Prince of Players (1955) Movie Script
Ladies and gentlemen.
Please, I implore you.
We've just waited for an hour.
Just a few minutes more.
The show is about to resume in a moment.
He is just back.
Is he here? Is Mr Booth here?
Peace, good pint-pot.
Peace, good tickle-brain.
Come, sing me a bawdy song.
Make me merry.
I was as virtuously given as
a gentleman needs to be.
Swore little. Diced not above
seven times a week.
Went to a bawdy house not
above once in a quarter.
Of an hour.
Paid money I had borrowed three or four
times. Lived well and in good compass.
Now I live out of all order
and out of all compass.
That's Falstaff, you dunderheads.
Shakespeare.
The immortal Will. The incomparable ..
Father.
Give your Lordship good time of day.
I am glad to see your Lordship abroad.
Your Lordship.
Do not plead past your youth.
Have some smack of age in you.
Some relish of the saltiness of time.
Father.
And I do most humbly
beseech Your Lordship ..
To have a reverend care of your health.
Well.
I hear no applause.
Help me please. This is Mr Booth.
Junius Brutus Booth.
- Booth?
He has to go to the theater.
- That is Booth?
I paid two dollars for these tickets
and by god he's going to act in it.
Give me a hand with him. Come on here.
When I was a little tiny boy.
With the hey-ho, the wind and the rain.
The foolish thing was but a toy.
For the rain it raineth every day.
The curtain's an hour late already.
The audience is growing impatient.
Impatient? They dare
grow impatient with me?
Mr Booth. Come back.
Shut up.
Shut up!
Sit down.
Be quiet for ten minutes.
And I'll give you the damnedest
King Lear you ever saw.
The name is .. Booth.
Now then, lad. Away from the stage.
Study your lessons.
You may assemble the players on stage.
I shall be ready for my entrance.
Blow winds and crack your cheeks.
Blow, rage!
You cataracts and hurricanoes.
Spout.
You sulphurous and
thought-executing fires.
Vaunt-couriers to
oak-cleaving thunderbolts.
Singe my white head.
And thou, all-shaking thunder.
Strike flat the thick
rotundity o' the world.
I acted well tonight.
I don't want any food.
Father.
Go home, Ned.
Go back to the hotel.
Please, father.
I'm going out.
No. I won't let you go out.
No. I don't want you to go.
- Let me go, boy.
You shall not go out.
Father, please.
I will sing to you.
That always soothes the madness.
Father, come out.
I'll call someone to smash down
the door. Do you hear me?
Father, you'll smother in there.
Are you alright?
Speak to me. Are you alright?
Somebody. Somebody help me.
I am sorry, Ned.
You know I love you.
I know, father.
If only.
I could sleep.
I can sleep.
Darkness rides across the sky.
To hide all tears and sorrows.
He steals away.
Each dawn of day.
And leaves a new tomorrow.
Miss Asia. Miss Asia.
Your father has come home.
It's your father and Mr Ned.
Father.
Ned.
Asia.
How do, Mr Booth.
Asia.
Father, what is it?
Alright.
It's just rest I need.
So we have come home to you, Ned and I.
How are you, Ben?
- Just fine, Mr Ned.
Just fine. How are you?
- Just fine. Thanks.
You can put the horses away now.
Ned.
Ned.
Ned. You are home.
Father.
- Johnny, don't go in.
Why not?
Father's sickness is on him again.
It would be better not
to see him for a while.
Charleston.
Receipts: 804 dollars.
He played Othello.
St Louis. Falstaff.
1,200 dollars.
No performance at Atlanta.
The audience waited two hours and
then they gave the money back.
Birmingham. The same thing.
Ned.
Ned. How hard it is for you.
But he could not go alone.
And only you can guard him and
keep him safe when the spells come.
It's hard for you too, Asia.
Being a mother to us all.
Go on, boy.
All hail, great master.
Grave sir, hail.
I come to answer thy best pleasure.
Be it to fly, to swim.
To dive into the fire.
To ride on the curled clouds.
To thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Hast thou spirit performed to point
the tempest that I bade thee?
Every article.
I drink the air before me and
return ere your pulse twice beat.
Back. Back. Take your bow, Johnny.
I hear no applause.
A Booth. A true Booth.
Keep them waiting.
Make them thunder it
across the footlights.
Here is your applause, Johnny.
Have a care, laddie. You'll choke me.
You are not going to push me
off the stage yet. Are you?
You are not taking my
place for a while I hope.
When he does he will be the
greatest Booth of them all.
The greatest actor that ever lived.
A large order, my girl.
I trust their memory of me
will survive this onslaught.
And do you intend to bill yourself as
the greatest actor that ever lived?
No.
Just.
John Wilkes Booth.
That will be enough.
An actor? No. Not yet.
But a Booth? Yes, it's inescapable.
Let me do Richard for you.
Yes, father. Let him.
It's thrilling. Let him do it.
The best Richard I ever saw. Yes, sir.
Et tu, Brute?
Are we all under Johnny's spell?
Are we all helpless before him?
Enough for now.
Tomorrow. You shall do Richard.
My beautiful boy.
It's time to dress, father.
What do we play tonight?
Richard. It's the San Francisco
opening. Don't you remember?
Richard.
I don't want to, Ned.
I can't.
Why do you make me do it?
Because I'm proud of you, father.
Because I want these people in the west
to see Junius Brutus Booth act well.
They'll be seeing you for
the first time, father.
They built this theater for you.
You're going on tour where no
great actor has been seen before.
They've waited a year
for your coming, father.
You must give them your best.
I'll act you off the stage tonight, Ned.
Thus high. By thy advice and thy
assistance is King Richard seated.
But shall we wear these
honours for a day?
Or shall they last and
we rejoice in them?
Still live they and
forever may they last.
Buckingham.
Now do I play the touch.
To try ..
To try if thou be current gold indeed.
Young Edward lives.
Think now what I would say.
Think now what I would say.
Say on, my loving lord.
Say on.
My loving lord.
Why Buckingham, I say I would be king.
Buckingham I say, I would be king.
So you are my thrice-renowned liege.
Ha.
Am I king?
Ned.
Am I .. King?
I just don't believe it.
Either you are jesting, Mr Booth.
And a bad joke it is.
Or you've calmly set out to ruin me.
Ruin you, my dear fellow?
Why should I want to ruin you?
I hardly knew you.
No. It is much simpler than that.
I am going home.
That is all.
I am returning home.
But you have a contract with me, sir.
A legal document
binding you to this tour.
I've yet to see a piece of paper that
makes a Booth act if he didn't want to.
That is unfortunate.
But I've engaged a company.
I've arranged a tour.
Mortgaged my savings.
That was a mistake, my dear Prescott.
To put your money in
the hands of children.
And actors are childlike
beings, as you will learn ..
If you have any more to
do with them in the future.
Mr Booth.
I throw myself on your mercy.
I'm not an honest man.
In this hard, tough world out here
I have made my way deviously.
And not always with grace.
But all my life I've always
had one honest passion.
The theater.
Great acting.
A talent like yours.
This venture with you Mr Booth,
represents a dream I always cherished.
To be in some way a small part of this
magic world that I could never enter.
And into this I have honestly thrown
the dishonest gains of a lifetime.
Every cent I possess.
Doesn't this touch you, Mr Booth?
To the heart, Mr Prescott.
You underestimate your own talent.
But it's quite useless.
I will pay you the compliment
of telling you the truth.
Which I learned for myself
on the stage tonight.
I can no longer act.
I am no longer able to act.
I tell you, Mr Booth.
That does not matter.
They'll pay to see Junius Brutus Booth
whether he stumbles or not.
Will they indeed?
Well.
If people will cross the seas to
stare at the ruins of a cathedral.
No doubt they will pay money
to look at the ruins of a man.
We should have played
The Tempest tonight, Ned.
Not Richard.
Prospero's lines are fitting.
Perhaps I wouldn't have
stumbled over them.
'Our revels now are ended'.
'These, our actors.
As I foretold you were all spirits'.
'And are melted into air'.
'Into thin air'.
'And like the baseless
fabric of this vision'.
'Cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces, the solemn temples'.
'The great globe itself'.
'Yay, all Richard inherits
shall dissolve'.
'And like this insubstantial
pageant faded'.
'Leave not a rack behind'.
'We are such stuff as
dreams are made of'.
'And our little life is
rounded with a sleep'.
Here, Ned.
I won't be needing it any longer.
Your contract calls for a Booth
to undertake this tour, sir.
Well, you've got a Booth.
There he is.
Edwin.
Will you pay the compliment
not to accompany me tonight?
Goodnight, gentlemen.
I refuse to accept ..
- Be still, Mr Prescott.
You have just seen.
A king abdicate.
Come on, you old tightwad.
Go ahead. Put in some more dust.
It's worth your whole stash
to see Junius Brutus Booth.
Go on. Go ahead.
What is ..
What is the old boy
playing tonight, Dave?
Mr Booth is playing Richard tonight.
Richard?
Richard was the best thing he ever did.
Excuse me.
Wait a minute, everybody. Listen.
This whole thing is a darned fraud.
It's a big lie.
I once shook hands with Junius Brutus
Booth back in St Louis, Missouri.
I just went back there to
shake hands with him again.
He wasn't even there.
There wasn't nobody there but a ..
Puling, wet-nosed boy
pretending to be Booth.
You got to make an announcement.
Tell them the truth and
give them back their dust.
We turn back for
San Francisco in the morning.
You said you believed in me.
You said it was 'star or swing'.
We can't afford to take a chance.
They might really hang you.
Listen to them.
Stop!
Sit down.
Sit down.
Yes.
It's the son.
Not the father.
The son.
Keep still for five minutes and I give
you the damnedest Richard you ever saw.
The name.
Is Booth.
Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this ..
Sun .. of York.
And all the clouds that
lour'd about our house.
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound
with victorious wreaths.
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments.
Our stern alarums changed
to merry meetings.
And now.
Instead of mounting barded steeds to
fright the souls of fearful adversaries.
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
to the lascivious pleasing ..
Of a lute.
But I.
That am not shaped for sportive tricks.
Nor made to court an
amorous looking-glass.
I, that am rudely stamped.
And want love's wit to strike
before a wanton ambling nymph.
Cheated of feature by
dissembling nature.
Deformed, unfinished.
Sent before my time into this ..
Breathing world.
Scarce half made up and that so lamely
and unfashionably that dogs bark at me.
As I halt by them.
Why, I ..
In this weak piping time of peace.
Have no delight to pass away the time.
And therefore.
Since I cannot prove a lover
to entertain these fair ..
Well-spoken days.
I am determined.
To prove a villain.
Bind up my wounds.
Haver mercy, Jesu.
Soft.
I did but dream.
Oh coward conscience.
How does thou afflict me.
The lights.
Burn blue.
The lights.
Burn blue.
It is dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand
on my trembling flesh.
My conscience.
Hath a thousand several tongues.
And every tongue brings
in a several tale.
And every tale condemns me.
