History unhinged: Ethan Hawke stars as John Brown in ‘The Good Lord Bird’

As protests and demonstrations across the U.S. and the world shine a light on systemic racism, a new miniseries brings TV viewers back in time to the era of slavery in the weeks before the eruption of the Civil War. Given its context and the content, the production is poised to spark further conversation on the state of race relations today.

Ethan Hawke (“Dead Poets Society,” 1989) stars as famous abolitionist John Brown in “The Good Lord Bird,” premiering Sunday, Oct. 4, on Showtime. The sevenpart series is based on the novel of the same name by James Mcbride and, although inspired by actual events, features fictional characters as it explores Brown’s story.

Joshua Caleb Johnson (“Blackish”) stars alongside Hawke as fictional young slave Henry Shackleford, whom Brown “frees” and nicknames “Onion” after mistaking him for a girl and giving him a dress to wear. He soon joins the ranks of Brown’s rag-tag army, and the story unfolds through his eyes.

Mcbride’s novel was released in 2013 and quickly drew comparisons to Marktwain’s classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” It was touted for its “wonderfully bizarre images” by Héctor Tobar in the Los Angeles Times and went on to win the National Book Award for Fiction. Hawke not only stars in the television adaptation of the book but also adapted the story for the small screen alongside fellow executive producer Jason Blum (“Sharp Objects”).

“The genius of the novel, for me, is how it deals with gender and race, and how we deal with the blind spots that we see,” Hawke said at the winter Television Critics Association media tour.

Much like the book, the miniseries explores racial, religious and gender roles in America and, according to an official Showtime release,“weaves a humorous, dramatic and historical tapestry of Antebellum America.” Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird” opens in Kansas in 1856, during a time known as “Bleeding Kansas,” when anti-slavery groups clashed with pro-slavery groups. Even though that was 164 years ago, the content seems timely with the current focus on the #BlacklivesMatter movement and the outrage over systemic racism in America and around the world.