'Land of the Free' review — the failed actor who assassinated a president gets a timely theatrical portrait

Read our review of Land of the Free, about Abraham Lincoln's killer John Wilkes Booth, now in performances at the Southwark Playhouse to 9 November.

“Why did you do it, Johnny?” the Balladeer asks John Wilkes Booth in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. “I did it to remove a tyrant and avenge the ravaged South,” he argues. Booth’s story is only one strand of the musical but it casts a considerable shadow over other theatrical interpretations of the failed actor who killed Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Such a troubled and tragic character ought to be a fascinating protagonist; indeed, Karen Joy Fowler’s novel Booth was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022.

The artwork for Land of the Free, by touring company Simple8 (who presented a striking Moby Dick earlier in the year), shows a back view of Donald Trump gazing at a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that the past and present will converge. John Wilkes Booth was a disenfranchised young white man who probably would have been keen on the present GOP nominee.

Unfortunately, Sebastian Armesto and Dudley Hinton’s play (directed by Hinton) is a baggy, episodic affair with a jarringly jumpy timeline that offers little insight into Booth’s psyche and what led him to become the first US presidential assassin.

Presented by a troupe of seven travelling players (the multi-roleing is a mixed bag), Kate Bunce’s set effectively grounds the narrative in its theatrical setting with its red velvet curtains and flags, flanked with images of violence, including Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, and the recent pop at Trump in Pennsylvania. The cast are smartly dressed in their period costumes.

There’s something Little Women-esque about the young Booth and his siblings Edwin, Junius, and Asia (all had lofty names and radical namesakes) playacting Julius Caesar, with John, the youngest, identifying with Caesar’s assassin Brutus from an early age. It transpires that Papa Booth (Owen Oakeshott, who is good value in his various roles), a celebrated actor who runs the home like a theatre, is a bigamist who left his first wife behind in England, meaning that his children are in fact illegitimate. It’s the very stuff of Victorian melodrama but it isn’t mentioned again after the opening scene.

As John Wilkes, Brandon Bassir does demonstrate charm despite the clumsiness of the storytelling. The tacked-on psychology briefly hints at the notion that no one remembers actors in the long term, and he has to do something bigger to escape the shadow of his father and siblings. These days, he’d be posting videos on TikTok.

The Shakespearean-pastiche dialogue in the scenes leading up to the assassination feels affected; alas, Lincoln’s theatre obsession was the death of him (it seems one of the perks of being president is being able to recite whenever you want – if only all presidents had such wholesome indulgences).

After Booth meets his end, the narrative continues confusingly. The story has all the ingredients to be a gripping and resonant yarn but the telling needs a considerable amount of tightening in order to be compelling theatre.

Land of the Free is at the Southwark Playhouse to 9 November. Book Land of the Free tickets on London Theatre.

Photo credit: Land of the Free (Photos by KatieC Photography)