For a villain. Perjury.
Perjury in the direst degree.
Murder. Stern murder
in the highest degree.
Throng to the bar. Crying all ..
Guilty.
Guilty.
I shall despair.
There is no creature loves me.
And when I die.
No soul shall pity me.
And wherefore should they?
Since that I myself find in
myself no pity to myself.
A horse. A horse.
My kingdom for a horse.
Withdraw, my lord.
I'll help you to a horse.
Slave, I have set my life upon a cast.
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
There be six Richmonds in the field.
Five have I slain today instead of him.
A horse. A horse.
My kingdom.
For a horse.
I was right, Ned.
You were great. Simply great.
Listen to that.
This is only the beginning, Ned.
I've got great plans for us.
We'll finish the tour
and then we'll go east.
New York. With the new Booth.
The successor to his father.
The new star.
Ned. Do you hear what I am saying?
I acted well tonight.
Now my boys.
I once shook the hand of your father.
The great Junius Brutus Booth.
But he was never the actor you are.
Here. Have a drink.
Thanks.
Ned.
Leave me alone, sir.
I play Richard.
Do you hear me, father?
I play Richard.
Asia.
Johnny.
I hold the crown.
The crown was mine.
Alone.
Do you hear me, father?
I flaunt .. like you.
Isn't that missing me too?
Oh God.
There's the taint in me too, father.
Ned.
Ned.
Ned.
A message came through for you.
It's not good news.
Is it father?
- Yes.
He's dead?
- Yes, Ned.
How did he die?
On the boat up from New Orleans.
Was he alone?
- Yes.
I should have been with him.
I should have gone with him.
Poor father.
Poor old man.
Yes, sir?
- I'm Edwin Booth.
Are you related to Mr John Wilkes Booth?
- Asia.
I didn't know you were in Washington.
We've been waiting for you to come home.
I went to the house. Old Ben told me ..
- Not now.
He mustn't hear your voice.
He mustn't know you're here.
He says it will make him nervous.
Afterwards. After the performance.
He must not be disturbed now.
It's time for his entrance now.
Sit back so he doesn't see you.
Verona.
For a while I take my leave.
To see my friends in Padua.
But of all, my best beloved
and approved friend.
Hortensio.
And I trow this is his house.
You flatter me, Colonel.
I merely bask a little in the
reflected glory of my father.
But I should be honored to come
to the plantation on Sunday.
Will you remember, Asia?
Ned.
Welcome. Welcome home, Ned.
My brother, ladies and gentlemen.
My brother Edwin Booth.
My brother has been acting in the far
west. It was a fascinating experience.
They act in mining camps
and saloons out there.
That's true, isn't it Ned?
- Perfectly true.
Right in the saloons with
the bars going full blast.
The actors play
Shakespeare on their own.
My poor brother has been shot at.
Run out of town.
Imagine an audience of critics
with pistols in their laps.
I rather fancy Hamlet saying ..
To be .. or not to be.
That is the question.
Then, bang!
And that finishes the soliloquy.
And Hamlet too.
You must be delighted to be safe
in the east again, Mr Booth.
What will you do now, Booth?
Continue to act?
Edwin is going to be with us.
He was father's manager for many years.
John, get out of your costume.
You're wet through. You'll catch cold.
I need you, Ned.
I need someone desperately
to manage Asia.
Goodnight. Thank you.
Thank you for coming back.
You will forgive me I'm sure.
My brother has some tall tales to
tell I am most eager to hear.
Goodnight.
Goodnight.
Well, Ned.
A cigar?
- No thank you.
Well, what do you think of the idea?
Asia spoke too soon as usual but ..
Will you join me as my manager?
That's a large question to give
a quick answer to, Johnny.
Take your time. No need for haste.
I'm doing very well, you know.
I haven't played in the north yet.
But in the south I'm a major attraction.
Full houses everywhere.
Notice how they were jammed in tonight?
Yes.
And how they accept me as a star?
Yes.
You haven't said a word
about my performance yet.
You're an arresting figure
on the stage, John.
I know I fill a pair of
tights satisfactorily.
What about the acting?
It will improve with experience.
Saloon experience?
Experience.
You need training and discipline as an
actor. A passion for it is not enough.
So that's your answer to joining me?
- Yes.
You will go on acting by yourself?
Yes.
Is that why you let father
come home alone?
Is that why you let him die?
So you could be the first star yourself.
I earned the right, Johnny.
I earned it all those years
you were warm in your bed.
Earned it.
Sitting underneath a stage on a pile
of scenery and listening, listening.
Earned it in years and
years of dirty lodgings.
Flicking the bedbugs off the page
while I listen to father and his lines.
In the stench of his drunken breath
when I was opposite him on the stage.
In the nights when he
was filled with genius.
And in the nights when he was mad.
Earned it with my guts.
And my childhood, Johnny.
But I can play Richard in
a saloon now, Johnny.
And I paid too high a
price for it not to go on.
What are you afraid of? Two Booths?
You got the head start.
Only earn it, Johnny.
There is more to what
father left than this.
Yes, Miss?
Have you seen Mr Edwin Booth?
Booth?
He is next door.
Thank you.
Miss.
I wouldn't go in there if I was you.
Mr Booth.
Is Mr Booth here?
What do you want?
Is Mr Edwin Booth here?
He might be and he might not.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
I'm with the Scott theater company.
You may have seen me on stage.
Oh, that's right.
You're the girl we like so much.
We go every week.
And sit in the upper box.
I have noticed.
If Mr Booth is here, will you
help me get him to rehearsal?
The company is at the theater and ..
Who are you?
What do you want?
Are you deaf? Who are you?
Open your mouth. Who are you?
I am your Juliet, Mr Booth.
Juliet.
Juliet.
Speak again, bright angel.
For thou art as
glorious to this night ..
Being o'er my head.
As is the winged messenger of
heaven to the white, upturned ..
Wondering eyes of mortals.
That fall back to gaze on him.
When he bestrides the
lazy pacing clouds.
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
O Romeo.
Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not,
be but sworn my love.
And I will no longer be a Capulet.
Shall I hear more?
Or shall I .. speak of this?
Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
O, be some other name.
What's in a name?
That which we call.
A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not
Romeo called, retain that ..
Dear perfection which he
owes without that title.
Romeo, doff thy name.
And for that name,
which is no part of thee.
Take all myself.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love.
And I'll be new baptised.
Henceforth.
I never will be.
Romeo.
What man art thou that thus bescreened
in night, so stumblest on my counsel?
By a name I know not how
to tell you who I am.
My name, dear saint,
is hateful to myself.
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written I would ..
Tear the word.
By whose direction found'st
thou out this place?
By.
Love.
Who first did prompt me to enquire.
He lent me counsel. And I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot.
Yet, wert thou as far as that vast
shore washed by the farthest sea.
I would adventure for such ..
Merchandise.
But thou knowest.
The mask of night is on my face.
Else would a maiden
blush bepaint my cheek?
For that which thou hast
heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form.
Fain, fain deny what I have spoke.
But farewell, compliment.
Dost thou love me?
I know thou wilt say 'aye'.
And I will take thy word.
Yet, if thou swearest,
thou mayst prove false.
At lovers' perjuries.
They say, Jove laughs.
O gentle Romeo if thou dost
love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinks I am too quickly won.
I'll frown and be perverse and
say thee nay, so thou wilt woo.
But else not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague I am too fond.
And therefore thou mayst
think my havior light.
But trust me, gentleman.
I'll prove more true than those that
have more cunning to be strained.
I should have been more
strange I must confess.
But that thou overheard'st
ere I was ware.
My true love's passion.
Therefore, pardon me.
And not impute this.
Yielding to light love.
Which the dark night had so discovereth.
Lady.
By yonder blessed moon I swear that tips
with silver all these fruit-tree tops.
O, swear not by the moon.
The inconstant moon.
That monthly changes in her circled orb.
Lest that thy love prove
likewise variable.
What shall I swear by?
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt.
Swear by thy gracious self which
is the god of my idolatry.
And I will believe thee.
If my heart's dear love ..
- Well, do not swear.
Although I joy in thee, I have
no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised.
Too sudden.
Too like the lightning which doth
cease to be ere one can say ..
'It lightens'.
Sweet.
Good night.
This bud of love by
summer's ripening breath ..
May prove a beauteous
flower when next we meet.
Good night.
Good night.
As sweet repose and rest
come to thy heart ..
As that within my breast.
O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
What satisfaction canst
thou have tonight?
The exchange of thy love's
faithful vow for mine.
I gave thee mine before
thou didst request it.
And yet I would it were to give again.
Wouldst thou withdraw it?
For what purpose, love?
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea.
My love is deep.
The more I give to thee the more I have.
For both are infinite.
It's almost morning.
I would have thee gone.
And yet.
No farther than a wanton's bird who
lets it hop a little from her hand.
Like a poor prisoner in
his twisted gyves.
And with a silken thread
plucks it back again.
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Good night.
Good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I
will say 'good night' till it be morrow.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes.
Peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace so ..
Sweet to rest.
Come along, Mr Booth.
Thy lips are warm.
Yea, noise?
Then I'll be brief.
O happy dagger.
This is thy sheath.
There rust.
And let me die.
Mary.
Be careful, Mary.
Be careful of getting in too deep.
Why do you say that?
- I watched you on stage tonight.
I watched him too.
Be careful.
Don't be swept away. It isn't safe.
There is a taint in all the Booths.
A touch of genius and
a streak of madness.
I knew his father.
He's very like his father.
Your friend is right.
My father was a drunkard.
And a madman.
She is quite right.
Be careful of the Booths.
Goodbye, Miss Devlin.
I said goodbye. What do you want?
It isn't goodbye.
Come here.
Look into my eyes.
Is there a hint of madness in them?
Look at me well, Mary Devlin.
Will you be tied to a
drunkard and a libertine?
To a man who believes he's tainted
with his father's madness.
Do you know what it's like?
Not to be able to believe the talent
I possess is not a curse as well.
You want to be tied to that?
I see no madness in your eyes, Edwin.
Nor in the heart and soul
of the man beyond them.
I know that with my whole being.
How can you know?
How can you know what I am?
I know.
I want to spend my life with you.
For?
Sleep.
You.
You have exactly 28 minutes
to catch your train.
Train?
You have an opening
in Mobile tomorrow night.
I can't.
We're getting married.
- Married?
What do you think you are?
People? You are actors.
Now hurry up and get dressed.
You can get married in Mobile.
I think I should like that.
To be married in Mobile.
Wake up, Edwin.
That's all the sleep you can
afford at the moment, my dear.
You don't know Henry's
long speech for tonight.
Come here. Wake yourself
up and let's get on with it.
I slept for exactly five minutes.
I merely closed my eyes.
I closed my ears to the
snores for over an hour.
I never snore.
Do I snore?
Come darling. Stop delaying.
You don't know the speech.
I do know the speech. I do know it.
Then say it.
'If thou canst love a fellow
of this temper, Kate'.
