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| Program cover for Assassins at Theater Latte Da, 2018. |
Last weekend I saw Theater Latte Da’s excellent production of the
musical Assassins, with music and
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by John Weidman. Assassins is a fascinating look at the four successful Presidential
assassins, and five others who failed in their assassination attempts. The
assassins depicted in the musical are: John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham
Lincoln, Charles Guiteau, assassin of James A. Garfield, Leon Czolgosz,
assassin of William McKinley, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy (Assassins presents Oswald as acting
alone, and not part of any larger conspiracy) Giuseppe Zangara, who attempted
to shoot Franklin Roosevelt, but missed and instead killed Chicago mayor Anton
Cermak, Samuel Byck, who planned to hijack an airplane and crash it into the
White House in order to kill Richard Nixon, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara
Jane Moore, who each tried to kill Gerald Ford in California three weeks apart
from each other in September of 1975, and John Hinckley, who wounded Ronald
Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster. (Zangara presents
perhaps the most intriguing “what if,” as his attempt on FDR’s life occurred
after Roosevelt was elected, but before he was sworn in—what would the future of the Republic
have been if FDR had not been there to lead us through the Great Depression and
World War II?)
The cast of Assassins is
superb—standouts
include Dieter Bierbrauer, whose John Wilkes Booth becomes the engine for much
of the play’s action, Sara Ochs, who offers us a portrait of Sara Jane Moore as
a bizarrely incompetent housewife, Shinah Brashears, whose seeming sweetness as
Squeaky Fromme is quickly offset by her unwavering belief in Charles Manson’s
prophecies, the always excellent Tyler Michaels as Lee Harvey Oswald, and
Benjamin Dutcher as the unflappably optimistic Charles Guiteau, who seems all
too happy to ascend the gallows. Assassins is ably directed by Peter
Rothstein, who has directed 71 shows for Latte Da, and who created All is
Calm, about the 1914 Christmas truce, which I reviewed here. There’s a
funny moment as James Detmar’s unhinged Samuel Byck is dictating a tape to Leonard
Bernstein and starts singing “Tonight” and “America,” which Sondheim wrote the
lyrics for. (You can read more about Charles Guiteau here, in my review of Candace Millard’s book about Garfield’s assassination, Destiny of the Republic.)
Assassins might
seem like an odd idea for a musical—I’m sure the idea didn’t send
financial backers running for their checkbooks—but it works. Sondheim wrote
an excellent score, and he had already written a successful musical about a
mass murderer—Sweeney Todd—so why not a show about
Presidential assassins?
I thought about Assassins
a lot, both before the show, and afterwards. I’m a history buff and a
musical theater fan, so I’m probably the ideal audience member for Assassins. Historically, I think the
show does a very good job of summarizing these characters. Of course, for most
of the assassins, I can’t say I know much more than what’s presented in the
show. How pathetic they all seem to me, these lonely souls, unable to connect
with anyone else, thinking that assassination would be their ticket to fame and
fortune. A recurring joke is that the assassin, or would be assassin, is
telling the audience their troubles and someone else on stage says, “Well, why
don’t you shoot the President?” As though that will solve all of their
problems. The characters all want what they cannot have: Squeaky Fromme, pining
after Charles Manson, John Hinckley, pining after Jodie Foster, John Wilkes
Booth, pining for the fame and reputation of his brother Edwin, Charles
Guiteau, hopelessly seeking the ambassadorship to France, Lee Harvey Oswald,
craving the spotlight that had evaded him ever since he defected to Russia. As
Sondheim said in a 2014 interview, “These are all people who feel they’ve been
cheated of their happiness, each one in a different way.” Sondheim gives these
people their moment in the sun, so to speak, so they can explain their actions,
even if their reasons remain vague and opaque to rational people. I thought one
of the most memorable songs was “Unworthy of Your Love,” a beautiful ballad sung
by Hinckley and Fromme, all about their respective obsessions with Jodie Foster
and Charles Manson.
Does the show glorify the assassins too much? Possibly,
although it certainly doesn’t cast them in a positive light. I would argue that
any artistic depiction of “bad” people runs the risk of glorifying them too much.
Whether it’s a play, film, or novel, we’re so strongly taught as audience
members to empathize with the main character that any depiction could be taken
as glorification, even if it’s not meant to be. I suppose that’s the problem
with art—it
asks you to step inside someone else’s mind for a while, and while you’re
there, you might find them a little more human. Martin Scorsese wasn’t
endorsing the behavior of Travis Bickle in Taxi
Driver, but the twisted mind of John Hinckley transformed Travis into a figure
worth emulating.
Assassins is a superb
show that takes a hard look at America, and it asks the audience difficult
questions about violence in America, questions that are sadly all too relevant
in 2018. If you’re interested in pondering those questions, go see Assassins.
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