Oswald, Booth, and other singing psychos

By Christian Hochstim

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH It's all fun and games until a President loses his life (left to right: Ari Shapiro, DC '00, David McMillan, JE '00, and Christian Williams, TD '99).

Are you feeling unloved, downtrodden, or oppressed? Are you a marginalized victim of a society who just doesn't care? Don't despair. Make your voice heard. Kill the president.

Such is the advice of the chorus of killers in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins, a musical portrait of nine desperate individuals, from the Civil War era to the early 1980s. Directed by Andrew Eggert, MC '00, and led by The Balladeer (Vayu O'Donnell, ES '98), who sings the passionate narrative ballads which drive the action forward, the play examines the characters' inner psyches and their historical actions.

John Wilkes Booth (Adam Overett, SM'00) is the first of this bunch that we meet and he emerges as the force that drives his successors to their violent acts. Like the stories of the assassins that follow him, his tale is told through a combination of musical narration, dialogue, and dramatic monologue. But neither he nor the other characters stand alone for long; the assassins also interact with each other in vignettes which transcend time. In one early scene, Booth, Charles Guiteau (John Muse, TC '00), Leon Czolgosz (Ari Shapiro, DC '00), Giuseppe Zangara (Tony Taglienti, PC '01), Samuel Byck (Ryan Karels, BR '00), and John Hinckley (Thomas Pearson, BK '01) converse in a bar, as Booth convinces Zangara to assassinate FDR because of his oppresive stomach pains. In the final scene, the assassins from the bar scene, along with Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (Sarah Pike, TD '00) and Sarah Jane Moore (Abby Sendrow, TD '00), collaborate to convince Lee Harvey Oswald (Boomie Aglietti, DC '99) that he must kill John F. Kennedy to achieve immortality and greatness in the only way his pathetic life will allow. Booth leads the chorus of persuasion by appealing to Oswald's knowledge of Brutus, himself, and other great assassins of the past. He tempts him with fame, telling him how well future assassins like Hinckley will know him if he goes through with it. Dustin Brown's, JE '00, choreography adds to the tension. The stagings of the final scene and of all the other chorus scenes are excellent, full of superb dramatic movement and evocative gesture. At the very end, in a moment of startling brilliance, the assassins line up and turn their weapons on the audience.

In addition to the drama carried by the passionate music and performances, there's quite a bit of humor. Particularly funny are Byck's schizophrenic monologues--in which he dictates psychotic fan mail into a tape recorder--and the super-wacky, post-Manson antics of Fromme and Moore. In one hysterical scene, Fromme and Moore open fire on a tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken. When the two actually try to assassinate Ford, Fromme's gun fails, so Moore vainly attempts to kill the president by throwing bullets at him. The most comical scene in the whole production is Moore's confrontation with her nine-year-old son Billy (David Steib, PC '00) over her refusal to give him an extra quarter for ice cream. The angry Billy proceeds to make bizarre noises while trying to vex her with his stuffed monkey.

Dramatic sound effects such as gunshots, audio newsreels, and even a sizzling electric chair complement the strong performance of the orchestra, capably directed by Jana Zielonka, TC '99. The set, with its immense American flag in the background, is also quite impressive. An equally large and versatile white curtain, on which images of the assassinations are depicted, adds a touch of realism and helps build the illusory connections between the assassins on stage and the American presidents they try to kill. Projection is also used to create an ironic effect. In one moment, reminiscent of Taxi Driver, Byck mockingly throws his arms up in Richard Nixon's victory signal while an image of Nixon in the same pose is projected on the screen.

Combining humor and drama, song and action, Assassins delivers a fast-paced, entertaining portrayal of the tormented minds and decisive actions of some of the most notorious villains in American history.

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