If thou can love a fellow of this temper
whose face is not worth sun-burning.
That never looks in his glass for
love of anything he sees there.
Let thine eye be thy cook.
See? I know it.
Ah, what a day.
I have spring fever.
In the fall?
The Booths always have spring fever in
the fall when the theaters are open.
'I speak to thee, plain soldier'.
Mary.
I can't remember lines
on a day like this.
But you can't act without lines.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
Mary, it's such a beautiful day.
Edwin, stop it.
If I'd wanted a manager for a wife
I'd have married Dave Prescott.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
If thou canst take me for this.
Take me.
If not, to say to thee that I shall
die is true, but for thy love ..
By the lord, no.
Yet I love thee too.
I would die if you
stopped loving me, Mary.
'And while thou liv'st, dear Kate'.
Do you know something?
You are a snob.
You want to be the wife of the greatest
actor in the world. That is snobbish.
That's right.
Ten weeks from tomorrow you will
be playing Hamlet in London.
In London, Edwin.
I want you to dazzle them.
And then return in triumph to New York.
America's first actor.
Because that is what you must be.
Not because I want it.
But your gift and your purpose.
Your reason for being.
And mine too.
I'll never be derelict of that purpose.
Nor will I let you be.
'And while thou lives, dear Kate'.
And while thou lives, dear Kate.
Take a fellow of plain
and uncoined constancy.
Who never looks in his glass for
love of anything he sees there.
For he perforce must do thee right.
If thou would have such a one.
Take me.
Take me.
Take a soldier.
Take a soldier.
Take a king.
Take an actor and make him a man.
Take a miserable creature and give him
understanding and love and devotion.
O my beloved.
Do you know what you meant
to me, my best beloved?
Do you know that you have given
me my wonder and delight?
Those are not the lines.
I'm sure they're not.
Hey.
It's Dave.
Who gave him his cue to enter?
Ned.
It's from your sister.
- Asia?
She said it was urgent.
What is it, Edwin?
Asia. She needs me.
Johnny's in some kind of trouble.
Why is he doing this?
Why is he mixed up in this?
I don't understand.
Don't you?
It's you, Ned.
His envy of you is overpowering.
Your success maddens him.
Each time he plays in the north
they compare him with you.
And the critics have been murderous.
In the south he's always acclaimed.
That only makes him more bitter.
It's the north he really respects.
And it galls him.
Galls him.
That's why he's done this.
Taken up the cause of
these southern hotheads.
I am afraid now, Ned. I am afraid.
Have I done this to him?
With my dreams of fame for him?
Filling his head with
wild ideas of glory.
Have I done this to him?
I'll wait for you at the Inn.
Bring him with you. Make him come.
Alright. Drive to the Inn.
If the south ever goes under to this
tyranny of the north, gentlemen.
Then the south is lost.
He is right.
- Lost by cowards.
And traitors.
If John Brown does not
hang tomorrow morning.
If you gentlemen of the Virginia
militia let them stop you.
Then 'Harpers Ferry'
are words of infamy.
Its name will ring on all abolitionist
tongues as a death knell for the south.
Let that gallows ..
Tell the north.
That southern blood will drench each
inch of soil in preference to dishonor.
Hear, hear.
Great events bring strangers.
Even brothers together. Two whiskeys.
Is what I hear true, Ned?
Since you are married.
And faithful.
I will drink with you tonight.
Good.
How did you find me here, Ned?
Our sister?
- Hmm.
Our dear, interfering sister.
I've warned Asia for the last
time to stay out of my life.
You're wasting your breath if
you're here as her ambassador.
No. I came to see you on my own.
I came to make you an offer, John.
That's a bad way of putting it.
I'd like us to be together.
In London.
As your manager?
- No.
As my co-star.
We alternate. Shakespeare and repertory.
You play Laertes to my Hamlet
one night and I yours.
The next I'd play ..
Iago to your Othello and
you to mine. And so on.
A very generous offer.
Very touching.
Thanks.
But I prefer to play a
role of my own choosing.
Let me show you something.
There he is.
John Brown.
Look at him, Ned.
Pacing up and down his cell.
Dreaming of an army with banners
that will come to rescue him.
But it is not coming.
Why do you hate him so?
A man you've never known.
Hate him?
I don't hate him.
In his way, he is a great man.
To destroy greatness is
to partake of greatness.
Shakespeare knew that.
Remember, Ned, when he
had Brutus say of Caesar?
'Let's carve him as a
dish fit for the gods'.
Shakespeare never wrote drama like this.
John Brown will die tomorrow.
Not play-acting a death.
But to rise for the applause
as the curtain falls.
And swing by his neck as the
sun comes up in mortal anguish.
Listen to those voices.
Not snoopers in the wings. But real men.
Whose voices are real.
That sound could fill
this land with agony.
Ned, there must be more glory to life
than bowing and smirking to an audience.
More to fame than a well-spoken Hamlet.
There's a mortal drama being played out
here that will dwarf a thousand Hamlets.
That is the stage to play upon, Ned.
The smell of life and
blood in your nostrils.
Waiting for your cue
until destiny speaks.
John Wilkes Booth.
I am coming.
Goodbye, Ned.
Good fortune.
Have no fears about London.
You don't have to play Hamlet.
You are Hamlet.
You always were.
Tell Asia she failed.
I've heard of your
paintings too, well enough.
God hath given you one face and
you make yourself another.
You jig and amble and you lisp.
You nickname God's creatures and make
your wantonness your ignorance.
Go to. I'll no more of it.
It hath made me mad.
I say there will be no more marriages.
Those married already, all but one shall
live. The rest shall stay as they are.
To a nunnery, go.
I'll do nothing of the sort.
Hamlet, come to bed. It is very late.
What makes you think
I can close my eyes?
Poor darling.
You won't feel any better
until that first curtain falls.
I'd play it for you myself if I could.
I imagine it would take some explaining
that Hamlet was going to have a baby.
I'm afraid I couldn't hide it.
It would change the play considerably.
- It would indeed.
Hamlet.
I am thy father's ghost.
What is that roundness
about thy middle, Hamlet?
What is that thou has
brought home with thee?
You alright?
Yes. Yes, I'm alright.
Mary.
Never leave me.
Even for a minute. Do you promise?
I promise.
Then I am afraid of nothing.
England.
Beware.
A new Hamlet storms your shores.
Perfidious Albion.
The dark prince comes.
Who is there?
Nay, answer me.
Stand and unfold yourself.
Long live the King!
Barnardo.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
Tis now struck twelve.
Get thee to rest, Francisco.
For this relief, much thanks.
Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart.
Come live with me and be my lover.
We will with all the pleasures prove.
Edwin!
What on earth are you doing here?
I was lonely for you.
Darling you are mad. They'll see you.
They've paid to see me.
Have you gone crazy, both of you?
Ned, get back on that stage.
- Give me your blessing.
Give you good night.
Farewell, honest soldier.
Who hath relieved you?
Barnardo hath my place.
I give you good night.
Holla, Barnardo.
Say.
What? Is Horatio there?
Really, Mary.
Of all the childish pranks.
Supposing the audience had seen you?
This is not a mining camp, you know.
Horatio says tis but our fantasy.
And will not let belief take hold of
him touching that dreaded sight.
Twice seen by us.
Therefore I've entreated him along with
us to watch the minutes of this night.
But if again this apparition comes.
Mary.
Is anything wrong?
It's nothing.
It's really nothing.
Are you alright?
I hear him coming.
Let's withdraw, my lord.
To be.
Or not to be.
That is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea
of troubles and by opposing ..
End them.
To die.
To sleep no more.
By a sleep to say we end the heartache
of a thousand natural shocks ..
That flesh is heir to.
It is a consummation
devoutly to be wished.
To die.
To sleep.
To sleep.
Perchance to dream.
Aye, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death.
What dreams may come when we have ..
Shuttled off this mortal coil.
Must give us pause.
There is the respect that
makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips
and scorns of time.
The oppressors wronged, the proud man's
contumely, the pangs of despised love.
The laws delay the insolence of office.
And the spurns that patient
merit of the unworthy takes.
When he himself might his quietus make.
With a bare bodkin.
Who would fardels bear to grunt
and sweat under a weary life.
But that the dread of something ..
After death.
The undiscovered country from
whose bourn no traveller returns.
Puzzles the will.
And makes us rather bear those ills we
have than fly to others we know not of.
Thus conscience.
Doth makes cowards of us all.
Thus the native hue of resolution is
sicklied o'er with pale cast of thought.
And enterprises of great
pith and moment ..
With this regard their currents turn
awry and lose the name of action.
What devil was that thus hath
cozened you at hoodman-blind?
O shame.
Where is they blush?
Rebellious hell, if thou canst
mutine in a matron's bone ..
To flaming youth let virtue be
as wax and melt in her own fire.
Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turns't mine eyes
into my very soul.
And there I see such black and grained
spots as will not leave their tinct.
A murderer. And a villain.
A slave that is not twentieth part
the tithe of your precedent lord.
A vice of kings.
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule.
That from a shelf the
precious diadem stole.
And put it in his pocket.
- O speak to me no more.
These words are like daggers
entering mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet.
- A king.
Or shreds and patches.
No more.
Save me.
And hover o'er me with your wings.
You heavenly guards.
Horatio.
When I am dead thou livest.
Report me and my cause
a right to the unsatisfied.
Oh God, Horatio.
What a wounded name things standing
thus unknown shall I leave behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart.
Absent thee from felicity awhile.
And in this harsh world.
Draw thy breath in
pain to tell my story.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite
o'ercrows my spirit.
The rest.
Is silent.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.
Mary is alright.
- Where is she?
What happened?
I took her home and got a doctor.
She's alright.
Hurry up and change.
- Change?
I don't want the baby.
Do you understand?
I don't want the baby.
If there's a danger to my wife ..
- It is possible.
Unless Mr Booth can listen calmly
Mr Prescott, I ask leave to withdraw.
You are not helping Mary.
I am sorry.
Forgive me.
Tell me what to do.
This may be a blessing
in disguise, Mr Booth.
Actually, she collapsed
not because of the baby.
But because of her lungs.
Nothing alarming at the moment.
But a warning, Mr Booth.
A warning in time.
Plenty of rest and quiet.
- Her lungs?
There was no sign.
No sign at all.
Edwin.
Is that you?
Are you back, darling?
Don't leave me, Mary.
Don't ever leave me.
Leave you?
I shall be here to plague
you for years, my darling.
With new lines to learn.
And children to be born.
New triumphs to push you into.
I asked the doctor to say the truth.
Whatever did he say to frighten you so?
The doctor didn't frighten him, Mary.
He frightened the doctor.
In that costume too.
I'm sure he never had Hamlet's
wife for a patient before.
Darling.
I want to hear everything.
Did they cheer?
Was there an ovation?
- I don't know.
I went out and I bowed ..
Then I looked up and you weren't there.
All I remember.
It was an absolute triumph, Mary.
Edwin.
I want you to listen to me now.
