him “famous overnight.”
A man dressed as Booth comes inside and shoots the chuckling Foundling Father, then yells “Thus to the tyrants!” After a long, unwritten “spell”—the dialogue just says “LINCOLN” and “BOOTH” over and over, with blank lines for each of them—Booth leaps and declares that “The South is avenged!” The man and the Foundling Father thank each other and promise to meet again “next week.”
Active
Themes
The Foundling Father comments on his “ringing in the ears” and “slight deafness,” offers his wink and nod, and declares that he is “striding in the Great Mans footsteps.” He recalls their resemblance and wonders if “the Greater Man could have caught up” to him if he were to die or move backwards. The Greater Man could “sneak[] up behind” him and attack him, screamed, “Thus to the tyrants!” or even “shot him maybe.” While “the Lesser Known forgets who he is and just crumples,” in contrast, “The Greater Man continues on.” The Foundling Father repeats Mary Todd Lincoln’s “Emergency” line, then mentions his “ringing in the ears” and “slight deafness,” and finally proposes he “wear the blonde.” Act 1 closes with the echo of a gunshot.
