The America Play

“Emergency oh, Emergency, please put the Great Man in the ground.”

The Foundling Father repeats this phrase multiple times, a quote that he attributes to Mary Todd Lincoln. He is imagining a history in which he might also be centered as a gravedigger and revered as a hero alongside Lincoln.

“Being told from birth practically that he and the Great Man were dead ringers, more or less, and knowing that he, if he had been in the slightest vicinity back then, would have had at least a chance at the great honor of digging the Great Man’s grave.”

Although the Foundling Father believes that he resembles Lincoln, he recognizes that even if he had lived at the same time, his place in history would have still been very different. The most he could have hoped for as a Black gravedigger in the late 1800s was to be granted the privilege of digging Lincoln’s grave. In his reenactment he imagines a world in which he can walk in Lincoln’s footsteps as president.

“His son named in a fit of meanspirit after the bad joke about fancy nuts and old mens toes his son looked like a nobody. Not Mr. Lincoln or the father or the mother either for that matter although the father had assumed the superiority of his own blood and hadn’t really expected the mother to exert any influence.” 

The Foundling Father places great importance on resemblance, as he believes that his resemblance to Lincoln gives him some kind of entitlement to Lincoln’s legacy. When Brazil is born, the Foundling Father is insulted that he doesn’t bear any resemblance to him or to Lincoln, so he abandons him. Ironically, according to Lucy, Brazil grows up to look like his father.

“Everyone who has ever walked the earth has a shape around which their entire lives and their posterity shapes itself.” 

The Foundling Father is extremely preoccupied with the idea of his own posterity. His interest in becoming a historical figure is about a fear of being lost and forgotten, and he leaves his family because he feels the need to make a larger impression on the world. In the end, leaving his family results in the loss of his identity, and he is swallowed up by history after all.

“The Hole and its Historicity and the part he played in it all gave a shape to the life and posterity of the Lesser Known that he could never shake.” 

Although the Foundling Father has become somewhat known as a gravedigger, the pressure of his resemblance to Lincoln makes him feel inadequate. He always feels as though he is living in Lincoln’s shadow.

“Much much later when the Lesser Known had made a name for himself he began to record his own movements. He hoped he’d be of interest to posterity. As in the Great Mans footsteps.”

The Foundling Father acknowledges that the history that is performed is not necessarily entirely accurate and that much is lost in the Great Hole of History. He starts keeping a record of his life, attempting to preserve his own historical accuracy and hoping that it will be of interest. While Brazil is interested, the record is ultimately lost.

“If you deviate too much they wont get their pleasure. Thats my experience. Some inconsistencies are perpetuatable because theyre good for business.”

Those who pay to “shoot” the Foundling Father have their own preconceived ideas about what the historical moment was like and how Abraham Lincoln ought to look. The Foundling Father recognizes that perpetuating these inaccuracies is necessary to get people to engage in the historical moment, and that some deep-seated beliefs are more sacred than accuracy.

“And when someone remarked that he played Lincoln so well that he ought to be shot, it was as if the Great Mans footsteps had been suddenly revealed.” 

The Foundling Father has been unsuccessfully trying to impersonate Lincoln and to slip into Lincoln’s life and legacy. The suggestion that he was good enough to be shot gives him the idea that allowing himself to be assassinated is a way to become Lincoln. However, instead of becoming a Great Man, the Foundling Father loses his own sense of self.

“The ones who choose the Derringer are the ones for History. He’s one for History. As it Used to Be. Never wavers. No frills. By the book. Nothing excessive.” 

Those who line up for their chance to shoot Lincoln do it for different reasons. Some seem to want to experience a moment in history; others want to take belated revenge for the Confederacy. This identifies the fact that history and narratives of history are shaped and used for a variety of purposes.

“The Lesser Known […] knew only that he was a dead ringer in a family of Diggers and 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 the freeing of the slaves. That is, he wanted to make a great impression as he understood Mr. Lincoln to have made.” 

As a child, the Foundling Father knew very little about Lincoln aside from the reverence he was given for his role in freeing the slaves. This oversimplified understanding of Lincoln shapes his desire to become him. In the end, the Foundling Father is willing to die to be remembered with the same respect.

“Some inaccuracies are good for business. Take the stovepipe hat! Never really worn indoors but people don’t like their Lincoln hatless.” 