I want you to listen
to me very carefully.
You must go on with the tour.
The tour isn't important.
- It's what we came for.
What we've dreamed of for so long.
You're very close to your
goal now, my darling.
It would break my heart
if you let it slip by.
Do you promise?
Edwin, are you listening to me?
I'll promise anything if
you're not really ill.
I am not. Look at me.
And it's the best medicine
you could give me.
Promise me, Edwin.
Promise me.
I promise.
The doctor said rest and quiet.
No more now.
No more.
Goodnight, Mary.
Ladies and gentlemen.
We ask your indulgence.
With your permission Hamlet will
not take his call this evening.
Because Hamlet has just
become the father ..
Of a 5-pound baby girl.
We could not hold him.
May I suggest a round of applause?
To usher a new Booth into the world.
How's Mary?
- Fine, Ned.
She is asking for you, Hamlet.
Another Juliet.
Do you mind?
Of course not.
Do you mind ..
Your daughter being born on ..
Foreign soil?
Not quite on foreign soil.
I came prepared for this.
I am sure.
Our English friends won't mind if we
borrow a bit of London for the occasion.
A little toast, Ned.
To the three of you.
- To the four of us.
And to the old banner of freedom.
Good luck to you, Mr Booth.
Thank you, Colonel. I'll be back to
dine with you next Thursday evening.
Why do you bother to come here?
You hate the north.
To see you.
- That's a lie.
You've grown very harsh with me, Asia.
What are you up to?
What are you doing?
You're here often these days.
Why?
What are you doing?
Doing the only thing I know how to do.
Acting.
Acting in Philadelphia tomorrow night.
In your beloved north.
- Why?
Why do you cross the line so frequently?
Put that down.
There's no reason why
you should not know.
I owe you something.
So many things, dear Asia.
Including this excellent breakfast.
I enjoy acting in the north now, Asia.
I wallow in it.
Edwin never gave the
performance I do these nights.
These are my real lines.
Despatches from southern
agents in the north.
I am the most valuable
actor in the world.
I'm more valuable to the south
than General Lee's finest brigade.
You are a traitor.
I worshipped you, John.
I worshipped you all my life.
And now.
There is nothing left.
Nothing.
It was all useless.
Useless.
Yes, Asia.
I can never be the actor Edwin is.
We were fools. Both of us.
Even father.
Have you what a success
Edwin had in England?
He'll have an equal triumph
here now I am sure.
They'll compare us again.
Now that he's finally coming back.
How little it matters anymore.
Poor Ned.
How small the stage he acts
upon seems these days.
I'll be with you in a moment, gentlemen.
Let him act.
These days, Asia.
I prefer to be .. a traitor.
Johnny.
Johnny, don't go.
Come back.
Are we in New York, father?
Yes. This is where we're
going to live from now on.
Do you want to wait for a minute?
No.
No. I am alright. Just give me your arm.
'November 24th'.
'Opening night'.
'The triumphant return'.
'Of Edwin Booth'.
'America's first actor'.
'In Hamlet'.
Oh, Edwin.
Dave, please.
Please let me stay.
Just for opening night.
I promise I'll be well. I promise
I'll leave the next morning.
Please, Dave.
I've waited so long for this.
The doctor was very strict, Mary.
You must have a cold,
dry climate immediately.
And we won't be able to open
for at least two weeks.
Alright.
But Edwin will have a cold, dry wife
if you keep me up there too long.
Let's see the poster again.
We'll keep it running until
you get back to see it.
Until I get back, Dave?
- Of course you'll be back.
This time, you'll see
the whole performance.
Watch over him, Dave.
Guard him for me every moment.
Guard him well for me, Dave, until ..
I can be by his side again.
What's the matter with Booth?
I don't like that kind of violence
in my theater, Prescott.
Or that much strangeness either.
And why did he insist on the
stage box being empty tonight?
I could have sold it fifty times over.
What's the matter with him?
You, sir, have the finest Hamlet
of our time on your stage.
If he wants the box
empty, it stays empty.
Ned.
- Leave me alone.
Ned.
Leave me alone, sir.
'If it is humanly possible I beg
of you to come to New York'.
'If only for a night or two'.
'The great success he's had
means nothing to him'
'The old fears are back
tenfold without you here'.
'We have run the curtain down
three times this past week'.
'He was not sober enough to continue'.
'I can no longer reach him'.
'I beg of you to come'.
[ Door knocks ]
Come in.
It's the doctor, Mrs Booth.
Send him in.
Good afternoon, Mrs Booth.
I was driving by and just
thought I would look in on you.
Good afternoon, doctor.
And you've managed a small miracle.
I suddenly feel completely well.
Now that's good news indeed.
That smile is mighty pleasant
to see again, Mrs Booth.
It may be jumping a
little with excitement.
I feel well enough to pay
a short visit to New York.
New York?
Well now.
The first trip we'll try is ..
A little walk around the room.
We see how we manage that.
Then in a month or so
we'll try a short drive.
We're not going to even
think of New York just yet.
I'll stop by again this
evening, Mrs Booth.
Not a toe out of that bed.
Remember.
Mrs Booth.
Bring the carriage round.
The doctor said for you..
- The doctor is too careful.
Do as you're told.
Don't just stand there. Help me.
My husband needs me.
Edwin.
Be brave, my darling.
Wait for me. I am coming.
I won't leave you again, my dearest.
Hey ho, the wind and the rain.
With toss-pots still had drunken heads.
For the rain it raineth every day.
With a hey, ho.
The wind and the rain.
Look at this, you drunken fool.
Accept any offer they make me.
You're my manager.
You read what it says? This is to me:
'Why doesn't Mr Booth answer telegrams'?
'Mrs Booth dangerously ill'.
Have you had telegrams?
Where are they?
All in my office. Help yourself.
I never answer telegrams.
They're always after something.
A great wide world. The world began.
With a hey ho, the wind and the rain.
When that's all done, our play is won.
Ned.
Mary.
Your wife is dying.
Jeff.
Refund the money for tonight.
There will be no performance.
Get a carriage round to the stage door.
Speak again, bright angel.
Speak again.
Speak.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the love of God.
And the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.
Be with us all evermore.
Amen.
All my love. My wife.
Death that hath sucked the honey of thy
breath has no power yet upon thy beauty.
I still will stay with thee.
And never from this palace of dim night.
Depart again.
Tell me, Mary.
Tell me what to do.
Tell me, my darling.
Tell me.
Asia.
- Dave.
Does he still come here every day?
Each day.
He stays like that for hours sometimes.
Dave.
I sent for you because
I want to act again.
Good.
Asia. I want to see my daughter.
I know now that Mary's
love was not wasted.
There is no taint.
And no madness that I cannot conquer.
With her help.
[ Church bells. Loud ]
Peace?
It must be peace.
Then the war is over.
Thank god.
Merciful Father. Thank you.
Johnny will be safe now.
Johnny will be safe.
Don't tie him, son.
I won't be long.
The first time the president's
been to the theater.
You'll not need a ticket from me?
- Of course not, Mr Booth.
Thank you.
- The president is here tonight.
I know.
That's Mr John Wilkes Booth.
Edwin Booth's brother.
He is an actor too.
My love, you had better go.
You crave affection, you do.
I have no fortune but I am
bubbling over with affection.
Which I am ready to
pour out all over you.
Will you please recollect you
are addressing my daughter.
And in my presence.
Yep. I'm offering her my heart and hand.
Just as she wants them.
With nothing in them.
I am aware, Mr Trenchard.
You are not used to the
manners of good society.
And that alone will
excuse the impertinence.
Of which you have been guilty.
I don't know the manners
of good society, huh?
I guess I know enough to ..
Turn you inside out, old gal.
You sockdologizing old man-trap.
Hey! You there.
He shot the president!
Sic semper tyrannis!
Halt. Who goes there?
The name is Booth.
Stanley.
Polonius was a fool but you
must not play him like a fool.
Like many fools he was
free with his advice.
But I think he intended
it to be good advice.
Quiet.
Please be quiet out there.
Will you permit me, Mr Stanley ..
To run through the lines as
Shakespeare meant them to be read.
Not pompously.
Not fatuously, but simple.
Honestly. Would you please be quiet.
Dave, do something about the noise.
We're rehearsing.
Ned.
The president?
Edwin.
What is it?
Let me see.
Johnny.
Is Johnny safe?
He got away.
God protect him.
[ Dogs barking ]
Mama.
Stay here.
- Don't walk there.
Alright, Booth. We know you're in there.
Come on out.
Come and get me, gentlemen.
I give you a minute, Booth.
Then we burn the barn down.
Get that lamp.
Your time is running out, Booth.
Come on out of there.
I'm no criminal.
Why not give a lame man a chance?
The same chance you gave the president?
Through that window.
Knock another one in.
God, let me die bravely.
[ Gunshot! ]
Get him out of here.
We have a dead prisoner, Colonel.
We don't want you to die, Booth.
We want you to live so we can hang you.
Salvation.
Useless.
Useless.
Can I have a lock of his hair?
Well, why not.
The blood of our president is
not yet dry in our memories.
Is a Booth to be allowed to appear?
I say no.
Gentlemen, please.
Think what you are doing.
Edwin Booth is an innocent man.
Can you blame him and hold him
guilty for what his brother did?
Our president was murdered by an actor.
I say every theater in the
country should be torn down.
I say take every actor and
ride him out of town.
Abraham Lincoln died in
the very doorway to hell.
The theater is corruption.
All actors are panderers and traitors.
Here is the medicine for Booth, boys.
If he dares to show his
face we'll stretch his neck.
Mr Prescott. You are not
going to raise that curtain?
You can't force us to go on
stage and open this play.
That settles it, Ned.
The actors refuse to go
out and open the play.
I know. We open with the second scene.
Ask the cast to assemble on stage.
If they're willing.
I ask no-one to go out
there who isn't willing.
Don't look so glum, Dave.
After all, we've got a full house.
- That's not an audience, Ned.
It's a mob.
I can't let you go out there.
They'll tear you to pieces.
They want blood.
Dave, listen.
It's not only me they hate or the name
of Booth. It is us all. The profession.
It isn't right or just that actors be
damned forever for what Johnny did.
I owe my profession a debt.
I intend to pay it.
Tonight.
Asia agrees with me.
There is another reason, Dave.
One that I know you will understand.
Mary.
She said to me once:
'You're an actor.
Not just because I want it'.
'It's your gift and your purpose.
Your reason for being and mine too'.
I'll never be derelict of that purpose.
Nor will I let you be.
The name is still 'Booth', Dave.
Now.
Would you ask the players
to assemble on the stage.
Alright, Ned.
The lights, Sam.
Murderer.
Come on. Let's get out.
Send for the police. It's a riot.
By golly, he's got guts.
Booth, you're alright.
I'm for you.
I'm for him.
Come on. Give him a cheer.
[ Mary: ]
Good night.
Good night.
Parting is such ..
Sweet sorrow, that I shall say
good night until it be morrow.
