we are to take the rest of our cargo to manila where the railroad bat conference have set up shop to put them together. so we sole around the south china sea. there is the rock. and batn, a proud and sorrowful memory. >> with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on use, here on c-span-3 we complement that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. then on weekends, c-span-3 is the home to american history tv, including six unique series. the civil war's 150th anniversary, visiting battle fields and key effects. tour museums and historic sites to discover what art facting reveal.

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president lincoln's assassination about 150 years ago. this is about 30 men's. >> we are at ford's theater with james still and mary bacon about the play, the widow lincoln. i want to start with you mary. what is it like to produce aling-centered play in ford theater with that flag-draped box? what is that experience like? >> well, it is definitely -- what is the word? you are very aware of it. i am very aware of it. the first time i stepped into the theater, i was like whoa. then i was like why is there a picture of president washington up there? i don't know a lot of the specific history of the theater. through my research to do the role. also i have to say for me, i've

thought a lot about how we turn a place into a sideline -- shrine because we know what happened there. but there are a lot of places where we just don't know what happened there. so it is a mixed thing. james has a line in the play, and a lot of lines from his play come to me. god gives us our beloved ones we make them our idols and then they are taken from us. i think about that. when i look at the fox, i think about making him an idol. he is a great idol. it is just that we have participated in that veneration , if that makes any sense. >> james you have worked with the theater for a while now so you are accustomed to it to a degree. but does it ever really leave you, being near that box? >> no. i didn't know coming back this time if i would have that same kind of haunted feeling being in the theater and sitting there.

but in this case the widow lincoln actually incorporates ford's theater into the play. so there is sort of a double experience going on. you are watching mary lincoln remembering that night in ford's theater, and we are in the audience remembering that night with her in ford's theater. that is a very unique disappearance for me as a writer. i think sometimes at ford's theater, if i can speak for them they have to almost deny the box in a way. if you are doing a play that has nothing to do with lincoln, and yet you can't cover it up. you can't not light it. it is there and always present. so i would say in the widow lincoln what is wonderful and difficult in a certain way is that it is meant to be present. it is meant to be part of the play. and so i think sitting in the audience realizing there was a

night on april 14th in 1865 that a president and his wife sat in that box and were watching a play just like we are going to be watching a play and this terrible thing happened. that still moves me. i have to say i am still moved by that. >> this play was commissioned for the 150th anniversary. is there any additional .iansy because of the -- poignancy because of the anniversary? >> sure. i had written another play about abraham lincoln set in 1862, the year he wrote the emancipation proclamation. i had always thought there was a second part to that play. not a sequel, but probably that i was not finished yet with the lincoln story. but i didn't really know what that was. when ford's came to me and suggested to write a play for the 150th anniversary i balked

a little bit because i feel like i had written my abraham lincoln play. i also thought well, we all know the ending. we all know what happened. there is drama in that. we know the president was shot. we know that he died the next morning across the street and we know that the country went into mourning. but in that earlier play and in my research in that time, i had really become -- i guess i will say attached to m amp ry lincoln, and curious about her, and curious about the ways that she had been maligned for so many years. people are so passionately opinion eighted even now, 150 years later. so i approached them that i had a slightly different idea, which was to focus on marsh ry, and that president lincoln himself would not really be a

character. he looms large in the play. his absence i would say looms large. but it is really about mary. so the poignancy of that, what was that experience for mary lincoln. it is important, the 150th anniversary. >> would you explain the basic premise of the play? can you tell us what the play is all about so people are understand what we are talking about? >> the play is about the period of time that mary lincoln spent in the white house right after he was shot. she holed herself up in a room that she had spent barely any team in for close to six weeks, 40 days, and would not leave even though johnson was ready to move in with his family and start running the country from the white house. that is how she dealt with her

grief. that is what it is about. everything that is happening in the country while she is there. i guess it is about a woman's insistence on mourning in her own way. >> did the ford's people immediately like the idea when you said there will be no lincoln in the anniversary play? >> to the producer's credit i would say he took about one second and said yeah, we will do that. they know my work very well, and they know how seriously i approach the subject. and i think that paul and his colleagues were taken by the mystery of this. it is really an untold story. there is very little written about it. it was really a footnote in a book an arm or something. i thought surely someone has

written extensively about that time. the one reason is we know very little about it. mary wrote about it in only one letter. she doesn't talk about it in detail. her dress maker, elizabeth keckley, who was her companion during that time talks about it a little in her book. but that's it. you can imagine, for me as a dramatist it was different. >> does the room she holed up in still there in the white house? >> that is a good question. in some way i am sure it exists. after the president died, she wouldn't go into any of the rooms where she had any associated memories. her own bedroom, any of the rooms. she found herself in this particular room, which was a

