Complicated Assassin

Can you picture John Wilkes Booth, the actor who shot and killed President Lincoln, as a sympathetic figure? Probably not, but Brendan Hughes makes a better case than you might imagine in “Glamorous Assassin.”

Hughes portrays Booth in a play he wrote and has performed in London and Los Angeles.

It’s the first presentation in the Ojai Theater 150 group’s new series of one-actor shows that run from now until mid-July.

Booth was a complicated man. English by birth, the son and younger brother of actors more famous than himself, he moved with his family to Baltimore.

While his older brother, Edwin, supported the North in the Civil War, John embraced the South, detesting what he saw as Lincoln’s hypocrisy.

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After a failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln and offer him to the Confederacy to be ransomed, Booth finagled his way backstage at Ford’s Theater and into the history books--though not as the heroic figure he had anticipated.

Although insane, Booth was a popular actor and knew how to work an audience. Thus, Hughes--who bears an unsettling resemblance to David Duchovny of “The X-Files”--is often charming and thoroughly entertaining as he slips deeper into his conception of the flamboyant actor’s personality.

Hughes takes great care to explain Booth’s politics and in the process may lead members of the audience to reevaluate what they thought they knew about Lincoln.

The script takes some liberties with language--would someone in the 1860s use such a colloquialism as “most of our neighbors thought he was 2 cents short of a dollar?”--but that’s probably forgivable as an aid to understanding.

The performance, two hours including intermission, was directed by Nicholas Ellsworth; Phillip Latham handled the ambitious sound and lighting effects.

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DETAILS

“Glamorous Assassin” concludes this weekend at Theater 150, 918 E. Ojai Ave. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Admission to all shows is $20. For reservations (highly recommended) or more information, call 646-4300.

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Hughes on Hughes: Welsh by birth, Brendan Hughes was establishing himself as an actor in England by working “pretty constantly” in provincial repertory companies before he immigrated to the United States after the American actress he had been living with decided to return home, Hughes explained in an interview a few days before last weekend’s opening. The relationship dissolved; Hughes stayed on.

“I was in the Santa Monica library and picked up a book on American acting families, theatrical dynasties,” Hughes said. “Then I started researching the Civil War and finding out who the real Abraham Lincoln was.”

“In England, I’d learned that he was the patron saint of emancipation. I found out that in the debates with Stephen A. Douglas, he said he had no intention of freeing the slaves, that he felt they were mentally inferior. His idea was to send all the blacks to Central America.

“Like any war, the Civil War was more about power and money than a moral crusade,” Hughes said.

“Booth was one of the first actors to become politically involved, and in a big way--by 1864, he’d given up the stage and was devoting more of his time and money to delivering Lincoln to the Confederate government; he had eight or nine men on his payroll.”

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While Lincoln’s words are well-documented, Hughes admits having had to imagine much of what Booth says.

“He was a very complicated and disturbed man, but his sister wrote a book of fond memories of her brother, which was locked away and not published until 1920,” Hughes said.

“Booth kept a diary, which was taken by authorities after they killed him, and most of it was destroyed. His wording is a bit stiff; I wanted to make it more conversational in tone. I’ve got a few bits of his, but most of it is invented--based on fact, but not in his own words.”

Todd Everett can be reached by e-mail at teverett@concentric.net.