..r-o-s..
Please, I implore you.
We've just waited for an hour.
Just a few minutes more.
The show is about to resume in a moment.
He is just back.
Is he here? Is Mr Booth here?
Peace, good pint-pot.
Peace, good tickle-brain.
Come, sing me a bawdy song.
Make me merry.
I was as virtuously given as
a gentleman needs to be.
Swore little. Diced not above
seven times a week.
Went to a bawdy house not
above once in a quarter.
Of an hour.
Paid money I had borrowed three or four
times. Lived well and in good compass.
Now I live out of all order
and out of all compass.
That's Falstaff, you dunderheads.
Shakespeare.
The immortal Will. The incomparable ..
Father.
Give your Lordship good time of day.
I am glad to see your Lordship abroad.
Your Lordship.
Do not plead past your youth.
Have some smack of age in you.
Some relish of the saltiness of time.
Father.
And I do most humbly
beseech Your Lordship ..
To have a reverend care of your health.
Well.
I hear no applause.
Help me please. This is Mr Booth.
Junius Brutus Booth.
- Booth?
He has to go to the theater.
- That is Booth?
I paid two dollars for these tickets
and by god he's going to act in it.
Give me a hand with him. Come on here.
When I was a little tiny boy.
With the hey-ho, the wind and the rain.
The foolish thing was but a toy.
For the rain it raineth every day.
The curtain's an hour late already.
The audience is growing impatient.
Impatient? They dare
grow impatient with me?
Mr Booth. Come back.
Shut up.
Shut up!
Sit down.
Be quiet for ten minutes.
And I'll give you the damnedest
King Lear you ever saw.
The name is .. Booth.
Now then, lad. Away from the stage.
Study your lessons.
You may assemble the players on stage.
I shall be ready for my entrance.
Blow winds and crack your cheeks.
Blow, rage!
You cataracts and hurricanoes.
Spout.
You sulphurous and
thought-executing fires.
Vaunt-couriers to
oak-cleaving thunderbolts.
Singe my white head.
And thou, all-shaking thunder.
Strike flat the thick
rotundity o' the world.
I acted well tonight.
I don't want any food.
Father.
Go home, Ned.
Go back to the hotel.
Please, father.
I'm going out.
No. I won't let you go out.
No. I don't want you to go.
- Let me go, boy.
You shall not go out.
Father, please.
I will sing to you.
That always soothes the madness.
Father, come out.
I'll call someone to smash down
the door. Do you hear me?
Father, you'll smother in there.
Are you alright?
Speak to me. Are you alright?
Somebody. Somebody help me.
I am sorry, Ned.
You know I love you.
I know, father.
If only.
I could sleep.
I can sleep.
Darkness rides across the sky.
To hide all tears and sorrows.
He steals away.
Each dawn of day.
And leaves a new tomorrow.
Miss Asia. Miss Asia.
Your father has come home.
It's your father and Mr Ned.
Father.
Ned.
Asia.
How do, Mr Booth.
Asia.
Father, what is it?
Alright.
It's just rest I need.
So we have come home to you, Ned and I.
How are you, Ben?
- Just fine, Mr Ned.
Just fine. How are you?
- Just fine. Thanks.
You can put the horses away now.
Ned.
Ned.
Ned. You are home.
Father.
- Johnny, don't go in.
Why not?
Father's sickness is on him again.
It would be better not
to see him for a while.
Charleston.
Receipts: 804 dollars.
He played Othello.
St Louis. Falstaff.
1,200 dollars.
No performance at Atlanta.
The audience waited two hours and
then they gave the money back.
Birmingham. The same thing.
Ned.
Ned. How hard it is for you.
But he could not go alone.
And only you can guard him and
keep him safe when the spells come.
It's hard for you too, Asia.
Being a mother to us all.
Go on, boy.
All hail, great master.
Grave sir, hail.
I come to answer thy best pleasure.
Be it to fly, to swim.
To dive into the fire.
To ride on the curled clouds.
To thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Hast thou spirit performed to point
the tempest that I bade thee?
Every article.
I drink the air before me and
return ere your pulse twice beat.
Back. Back. Take your bow, Johnny.
I hear no applause.
A Booth. A true Booth.
Keep them waiting.
Make them thunder it
across the footlights.
Here is your applause, Johnny.
Have a care, laddie. You'll choke me.
You are not going to push me
off the stage yet. Are you?
You are not taking my
place for a while I hope.
When he does he will be the
greatest Booth of them all.
The greatest actor that ever lived.
A large order, my girl.
I trust their memory of me
will survive this onslaught.
And do you intend to bill yourself as
the greatest actor that ever lived?
No.
Just.
John Wilkes Booth.
That will be enough.
An actor? No. Not yet.
But a Booth? Yes, it's inescapable.
Let me do Richard for you.
Yes, father. Let him.
It's thrilling. Let him do it.
The best Richard I ever saw. Yes, sir.
Et tu, Brute?
Are we all under Johnny's spell?
Are we all helpless before him?
Enough for now.
Tomorrow. You shall do Richard.
My beautiful boy.
It's time to dress, father.
What do we play tonight?
Richard. It's the San Francisco
opening. Don't you remember?
Richard.
I don't want to, Ned.
I can't.
Why do you make me do it?
Because I'm proud of you, father.
Because I want these people in the west
to see Junius Brutus Booth act well.
They'll be seeing you for
the first time, father.
They built this theater for you.
You're going on tour where no
great actor has been seen before.
They've waited a year
for your coming, father.
You must give them your best.
I'll act you off the stage tonight, Ned.
Thus high. By thy advice and thy
assistance is King Richard seated.
But shall we wear these
honours for a day?
Or shall they last and
we rejoice in them?
Still live they and
forever may they last.
Buckingham.
Now do I play the touch.
To try ..
To try if thou be current gold indeed.
Young Edward lives.
Think now what I would say.
Think now what I would say.
Say on, my loving lord.
Say on.
My loving lord.
Why Buckingham, I say I would be king.
Buckingham I say, I would be king.
So you are my thrice-renowned liege.
Ha.
Am I king?
Ned.
Am I .. King?
I just don't believe it.
Either you are jesting, Mr Booth.
And a bad joke it is.
Or you've calmly set out to ruin me.
Ruin you, my dear fellow?
Why should I want to ruin you?
I hardly knew you.
No. It is much simpler than that.
I am going home.
That is all.
I am returning home.
But you have a contract with me, sir.
A legal document
binding you to this tour.
I've yet to see a piece of paper that
makes a Booth act if he didn't want to.
That is unfortunate.
But I've engaged a company.
I've arranged a tour.
Mortgaged my savings.
That was a mistake, my dear Prescott.
To put your money in
the hands of children.
And actors are childlike
beings, as you will learn ..
If you have any more to
do with them in the future.
Mr Booth.
I throw myself on your mercy.
I'm not an honest man.
In this hard, tough world out here
I have made my way deviously.
And not always with grace.
But all my life I've always
had one honest passion.
The theater.
Great acting.
A talent like yours.
This venture with you Mr Booth,
represents a dream I always cherished.
To be in some way a small part of this
magic world that I could never enter.
And into this I have honestly thrown
the dishonest gains of a lifetime.
Every cent I possess.
Doesn't this touch you, Mr Booth?
To the heart, Mr Prescott.
You underestimate your own talent.
But it's quite useless.
I will pay you the compliment
of telling you the truth.
Which I learned for myself
on the stage tonight.
I can no longer act.
I am no longer able to act.
I tell you, Mr Booth.
That does not matter.
They'll pay to see Junius Brutus Booth
whether he stumbles or not.
Will they indeed?
Well.
If people will cross the seas to
stare at the ruins of a cathedral.
No doubt they will pay money
to look at the ruins of a man.
We should have played
The Tempest tonight, Ned.
Not Richard.
Prospero's lines are fitting.
Perhaps I wouldn't have
stumbled over them.
'Our revels now are ended'.
'These, our actors.
As I foretold you were all spirits'.
'And are melted into air'.
'Into thin air'.
'And like the baseless
fabric of this vision'.
'Cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces, the solemn temples'.
'The great globe itself'.
'Yay, all Richard inherits
shall dissolve'.
'And like this insubstantial
pageant faded'.
'Leave not a rack behind'.
'We are such stuff as
dreams are made of'.
'And our little life is
rounded with a sleep'.
Here, Ned.
I won't be needing it any longer.
Your contract calls for a Booth
to undertake this tour, sir.
Well, you've got a Booth.
There he is.
Edwin.
Will you pay the compliment
not to accompany me tonight?
Goodnight, gentlemen.
I refuse to accept ..
- Be still, Mr Prescott.
You have just seen.
A king abdicate.
Come on, you old tightwad.
Go ahead. Put in some more dust.
It's worth your whole stash
to see Junius Brutus Booth.
Go on. Go ahead.
What is ..
What is the old boy
playing tonight, Dave?
Mr Booth is playing Richard tonight.
Richard?
Richard was the best thing he ever did.
Excuse me.
Wait a minute, everybody. Listen.
This whole thing is a darned fraud.
It's a big lie.
I once shook hands with Junius Brutus
Booth back in St Louis, Missouri.
I just went back there to
shake hands with him again.
He wasn't even there.
There wasn't nobody there but a ..
Puling, wet-nosed boy
pretending to be Booth.
You got to make an announcement.
Tell them the truth and
give them back their dust.
We turn back for
San Francisco in the morning.
You said you believed in me.
You said it was 'star or swing'.
We can't afford to take a chance.
They might really hang you.
Listen to them.
Stop!
Sit down.
Sit down.
Yes.
It's the son.
Not the father.
The son.
Keep still for five minutes and I give
you the damnedest Richard you ever saw.
The name.
Is Booth.
Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this ..
Sun .. of York.
And all the clouds that
lour'd about our house.
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound
with victorious wreaths.
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments.
Our stern alarums changed
to merry meetings.
And now.
Instead of mounting barded steeds to
fright the souls of fearful adversaries.
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
to the lascivious pleasing ..
Of a lute.
But I.
That am not shaped for sportive tricks.
Nor made to court an
amorous looking-glass.
I, that am rudely stamped.
And want love's wit to strike
before a wanton ambling nymph.
Cheated of feature by
dissembling nature.
Deformed, unfinished.
Sent before my time into this ..
Breathing world.
Scarce half made up and that so lamely
and unfashionably that dogs bark at me.
As I halt by them.
Why, I ..
In this weak piping time of peace.
Have no delight to pass away the time.
And therefore.
Since I cannot prove a lover
to entertain these fair ..
Well-spoken days.
I am determined.
To prove a villain.
Bind up my wounds.
Haver mercy, Jesu.
Soft.
I did but dream.
Oh coward conscience.
How does thou afflict me.
The lights.
Burn blue.
The lights.
Burn blue.
It is dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand
on my trembling flesh.
My conscience.
Hath a thousand several tongues.
And every tongue brings
in a several tale.
And every tale condemns me.
For a villain. Perjury.
Perjury in the direst degree.