small room in the living quarter on the second player that had been appointed to be sort of a writing room for lincoln for the summer. she went in and wouldn't leave. >> before we get to that part of the story, isn't it true that while lincoln was dying right across the street from where we were. do i -- that they wouldn't let her be with her husband? >> yes. she was in a room next door. they didn't tell her he was dying. she knew it was grave. she talks about that. that is in katherine clinton's book. after he died, she was like why didn't anyone tell me he was dying? you can tell when someone is in that stage. it wasn't stanton who banished

her -- it was stanton who banished her from the room. >> because she was weeping and wailing. >> yes. >> she would come in periodically with panic, anxiety and grief, and they would shutting her out to this room next door. i would say in the play, that is quite an event in the play the fact that she was kept out. there was a southern tradition of being there with the dying person, the last moments with your beloved. the fact that she was denied that was just one more thing that marry -- that mary lincoln felt in my play of course, that people were taking control over here. it is quite an event in the play. i had found a report that one of the attending doctors to lincoln kept a little notebook

of his pulse all through the night. it was all these numbers. so that interplay interspersed with mary's desire to be with her husband during these moments. >> we talked about acknowledges all of the lincoln scholars, and the wanna be lincoln scholars. so many know a lot about lincoln's life. yet you chose a period where very little is known, giving you a lot of dramatic latitude. did you do that on purpose? >> well, it is a bit intimidating. you are absolutely right. the way i make peace with that by thinking there will always be people who know more about it. but that is not really my job. it is my job as a story-teller and writer to bring that period

in mary life to life for an audience. i have to say after doing the first play where there was so much available to me about lincoln. you could read it the rest of your life. with mary, it was a different experience. i did appreciate having a little bit of room to do my own imagining about her. >> you found these small notations, but what was the historical research that went into crafting this play? >> my style with a period piece like this is to start very specifically with things that were written in the time rather than starting with things that are a 21st century lens look thing back. many of the writers, scholars and historians are doing exactly what i am doing in

creating a lens to look at the story. so rather than cheat so obviously and just take them at their word what they made of mary lincoln. i went back. the newspapers of the day. you can read all them. aboutth were many books published right after lincoln's death. many wanted to jump on that bandwagon and add their thoughts. some wrote a tiny bit about mary. she was often not in any of those books. that was a big clue to me as well, is how often she was missing from the story of lincoln. one thing i did that i found very interesting is i went back and found about maybe seven or eight plays that had been written right after the assassination about lincoln. and just reading how they treated the story of the civil

war, in some ways, mary lincoln, abraham lincoln, some of these plays were wild, much wilder than anything i could write. that liberated me as well. there that liberated me as well because i realized there were writers 150 years ago trying to make sense of this time in a theatrical language as well. that was freeing. then i started to read books that were written in the 20th century. carl sandburg wrote a beautiful, slim volume. he was part of a new wave of writers starting to reconsider the image and reputation of mary lincoln. maybe she had gotten a bad deal in terms of -- for about 50 years after lincoln's death, there was so much negative that was written about her. i started to find some of the things that, if not positive, at least were looking at, maybe there are two sides to this. so it was a -- there was enough

source material that i felt like i could find interesting things. >> what was the time from, yes i have this commissioned, to the opening debut? how much time was involved in all that? >> i would say it was about three years, maybe, that i had. i spent a solid year researching. i went back to springfield illinois, to the presidential museum there. i went to lexington to the todd house. and i also spent time with one of the largest privates collectors of lincoln memorabilia, in los angeles, louise taper. she was able to let me look firsthand at some of mary lincoln's, her comb, her bible the gloves she wore to the inauguration. that was incredibly moving to me. >> how many characters are in your play? >> there are eight actors who play a variety of characters. >> are all the characters historically accurate? or do you take some license with

them? were all of them known to have gone into that room during that timeperiod? >> no. >> but ehythey all existed at that time. >> queen victoria is in the play. she wrote a letter to mary lincoln that was very famous and she appears to mary in the form of that letter. an actress from "our american cousin," which was the play at ford's that was being acted when the tragedy happened, and the fact that they were linked forever by that event, i was very intrigued why those women -- by those two women and what they might have to say to each other. >> after the tragedy happened, was the play produced again? >> oh yes, that was the most produced play in the country and there were many versions of it. they were booked to do a