The Lincoln that the Foundling Father is mimicking from history is similar to the bust and cardboard cutout. It’s a recognizable image, but it lacks personal detail. Most people who participate in the reenactment have no deeper understanding of Abraham Lincoln than the Foundling Father did as a child. However, although the Foundling Father has since learned much more about Lincoln, the experience of the assassination is about something much more visceral than educating people about a historical event.

“Now he belongs to the ages.”

After “shooting” the Foundling Father, one of his customers quotes the words of Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war, as Lincoln was dying. The irony of this statement is that this person is both performing the assassination and quoting the great reverence of someone who did not want Lincoln to die. This suggests that reenacting the shooting allows the customers to momentarily become a historically important person, even someone who is important as a villain.

“Theyll have children and theyll bring their children here.” 

The Foundling Father, who has deserted his own family, inserts himself into the family history of a newlywed couple. He is exerting his importance in the lives of strangers rather than in the lives of his wife and son.

“And the Great Man’s deeds had transpired during the life of the Great Man somewhere in past-land that is somewhere ‘back there’ and all this while the Lesser Known digging his holes bearing the burden of his resemblance.” 

Although the Foundling Father talks about the Great Hole of History as if the great people of the past all exist and live there simultaneously, he expresses frustration at the recognition that Lincoln’s life and accomplishments are done. The Foundling Father feels pressure to follow in Lincoln’s footsteps, but those footsteps are already in the past.

“His lonely death and lack of proper burial is our embarrassment. Go on: dig. Now me I need tuh know thuh real thing from thuh echo. Thuh truth from thuh hearsay.”

As a Confidence, Lucy helps the dead lay their emotional and spiritual affairs to rest by keeping their secrets. To perform her job for the Foundling Father’s sake, Lucy must discern what she can about the truth of her husband’s life. It’s an embarrassment for the family that the Foundling Father died alone with no one to hear his last words, that they weren’t able to do for him what they have done for so many other people.

“Cant stop diggin till you dig up somethin. You dig that something up you brush that something off you give that something a designated place. Its own place. Along with thuh other discoveries. In thuh Hall of Wonders.” 

Lucy pushes Brazil to keep digging because once the Foundling Father is dead and lost, every artifact of his life they can find becomes precious and worthy of wonder. Most of what they find has no value, but the Hall of Wonders treats all of it as valuable, much like we treat all archeological discoveries.

“When theres no Confidence available we just dribble thuh words out. In uh whisper.” 

Brazil has learned that the dead want to be heard, even if they die alone. A Confidence will keep and remember their secrets and desires, but without someone to lovingly preserve their words, there will still be words floating around. Similarly, a person who dies without leaving their own record will still leave a trail in the form of those who knew them.

“Thuh original Mr. Washingtonssbeen long dead.” 

When Brazil repeats his father’s account of the Great Hole of History as being full of actual historical figures, Lucy sets him straight. She is much more realistic than the Foundling Father, who clearly embraced embellishments of history to tell a good story.

“Keep your story to scale.” 

Lucy is interested in the truth. She listens for echoes and is determined to discern reality from hearsay. Her search for the Foundling Father’s history is about learning from those who knew firsthand, unlike the Foundling Father, who embraced the mythicization of historical figures. She urges Brazil to remain realistic, to not follow these big ideas and end up like his father.

“He’s one of them. All of them who comed before us—my Daddy.” 

To Brazil, his father is a part of history. While this is what the Foundling Father wanted to become, it indicates that no one, except perhaps for Lucy, truly knew him as a person. Much like Lincoln, the details of his life are lost, and he missed his chance to make a mark on the lives of his family.

“This Hole is our inheritance of sorts. My Daddy died and left it to me and Her. And when She goes, Shes gonna give it all to me.”

As the Foundling Father’s son, Brazil’s inheritance is a hole. In one sense this means that the replica of the Great Hole is something that will one day become his. But a hole is also a negative space. In place of an actual inheritance, the Foundling Father has left his son a gap, a hole where he once was.

“We could say I just may follow in the footsteps of my foe-father.” 

Brazil barely remembers his father. He refers to him as his foe-father and his faux-father, because he was more of an enemy and a fake than an actual father. When Brazil finds the shovel, it is the one important artifact of his father’s life, the symbol of the family profession and legacy. Just as the Foundling Father used remnants of Lincoln’s life to try to follow in his footsteps, Brazil now has a tenuous link to potentially follow in his father’s footsteps.