Murder. Stern murder
in the highest degree.
Throng to the bar. Crying all ..
Guilty.
Guilty.
I shall despair.
There is no creature loves me.
And when I die.
No soul shall pity me.
And wherefore should they?
Since that I myself find in
myself no pity to myself.
A horse. A horse.
My kingdom for a horse.
Withdraw, my lord.
I'll help you to a horse.
Slave, I have set my life upon a cast.
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
There be six Richmonds in the field.
Five have I slain today instead of him.
A horse. A horse.
My kingdom.
For a horse.
I was right, Ned.
You were great. Simply great.
Listen to that.
This is only the beginning, Ned.
I've got great plans for us.
We'll finish the tour
and then we'll go east.
New York. With the new Booth.
The successor to his father.
The new star.
Ned. Do you hear what I am saying?
I acted well tonight.
Now my boys.
I once shook the hand of your father.
The great Junius Brutus Booth.
But he was never the actor you are.
Here. Have a drink.
Thanks.
Ned.
Leave me alone, sir.
I play Richard.
Do you hear me, father?
I play Richard.
Asia.
Johnny.
I hold the crown.
The crown was mine.
Alone.
Do you hear me, father?
I flaunt .. like you.
Isn't that missing me too?
Oh God.
There's the taint in me too, father.
Ned.
Ned.
Ned.
A message came through for you.
It's not good news.
Is it father?
- Yes.
He's dead?
- Yes, Ned.
How did he die?
On the boat up from New Orleans.
Was he alone?
- Yes.
I should have been with him.
I should have gone with him.
Poor father.
Poor old man.
Yes, sir?
- I'm Edwin Booth.
Are you related to Mr John Wilkes Booth?
- Asia.
I didn't know you were in Washington.
We've been waiting for you to come home.
I went to the house. Old Ben told me ..
- Not now.
He mustn't hear your voice.
He mustn't know you're here.
He says it will make him nervous.
Afterwards. After the performance.
He must not be disturbed now.
It's time for his entrance now.
Sit back so he doesn't see you.
Verona.
For a while I take my leave.
To see my friends in Padua.
But of all, my best beloved
and approved friend.
Hortensio.
And I trow this is his house.
You flatter me, Colonel.
I merely bask a little in the
reflected glory of my father.
But I should be honored to come
to the plantation on Sunday.
Will you remember, Asia?
Ned.
Welcome. Welcome home, Ned.
My brother, ladies and gentlemen.
My brother Edwin Booth.
My brother has been acting in the far
west. It was a fascinating experience.
They act in mining camps
and saloons out there.
That's true, isn't it Ned?
- Perfectly true.
Right in the saloons with
the bars going full blast.
The actors play
Shakespeare on their own.
My poor brother has been shot at.
Run out of town.
Imagine an audience of critics
with pistols in their laps.
I rather fancy Hamlet saying ..
To be .. or not to be.
That is the question.
Then, bang!
And that finishes the soliloquy.
And Hamlet too.
You must be delighted to be safe
in the east again, Mr Booth.
What will you do now, Booth?
Continue to act?
Edwin is going to be with us.
He was father's manager for many years.
John, get out of your costume.
You're wet through. You'll catch cold.
I need you, Ned.
I need someone desperately
to manage Asia.
Goodnight. Thank you.
Thank you for coming back.
You will forgive me I'm sure.
My brother has some tall tales to
tell I am most eager to hear.
Goodnight.
Goodnight.
Well, Ned.
A cigar?
- No thank you.
Well, what do you think of the idea?
Asia spoke too soon as usual but ..
Will you join me as my manager?
That's a large question to give
a quick answer to, Johnny.
Take your time. No need for haste.
I'm doing very well, you know.
I haven't played in the north yet.
But in the south I'm a major attraction.
Full houses everywhere.
Notice how they were jammed in tonight?
Yes.
And how they accept me as a star?
Yes.
You haven't said a word
about my performance yet.
You're an arresting figure
on the stage, John.
I know I fill a pair of
tights satisfactorily.
What about the acting?
It will improve with experience.
Saloon experience?
Experience.
You need training and discipline as an
actor. A passion for it is not enough.
So that's your answer to joining me?
- Yes.
You will go on acting by yourself?
Yes.
Is that why you let father
come home alone?
Is that why you let him die?
So you could be the first star yourself.
I earned the right, Johnny.
I earned it all those years
you were warm in your bed.
Earned it.
Sitting underneath a stage on a pile
of scenery and listening, listening.
Earned it in years and
years of dirty lodgings.
Flicking the bedbugs off the page
while I listen to father and his lines.
In the stench of his drunken breath
when I was opposite him on the stage.
In the nights when he
was filled with genius.
And in the nights when he was mad.
Earned it with my guts.
And my childhood, Johnny.
But I can play Richard in
a saloon now, Johnny.
And I paid too high a
price for it not to go on.
What are you afraid of? Two Booths?
You got the head start.
Only earn it, Johnny.
There is more to what
father left than this.
Yes, Miss?
Have you seen Mr Edwin Booth?
Booth?
He is next door.
Thank you.
Miss.
I wouldn't go in there if I was you.
Mr Booth.
Is Mr Booth here?
What do you want?
Is Mr Edwin Booth here?
He might be and he might not.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
I'm with the Scott theater company.
You may have seen me on stage.
Oh, that's right.
You're the girl we like so much.
We go every week.
And sit in the upper box.
I have noticed.
If Mr Booth is here, will you
help me get him to rehearsal?
The company is at the theater and ..
Who are you?
What do you want?
Are you deaf? Who are you?
Open your mouth. Who are you?
I am your Juliet, Mr Booth.
Juliet.
Juliet.
Speak again, bright angel.
For thou art as
glorious to this night ..
Being o'er my head.
As is the winged messenger of
heaven to the white, upturned ..
Wondering eyes of mortals.
That fall back to gaze on him.
When he bestrides the
lazy pacing clouds.
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
O Romeo.
Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not,
be but sworn my love.
And I will no longer be a Capulet.
Shall I hear more?
Or shall I .. speak of this?
Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
O, be some other name.
What's in a name?
That which we call.
A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not
Romeo called, retain that ..
Dear perfection which he
owes without that title.
Romeo, doff thy name.
And for that name,
which is no part of thee.
Take all myself.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love.
And I'll be new baptised.
Henceforth.
I never will be.
Romeo.
What man art thou that thus bescreened
in night, so stumblest on my counsel?
By a name I know not how
to tell you who I am.
My name, dear saint,
is hateful to myself.
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written I would ..
Tear the word.
By whose direction found'st
thou out this place?
By.
Love.
Who first did prompt me to enquire.
He lent me counsel. And I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot.
Yet, wert thou as far as that vast
shore washed by the farthest sea.
I would adventure for such ..
Merchandise.
But thou knowest.
The mask of night is on my face.
Else would a maiden
blush bepaint my cheek?
For that which thou hast
heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form.
Fain, fain deny what I have spoke.
But farewell, compliment.
Dost thou love me?
I know thou wilt say 'aye'.
And I will take thy word.
Yet, if thou swearest,
thou mayst prove false.
At lovers' perjuries.
They say, Jove laughs.
O gentle Romeo if thou dost
love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinks I am too quickly won.
I'll frown and be perverse and
say thee nay, so thou wilt woo.
But else not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague I am too fond.
And therefore thou mayst
think my havior light.
But trust me, gentleman.
I'll prove more true than those that
have more cunning to be strained.
I should have been more
strange I must confess.
But that thou overheard'st
ere I was ware.
My true love's passion.
Therefore, pardon me.
And not impute this.
Yielding to light love.
Which the dark night had so discovereth.
Lady.
By yonder blessed moon I swear that tips
with silver all these fruit-tree tops.
O, swear not by the moon.
The inconstant moon.
That monthly changes in her circled orb.
Lest that thy love prove
likewise variable.
What shall I swear by?
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt.
Swear by thy gracious self which
is the god of my idolatry.
And I will believe thee.
If my heart's dear love ..
- Well, do not swear.
Although I joy in thee, I have
no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised.
Too sudden.
Too like the lightning which doth
cease to be ere one can say ..
'It lightens'.
Sweet.
Good night.
This bud of love by
summer's ripening breath ..
May prove a beauteous
flower when next we meet.
Good night.
Good night.
As sweet repose and rest
come to thy heart ..
As that within my breast.
O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
What satisfaction canst
thou have tonight?
The exchange of thy love's
faithful vow for mine.
I gave thee mine before
thou didst request it.
And yet I would it were to give again.
Wouldst thou withdraw it?
For what purpose, love?
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea.
My love is deep.
The more I give to thee the more I have.
For both are infinite.
It's almost morning.
I would have thee gone.
And yet.
No farther than a wanton's bird who
lets it hop a little from her hand.
Like a poor prisoner in
his twisted gyves.
And with a silken thread
plucks it back again.
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Good night.
Good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I
will say 'good night' till it be morrow.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes.
Peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace so ..
Sweet to rest.
Come along, Mr Booth.
Thy lips are warm.
Yea, noise?
Then I'll be brief.
O happy dagger.
This is thy sheath.
There rust.
And let me die.
Mary.
Be careful, Mary.
Be careful of getting in too deep.
Why do you say that?
- I watched you on stage tonight.
I watched him too.
Be careful.
Don't be swept away. It isn't safe.
There is a taint in all the Booths.
A touch of genius and
a streak of madness.
I knew his father.
He's very like his father.
Your friend is right.
My father was a drunkard.
And a madman.
She is quite right.
Be careful of the Booths.
Goodbye, Miss Devlin.
I said goodbye. What do you want?
It isn't goodbye.
Come here.
Look into my eyes.
Is there a hint of madness in them?
Look at me well, Mary Devlin.
Will you be tied to a
drunkard and a libertine?
To a man who believes he's tainted
with his father's madness.
Do you know what it's like?
Not to be able to believe the talent
I possess is not a curse as well.
You want to be tied to that?
I see no madness in your eyes, Edwin.
Nor in the heart and soul
of the man beyond them.
I know that with my whole being.
How can you know?
How can you know what I am?
I know.
I want to spend my life with you.
For?
Sleep.
You.
You have exactly 28 minutes
to catch your train.
Train?
You have an opening
in Mobile tomorrow night.
I can't.
We're getting married.
- Married?
What do you think you are?
People? You are actors.
Now hurry up and get dressed.
You can get married in Mobile.
I think I should like that.
To be married in Mobile.
Wake up, Edwin.
That's all the sleep you can
afford at the moment, my dear.
You don't know Henry's
long speech for tonight.
Come here. Wake yourself
up and let's get on with it.
I slept for exactly five minutes.
I merely closed my eyes.
I closed my ears to the
snores for over an hour.
I never snore.
Do I snore?
Come darling. Stop delaying.
You don't know the speech.
I do know the speech. I do know it.
Then say it.
'If thou canst love a fellow
of this temper, Kate'.
If thou can love a fellow of this temper
whose face is not worth sun-burning.
