The show's central character, Harry Hawk, is loosely based on the real
actor who was alone on stage with all eyes trained on him at the moment
when Booth shot Lincoln. The real Hawk disappeared into relative obscurity
after the traumatizing events, although his career onstage continued
for a number of years afterwards.
Until the death of John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin in 1893, Hawk
declined to speak publicly about the assassination. Even so, for the
next half century he never managed to separate his name from the events
of Good Friday, 1865. In
1916, he passed away in quiet retirement on the Isle of Jersey as World
War I raged in nearby France and Belgium. Remove the words about April
1865 from his tiny obituary in The New York Times, and virtually
all that remains is “Harry Hawk, an actor.”
A few images to give a taste of what American theatre was like during the
period in which Reunion is set:
(Click an image to view it full-size)
