BUCKET LIST UPDATE No. 116: Read the play “Our American Cousin”

You may have never heard of it before, but “Our American Cousin” is arguably one of the most historic stage plays in American history. This three-act play by Tom Taylor debuted in 1858, and is now best known for being the play Abraham Lincoln was watching the night he was assassinated by 26-year-old John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in Civil War history (I’ve even been to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.), but I’d never read “Our American Cousin.” My interest in the play really ramped up several years ago when I read James L. Swanson’s outstanding book, “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer,” which heavily detailed the events on the night of Lincoln’s assassination. For that reason, I put “Our American Cousin” on my “bucket list” a while back and finally took the time to read it during the past week.

Aside from its ties to the Lincoln assassination, the play was fun to read. It’s a comedy about a very proper family in England who is paid a visit by a backwoods cousin from Vermont. The American cousin, Asa Trenchard, has been made heir to the family’s valuable aristocratic estate, and he gets into all sorts of comical situations as he interacts with single, gold-digging ladies and a host of reserved, well-to-do English relatives. In the end, the rustic American is shown to be the wisest and best natured of them all.

Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous actors of his generation, and he was very familiar with “Our American Cousin.” During the performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Booth timed the shot that killed Lincoln to happen during one of the play’s funniest lines, hoping the audience’s laughter would mask the gunshot that killed the president. The shooting occurred around 10:15 p.m., about halfway through the second scene of the play’s third act, and, as you might have imagined, they didn’t finish the play that night.

After the shooting, Booth jumped from Lincoln’s box to the stage, breaking his leg in the process. He fled backstage to a horse he had waiting in the alley and escaped from the city despite the fact that the army had shut down all roads and bridges out of the city. Twelve days later, Union soldiers tracked Booth to a farmhouse near Port Royal, Va., where he was shot and killed.

I did enjoy reading “Our American Cousin,” and I think many of you would enjoy reading it as well. If you’d like to read it for yourself, you can download a free copy of it from the Project Gutenberg Web site. The version I read was free through Amazon.com. I download it for my Kindle Fire, and it took a couple of days to read. In all, it’s about 80 pages long.

In the end, how many of you have read “Our American Cousin”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Let us know in the comments section below.