That never looks in his glass for
love of anything he sees there.
Let thine eye be thy cook.
See? I know it.
Ah, what a day.
I have spring fever.
In the fall?
The Booths always have spring fever in
the fall when the theaters are open.
'I speak to thee, plain soldier'.
Mary.
I can't remember lines
on a day like this.
But you can't act without lines.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
Mary, it's such a beautiful day.
Edwin, stop it.
If I'd wanted a manager for a wife
I'd have married Dave Prescott.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
I speak to thee, plain soldier.
If thou canst take me for this.
Take me.
If not, to say to thee that I shall
die is true, but for thy love ..
By the lord, no.
Yet I love thee too.
I would die if you
stopped loving me, Mary.
'And while thou liv'st, dear Kate'.
Do you know something?
You are a snob.
You want to be the wife of the greatest
actor in the world. That is snobbish.
That's right.
Ten weeks from tomorrow you will
be playing Hamlet in London.
In London, Edwin.
I want you to dazzle them.
And then return in triumph to New York.
America's first actor.
Because that is what you must be.
Not because I want it.
But your gift and your purpose.
Your reason for being.
And mine too.
I'll never be derelict of that purpose.
Nor will I let you be.
'And while thou lives, dear Kate'.
And while thou lives, dear Kate.
Take a fellow of plain
and uncoined constancy.
Who never looks in his glass for
love of anything he sees there.
For he perforce must do thee right.
If thou would have such a one.
Take me.
Take me.
Take a soldier.
Take a soldier.
Take a king.
Take an actor and make him a man.
Take a miserable creature and give him
understanding and love and devotion.
O my beloved.
Do you know what you meant
to me, my best beloved?
Do you know that you have given
me my wonder and delight?
Those are not the lines.
I'm sure they're not.
Hey.
It's Dave.
Who gave him his cue to enter?
Ned.
It's from your sister.
- Asia?
She said it was urgent.
What is it, Edwin?
Asia. She needs me.
Johnny's in some kind of trouble.
Why is he doing this?
Why is he mixed up in this?
I don't understand.
Don't you?
It's you, Ned.
His envy of you is overpowering.
Your success maddens him.
Each time he plays in the north
they compare him with you.
And the critics have been murderous.
In the south he's always acclaimed.
That only makes him more bitter.
It's the north he really respects.
And it galls him.
Galls him.
That's why he's done this.
Taken up the cause of
these southern hotheads.
I am afraid now, Ned. I am afraid.
Have I done this to him?
With my dreams of fame for him?
Filling his head with
wild ideas of glory.
Have I done this to him?
I'll wait for you at the Inn.
Bring him with you. Make him come.
Alright. Drive to the Inn.
If the south ever goes under to this
tyranny of the north, gentlemen.
Then the south is lost.
He is right.
- Lost by cowards.
And traitors.
If John Brown does not
hang tomorrow morning.
If you gentlemen of the Virginia
militia let them stop you.
Then 'Harpers Ferry'
are words of infamy.
Its name will ring on all abolitionist
tongues as a death knell for the south.
Let that gallows ..
Tell the north.
That southern blood will drench each
inch of soil in preference to dishonor.
Hear, hear.
Great events bring strangers.
Even brothers together. Two whiskeys.
Is what I hear true, Ned?
Since you are married.
And faithful.
I will drink with you tonight.
Good.
How did you find me here, Ned?
Our sister?
- Hmm.
Our dear, interfering sister.
I've warned Asia for the last
time to stay out of my life.
You're wasting your breath if
you're here as her ambassador.
No. I came to see you on my own.
I came to make you an offer, John.
That's a bad way of putting it.
I'd like us to be together.
In London.
As your manager?
- No.
As my co-star.
We alternate. Shakespeare and repertory.
You play Laertes to my Hamlet
one night and I yours.
The next I'd play ..
Iago to your Othello and
you to mine. And so on.
A very generous offer.
Very touching.
Thanks.
But I prefer to play a
role of my own choosing.
Let me show you something.
There he is.
John Brown.
Look at him, Ned.
Pacing up and down his cell.
Dreaming of an army with banners
that will come to rescue him.
But it is not coming.
Why do you hate him so?
A man you've never known.
Hate him?
I don't hate him.
In his way, he is a great man.
To destroy greatness is
to partake of greatness.
Shakespeare knew that.
Remember, Ned, when he
had Brutus say of Caesar?
'Let's carve him as a
dish fit for the gods'.
Shakespeare never wrote drama like this.
John Brown will die tomorrow.
Not play-acting a death.
But to rise for the applause
as the curtain falls.
And swing by his neck as the
sun comes up in mortal anguish.
Listen to those voices.
Not snoopers in the wings. But real men.
Whose voices are real.
That sound could fill
this land with agony.
Ned, there must be more glory to life
than bowing and smirking to an audience.
More to fame than a well-spoken Hamlet.
There's a mortal drama being played out
here that will dwarf a thousand Hamlets.
That is the stage to play upon, Ned.
The smell of life and
blood in your nostrils.
Waiting for your cue
until destiny speaks.
John Wilkes Booth.
I am coming.
Goodbye, Ned.
Good fortune.
Have no fears about London.
You don't have to play Hamlet.
You are Hamlet.
You always were.
Tell Asia she failed.
I've heard of your
paintings too, well enough.
God hath given you one face and
you make yourself another.
You jig and amble and you lisp.
You nickname God's creatures and make
your wantonness your ignorance.
Go to. I'll no more of it.
It hath made me mad.
I say there will be no more marriages.
Those married already, all but one shall
live. The rest shall stay as they are.
To a nunnery, go.
I'll do nothing of the sort.
Hamlet, come to bed. It is very late.
What makes you think
I can close my eyes?
Poor darling.
You won't feel any better
until that first curtain falls.
I'd play it for you myself if I could.
I imagine it would take some explaining
that Hamlet was going to have a baby.
I'm afraid I couldn't hide it.
It would change the play considerably.
- It would indeed.
Hamlet.
I am thy father's ghost.
What is that roundness
about thy middle, Hamlet?
What is that thou has
brought home with thee?
You alright?
Yes. Yes, I'm alright.
Mary.
Never leave me.
Even for a minute. Do you promise?
I promise.
Then I am afraid of nothing.
England.
Beware.
A new Hamlet storms your shores.
Perfidious Albion.
The dark prince comes.
Who is there?
Nay, answer me.
Stand and unfold yourself.
Long live the King!
Barnardo.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
Tis now struck twelve.
Get thee to rest, Francisco.
For this relief, much thanks.
Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart.
Come live with me and be my lover.
We will with all the pleasures prove.
Edwin!
What on earth are you doing here?
I was lonely for you.
Darling you are mad. They'll see you.
They've paid to see me.
Have you gone crazy, both of you?
Ned, get back on that stage.
- Give me your blessing.
Give you good night.
Farewell, honest soldier.
Who hath relieved you?
Barnardo hath my place.
I give you good night.
Holla, Barnardo.
Say.
What? Is Horatio there?
Really, Mary.
Of all the childish pranks.
Supposing the audience had seen you?
This is not a mining camp, you know.
Horatio says tis but our fantasy.
And will not let belief take hold of
him touching that dreaded sight.
Twice seen by us.
Therefore I've entreated him along with
us to watch the minutes of this night.
But if again this apparition comes.
Mary.
Is anything wrong?
It's nothing.
It's really nothing.
Are you alright?
I hear him coming.
Let's withdraw, my lord.
To be.
Or not to be.
That is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea
of troubles and by opposing ..
End them.
To die.
To sleep no more.
By a sleep to say we end the heartache
of a thousand natural shocks ..
That flesh is heir to.
It is a consummation
devoutly to be wished.
To die.
To sleep.
To sleep.
Perchance to dream.
Aye, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death.
What dreams may come when we have ..
Shuttled off this mortal coil.
Must give us pause.
There is the respect that
makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips
and scorns of time.
The oppressors wronged, the proud man's
contumely, the pangs of despised love.
The laws delay the insolence of office.
And the spurns that patient
merit of the unworthy takes.
When he himself might his quietus make.
With a bare bodkin.
Who would fardels bear to grunt
and sweat under a weary life.
But that the dread of something ..
After death.
The undiscovered country from
whose bourn no traveller returns.
Puzzles the will.
And makes us rather bear those ills we
have than fly to others we know not of.
Thus conscience.
Doth makes cowards of us all.
Thus the native hue of resolution is
sicklied o'er with pale cast of thought.
And enterprises of great
pith and moment ..
With this regard their currents turn
awry and lose the name of action.
What devil was that thus hath
cozened you at hoodman-blind?
O shame.
Where is they blush?
Rebellious hell, if thou canst
mutine in a matron's bone ..
To flaming youth let virtue be
as wax and melt in her own fire.
Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turns't mine eyes
into my very soul.
And there I see such black and grained
spots as will not leave their tinct.
A murderer. And a villain.
A slave that is not twentieth part
the tithe of your precedent lord.
A vice of kings.
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule.
That from a shelf the
precious diadem stole.
And put it in his pocket.
- O speak to me no more.
These words are like daggers
entering mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet.
- A king.
Or shreds and patches.
No more.
Save me.
And hover o'er me with your wings.
You heavenly guards.
Horatio.
When I am dead thou livest.
Report me and my cause
a right to the unsatisfied.
Oh God, Horatio.
What a wounded name things standing
thus unknown shall I leave behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart.
Absent thee from felicity awhile.
And in this harsh world.
Draw thy breath in
pain to tell my story.
I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite
o'ercrows my spirit.
The rest.
Is silent.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest.
Mary is alright.
- Where is she?
What happened?
I took her home and got a doctor.
She's alright.
Hurry up and change.
- Change?
I don't want the baby.
Do you understand?
I don't want the baby.
If there's a danger to my wife ..
- It is possible.
Unless Mr Booth can listen calmly
Mr Prescott, I ask leave to withdraw.
You are not helping Mary.
I am sorry.
Forgive me.
Tell me what to do.
This may be a blessing
in disguise, Mr Booth.
Actually, she collapsed
not because of the baby.
But because of her lungs.
Nothing alarming at the moment.
But a warning, Mr Booth.
A warning in time.
Plenty of rest and quiet.
- Her lungs?
There was no sign.
No sign at all.
Edwin.
Is that you?
Are you back, darling?
Don't leave me, Mary.
Don't ever leave me.
Leave you?
I shall be here to plague
you for years, my darling.
With new lines to learn.
And children to be born.
New triumphs to push you into.
I asked the doctor to say the truth.
Whatever did he say to frighten you so?
The doctor didn't frighten him, Mary.
He frightened the doctor.
In that costume too.
I'm sure he never had Hamlet's
wife for a patient before.
Darling.
I want to hear everything.
Did they cheer?
Was there an ovation?
- I don't know.
I went out and I bowed ..
Then I looked up and you weren't there.
All I remember.
It was an absolute triumph, Mary.
Edwin.
I want you to listen to me now.