performance two days later. she went to do it and was brought back to washington because they were all suspects. >> mary bacon, how did you get involved with the project? mary: i did a play called "iron kisses" i can't remember how many years ago. i knew him. when the audition came, just knowing the writer, it is a new play of his, that makes you interested immediately, if you like him, if you believe in their voice on the strength of their play. and that -- and also, for me, my late mother-in-law, my husband's mother, was a really wonderful woman. judy lindsay. and she was in new york city. she went to the theater, she read everything. she read every -- and she was trying her hand at playwriting

after a career in journalism and working at columbia university and cpj. she was actually writing a play about mary lincoln. i never got to talk to her about it because she died unexpectedly about four years ago. and i -- it was really creepy that when this came up, i felt obligated to explore, at least -- it did make me pause. what was she so taken with? she herself experienced the death of her first husband untimely death of her first husband, at the age of 36, and the untimely death of her second husband. at the age of -- when he was 62. she was married to her first husband one year longer than her second husband. i thought maybe it was the grief that she went through that was something she was interested in. although i do not know, judy. i do not know.

she was very taken with mary todd lincoln. you do an audition. the way james is writing, it reads like poetry. this is a very poetic play. i think, if i may say so, he is writing -- he is writing people's feelings. mary is putting her feelings into words, which is poetic. i have said this a million times. it is beautifully written. and so i wanted to feel how it felt as drama, upon my feet. sometimes i don't know until i am up on my feet in an audition. i am like, wow this really works. that was intriguing. those are the two things i brought to it. susan: is this your first historical character? mary: gosh. my first historical character?

susan: if it doesn't immediately come to mind -- this has to be one of the best-known historical characters you have played. people have opinions and they have heard a lot about it. how did you prepare yourself to play this role? someone so well known. mary: i found my mother-in-law's -- we pulled down a box of her stuff and she had four biographies. i started looking at them. i found that biographers really have a hard time keeping their own opinion out of it. it was interesting to read the same event from different perspectives. i just read. then i researched biographies and i tried to discern which ones i felt were going to be more evenhanded, i guess, which ones appealed to me more. i did that. i read what was basically on the internet. and i re-watched "lincoln."

because i think sally field did her a great service. how sally field portrayed her was very bright. she was emotional, but what i loved about her portrayal is she had a reason for behaving the way she did when she had a fit to get her husband to do something, or to do something, change something. i liked that a lot. i took from all these different places. actually playing the role, i will tell you, i have not had to work that hard in terms of, i have freed myself completely. and i guess i do as an actor but completely of trying to be like mary lincoln. i don't look anything like her. we have brown hair. body type, we are completely different. that has not been the focus. i think with your previous play, when you are playing lincoln you have to look like lincoln. you have to approximate some semblance. because he's, you know. but mary todd lincoln had a very distinct look.

that has not been part of this. what i want to say about james' s play is that i feel like all i have to do is really live in the text. it is all there for me in terms of creating a character. i am not creating one and putting it on top of the words i say. it is evident if i just say those words. if i express it as truthfully as i can, she just emerges, her character. susan: how old was she when the assassination happened? mary: 47. susan: this is a question for both of you. going back to what happened in that box, it is almost unbelievable to think you are sitting and watching a play and your spouse would be shot dead at close range in that environment. how do you capture, how do you understand what kind of emotions

people would go through, experiencing that? how do you translate that in what you wrote and what you are producing on the stage? james: i guess starting with me, that was a very big clue to me when you think you are holding your loved one's hand in the moment before he is killed. it's not hard to imagine how traumatic that would be. that is a way in for me to at least have empathy for mary lincoln. i may not understand everything she did. i may not agree with it. the play does not try to make her out to be nicer than she really was. or, you know -- and i don't have an axe to grind. i didn't come into this with an agenda of, i want to set the record straight about mary lincoln. i really wanted to tell the story about this incredibly smart, savvy, political mother and wife who witnessed her

husband's death, and what she might have gone through to try to get on with her life. and part of the tragedy with mary lincoln of course is that my play is focused on these 40 days, but as most of us know yes, she left the white house, but her life did not get better. in many ways, it became even more challenging. so that also meant the play, at isn't about, at the end, ok, the sun comes out, and everything is fine. she leaves the room, and that is something. that is a step in her life, but it's not over. it is not an easy one. so i think, how to do that on stage, how to create that, it is terrifying, you know? it was very terrifying to write. it was hard to live with. because i felt like it was my obligation to take that on, as

somebody who would had to do what an actor, and eventually mary, would do, to live that three-dimensionally. i wanted to do it as fully as i can. we were talking earlier about the wonderful handoff that happens between a writer and an actor. we are in that process right now. i am handing this off. she is mary lincoln. it is not my mary lincoln now. it is hers. i will let you talk about taking the book on, how you do that. mary: well, how do you do that? how do you create the traumatic experience on stage? one. susan: specifically this one. to imagine living through that how do you capture that without experiencing something that horrific in your own life?