I want you to listen
to me very carefully.
You must go on with the tour.
The tour isn't important.
- It's what we came for.
What we've dreamed of for so long.
You're very close to your
goal now, my darling.
It would break my heart
if you let it slip by.
Do you promise?
Edwin, are you listening to me?
I'll promise anything if
you're not really ill.
I am not. Look at me.
And it's the best medicine
you could give me.
Promise me, Edwin.
Promise me.
I promise.
The doctor said rest and quiet.
No more now.
No more.
Goodnight, Mary.
Ladies and gentlemen.
We ask your indulgence.
With your permission Hamlet will
not take his call this evening.
Because Hamlet has just
become the father ..
Of a 5-pound baby girl.
We could not hold him.
May I suggest a round of applause?
To usher a new Booth into the world.
How's Mary?
- Fine, Ned.
She is asking for you, Hamlet.
Another Juliet.
Do you mind?
Of course not.
Do you mind ..
Your daughter being born on ..
Foreign soil?
Not quite on foreign soil.
I came prepared for this.
I am sure.
Our English friends won't mind if we
borrow a bit of London for the occasion.
A little toast, Ned.
To the three of you.
- To the four of us.
And to the old banner of freedom.
Good luck to you, Mr Booth.
Thank you, Colonel. I'll be back to
dine with you next Thursday evening.
Why do you bother to come here?
You hate the north.
To see you.
- That's a lie.
You've grown very harsh with me, Asia.
What are you up to?
What are you doing?
You're here often these days.
Why?
What are you doing?
Doing the only thing I know how to do.
Acting.
Acting in Philadelphia tomorrow night.
In your beloved north.
- Why?
Why do you cross the line so frequently?
Put that down.
There's no reason why
you should not know.
I owe you something.
So many things, dear Asia.
Including this excellent breakfast.
I enjoy acting in the north now, Asia.
I wallow in it.
Edwin never gave the
performance I do these nights.
These are my real lines.
Despatches from southern
agents in the north.
I am the most valuable
actor in the world.
I'm more valuable to the south
than General Lee's finest brigade.
You are a traitor.
I worshipped you, John.
I worshipped you all my life.
And now.
There is nothing left.
Nothing.
It was all useless.
Useless.
Yes, Asia.
I can never be the actor Edwin is.
We were fools. Both of us.
Even father.
Have you what a success
Edwin had in England?
He'll have an equal triumph
here now I am sure.
They'll compare us again.
Now that he's finally coming back.
How little it matters anymore.
Poor Ned.
How small the stage he acts
upon seems these days.
I'll be with you in a moment, gentlemen.
Let him act.
These days, Asia.
I prefer to be .. a traitor.
Johnny.
Johnny, don't go.
Come back.
Are we in New York, father?
Yes. This is where we're
going to live from now on.
Do you want to wait for a minute?
No.
No. I am alright. Just give me your arm.
'November 24th'.
'Opening night'.
'The triumphant return'.
'Of Edwin Booth'.
'America's first actor'.
'In Hamlet'.
Oh, Edwin.
Dave, please.
Please let me stay.
Just for opening night.
I promise I'll be well. I promise
I'll leave the next morning.
Please, Dave.
I've waited so long for this.
The doctor was very strict, Mary.
You must have a cold,
dry climate immediately.
And we won't be able to open
for at least two weeks.
Alright.
But Edwin will have a cold, dry wife
if you keep me up there too long.
Let's see the poster again.
We'll keep it running until
you get back to see it.
Until I get back, Dave?
- Of course you'll be back.
This time, you'll see
the whole performance.
Watch over him, Dave.
Guard him for me every moment.
Guard him well for me, Dave, until ..
I can be by his side again.
What's the matter with Booth?
I don't like that kind of violence
in my theater, Prescott.
Or that much strangeness either.
And why did he insist on the
stage box being empty tonight?
I could have sold it fifty times over.
What's the matter with him?
You, sir, have the finest Hamlet
of our time on your stage.
If he wants the box
empty, it stays empty.
Ned.
- Leave me alone.
Ned.
Leave me alone, sir.
'If it is humanly possible I beg
of you to come to New York'.
'If only for a night or two'.
'The great success he's had
means nothing to him'
'The old fears are back
tenfold without you here'.
'We have run the curtain down
three times this past week'.
'He was not sober enough to continue'.
'I can no longer reach him'.
'I beg of you to come'.
[ Door knocks ]
Come in.
It's the doctor, Mrs Booth.
Send him in.
Good afternoon, Mrs Booth.
I was driving by and just
thought I would look in on you.
Good afternoon, doctor.
And you've managed a small miracle.
I suddenly feel completely well.
Now that's good news indeed.
That smile is mighty pleasant
to see again, Mrs Booth.
It may be jumping a
little with excitement.
I feel well enough to pay
a short visit to New York.
New York?
Well now.
The first trip we'll try is ..
A little walk around the room.
We see how we manage that.
Then in a month or so
we'll try a short drive.
We're not going to even
think of New York just yet.
I'll stop by again this
evening, Mrs Booth.
Not a toe out of that bed.
Remember.
Mrs Booth.
Bring the carriage round.
The doctor said for you..
- The doctor is too careful.
Do as you're told.
Don't just stand there. Help me.
My husband needs me.
Edwin.
Be brave, my darling.
Wait for me. I am coming.
I won't leave you again, my dearest.
Hey ho, the wind and the rain.
With toss-pots still had drunken heads.
For the rain it raineth every day.
With a hey, ho.
The wind and the rain.
Look at this, you drunken fool.
Accept any offer they make me.
You're my manager.
You read what it says? This is to me:
'Why doesn't Mr Booth answer telegrams'?
'Mrs Booth dangerously ill'.
Have you had telegrams?
Where are they?
All in my office. Help yourself.
I never answer telegrams.
They're always after something.
A great wide world. The world began.
With a hey ho, the wind and the rain.
When that's all done, our play is won.
Ned.
Mary.
Your wife is dying.
Jeff.
Refund the money for tonight.
There will be no performance.
Get a carriage round to the stage door.
Speak again, bright angel.
Speak again.
Speak.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the love of God.
And the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.
Be with us all evermore.
Amen.
All my love. My wife.
Death that hath sucked the honey of thy
breath has no power yet upon thy beauty.
I still will stay with thee.
And never from this palace of dim night.
Depart again.
Tell me, Mary.
Tell me what to do.
Tell me, my darling.
Tell me.
Asia.
- Dave.
Does he still come here every day?
Each day.
He stays like that for hours sometimes.
Dave.
I sent for you because
I want to act again.
Good.
Asia. I want to see my daughter.
I know now that Mary's
love was not wasted.
There is no taint.
And no madness that I cannot conquer.
With her help.
[ Church bells. Loud ]
Peace?
It must be peace.
Then the war is over.
Thank god.
Merciful Father. Thank you.
Johnny will be safe now.
Johnny will be safe.
Don't tie him, son.
I won't be long.
The first time the president's
been to the theater.
You'll not need a ticket from me?
- Of course not, Mr Booth.
Thank you.
- The president is here tonight.
I know.
That's Mr John Wilkes Booth.
Edwin Booth's brother.
He is an actor too.
My love, you had better go.
You crave affection, you do.
I have no fortune but I am
bubbling over with affection.
Which I am ready to
pour out all over you.
Will you please recollect you
are addressing my daughter.
And in my presence.
Yep. I'm offering her my heart and hand.
Just as she wants them.
With nothing in them.
I am aware, Mr Trenchard.
You are not used to the
manners of good society.
And that alone will
excuse the impertinence.
Of which you have been guilty.
I don't know the manners
of good society, huh?
I guess I know enough to ..
Turn you inside out, old gal.
You sockdologizing old man-trap.
Hey! You there.
He shot the president!
Sic semper tyrannis!
Halt. Who goes there?
The name is Booth.
Stanley.
Polonius was a fool but you
must not play him like a fool.
Like many fools he was
free with his advice.
But I think he intended
it to be good advice.
Quiet.
Please be quiet out there.
Will you permit me, Mr Stanley ..
To run through the lines as
Shakespeare meant them to be read.
Not pompously.
Not fatuously, but simple.
Honestly. Would you please be quiet.
Dave, do something about the noise.
We're rehearsing.
Ned.
The president?
Edwin.
What is it?
Let me see.
Johnny.
Is Johnny safe?
He got away.
God protect him.
[ Dogs barking ]
Mama.
Stay here.
- Don't walk there.
Alright, Booth. We know you're in there.
Come on out.
Come and get me, gentlemen.
I give you a minute, Booth.
Then we burn the barn down.
Get that lamp.
Your time is running out, Booth.
Come on out of there.
I'm no criminal.
Why not give a lame man a chance?
The same chance you gave the president?
Through that window.
Knock another one in.
God, let me die bravely.
[ Gunshot! ]
Get him out of here.
We have a dead prisoner, Colonel.
We don't want you to die, Booth.
We want you to live so we can hang you.
Salvation.
Useless.
Useless.
Can I have a lock of his hair?
Well, why not.
The blood of our president is
not yet dry in our memories.
Is a Booth to be allowed to appear?
I say no.
Gentlemen, please.
Think what you are doing.
Edwin Booth is an innocent man.
Can you blame him and hold him
guilty for what his brother did?
Our president was murdered by an actor.
I say every theater in the
country should be torn down.
I say take every actor and
ride him out of town.
Abraham Lincoln died in
the very doorway to hell.
The theater is corruption.
All actors are panderers and traitors.
Here is the medicine for Booth, boys.
If he dares to show his
face we'll stretch his neck.
Mr Prescott. You are not
going to raise that curtain?
You can't force us to go on
stage and open this play.
That settles it, Ned.
The actors refuse to go
out and open the play.
I know. We open with the second scene.
Ask the cast to assemble on stage.
If they're willing.
I ask no-one to go out
there who isn't willing.
Don't look so glum, Dave.
After all, we've got a full house.
- That's not an audience, Ned.
It's a mob.
I can't let you go out there.
They'll tear you to pieces.
They want blood.
Dave, listen.
It's not only me they hate or the name
of Booth. It is us all. The profession.
It isn't right or just that actors be
damned forever for what Johnny did.
I owe my profession a debt.
I intend to pay it.
Tonight.
Asia agrees with me.
There is another reason, Dave.
One that I know you will understand.
Mary.
She said to me once:
'You're an actor.
Not just because I want it'.
'It's your gift and your purpose.
Your reason for being and mine too'.
I'll never be derelict of that purpose.
Nor will I let you be.
The name is still 'Booth', Dave.
Now.
Would you ask the players
to assemble on the stage.
Alright, Ned.
The lights, Sam.
Murderer.
Come on. Let's get out.
Send for the police. It's a riot.
By golly, he's got guts.
Booth, you're alright.
I'm for you.
I'm for him.
Come on. Give him a cheer.
[ Mary: ]
Good night.
Good night.
Parting is such ..
Sweet sorrow, that I shall say
good night until it be morrow.
..r-o-s..