mary: well, i am an actor. i will say that any good actor can portray anything that can happen to a human being. susan: so i am asking for the secret to an actor's craft. mary: everyone goes about it a different way. when i was younger, it was about trying to re-create. i have been through more tragedies since then, more death and grief. i am not as surprised by tragic events. susan: is it different when you put the costume on? is it painful? mary: yes. yes and no. there is a hard time when you leave the rehearsal room. you have created everything with the rehearsal. you have a relationship to that skirt. you have put a lot of emotional investment into it. it can be very jarring actually. now that we are here and we are in it, it has been helpful. it is just how -- i have dreams about being in this time period.

you know. you know? james: i feel very emotional watching them in costume because there is something about that silhouette, historical silhouette, especially in terms of what women wore then. it is not something i think about all the time, but seeing it again three dimensionally, it is haunting. mary: the restriction is really -- because i think -- susan: the restriction of the corset? mary: that's one thing, the corset, but it is also the weight of the clothes. it is so heavy. you could not move very much. you are so weighed down. how you can move, it is limiting. susan: it is how women were confined physically. mary: and in so many ways. james: that is one of the things the play is about. victorian america, how limiting that was for a woman like mary

lincoln, who was educated and smart. mary: it makes me admire her all the more for working with what she had, how she did make herself look beautiful, knowing to put flowers in her hair. she worked it. and i really have a great admiration for that now. because i can see how, what the challenges were. it's in the costume. susan: this play will be staged for a short period of time for the anniversary. what happens to it after this? it is for a short period of time but what will its future be? james: i wish i knew. as a writer in the theater everything i write, i have to imagine and hope it will have life beyond its first production.

all my plays have, and i hope this one is no different. it is a very special production of this play, but this play can be done and hopefully will be done in other theaters. they won't have this firsthand relationship with the event, but, you know, it is a big country, and a lot of people have a lot of feelings about mary lincoln. i saw "the heavens are hung in black" in springfield, illinois, at the museum, done by local actors. i was so moved because i did not know until i saw it in springfield how often the word springfield came up in the play. i was sitting with all these townspeople watching a play that was really about springfield. when it was here, it was about washington. i think it will find, hopefully, its home in different places for people that it might have meaning for. susan: hopefully for people who experience the play, what do you want to leave them with? what is the ultimate message for them? james: i will risk sounding -- i coy here, but i have kind of

given up on the idea that i can even wish that. what i do hope is that knowing that many people have big opinions about mary lincoln, i hope the play will at least engage those opinions, and if not change them, for a couple of hours, they might consider who mary lincoln was, might have been, and maybe look at her a little differently. susan: and are there universal messages in the play as well? james: absolutely. susan: what do you hope they would be? james: grief is a process. grief is both very private and very public. no one can do it for you. you have to go through that. as mary said, mary lincoln did it on her own terms. that did not please a lot of people, that she did it on her own terms. and i think there is a message in there as well, that sometimes

you have to do it. susan: in a very big sense. she basically said, country, i will do this my own way. i don't care if a new president has to come into the white house. you absorbed this character, learning how to prepare and stage. what do you want people to take away from your performance? mary: one thing about playing this role, i have just imagined being a woman in this set of circumstances. and i think in some ways, i hope people will see just -- i don't want to say an ordinary person not that she was ordinary -- just a person going through these circumstances, that all women go through grief, women who lose their husbands, the main source, it was their world. many men or women have to pick

up and set their identity without someone -- for mary lincoln, her entire identity was based in abraham lincoln. susan: and financial resources -- no pension after he died. mary: victorian times, what was available for her to do? if she could have found something to do, i think she would have had an easier time. she talks about being the widow, the quiet, charming widow, and what your options are. i hope they will take away a sense of the misogyny of the time, which has a lot to do with how she was perceived and portrayed in that time. it's just -- now, we would never question that a woman needs to grieve, or how she is behaving. it makes complete sense. and to me, the play has always made complete sense.

it's very rational to me, how she behaves in this play. i am hoping they will take that away. james: there is a moment in the play where she says very sincerely, what's to become of me? that is a genuine question for mary lincoln in this moment, and i think it is a universal question that we all feel in moments of grief. what is to become of me? where will i go? will i love? i think those are universal things. susan: thanks to both of you the playwright and the actress of mary lincoln. portraying mary lincoln in "the widow lincoln." thank you for your time. >> in the 19th century, the federal government was very limited. they do not have many deployable resources. so t