 ASSASSINS
a revue in one act. Book by John Weidman, from an idea by Charles Gilbert
Junior. Music and lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim.
Produced at Playwrights Horizons, New York, 27 January, 1991 (25 perfs)
with Jace Alexander (Oswald), Victor Garber (Booth), Annie Golden ("Squeaky"
Fromme) and Lee Wilkof (Byck). Produced at the Donmar Warehouse, London,
29 October 1992 with Gareth Snook, David Firth, Cathryn Bradshaw and Ciaran
Hinds.
Playwrights Horizons - Off-Broadway 27 January, 1991 - (25 perfs)
Story
The evening begins with "Hail To The Chief"
- not in its familiar stirringly patriotic certainty, but eerily arranged
for a carnival calliope, and not to announce the entrance of the President
but of his would-be assassins. We are at a fairground, in front of a shooting
gallery which boasts a unique entertainment: "Shoot the President - win
a Prize". As the Proprietor ballyhoos his sideshow, eight figures come
forward one by one to chance their luck, assassins drawn from over a century
of American history. They are a disparate group, one dressed in a 19th
century frock coat, another as a department store Santa. But each is handed
his own distinctive gun - the preferred means of ultimate political protest
in the United States. "EVERYBODY'S GOT THE RIGHT to be happy", the Proprietor
asserts. Everybody's got the right to their dreams: isn't that the American
way?
The last to arrive is John Wilkes Booth, who promptly
uses his newly-acquired weapon on President Lincoln. As the fatal shots
ring out, the Balladeer steps out to sing THE BALLAD OF BOOTH - "a handsome
devil who decided to take his bad reviews out on his Chief of State. Holed
up in a tobacco barn with his confederate David Herold, Booth is determined
to set down his version of events: he's not a common cut-throat, not a
madman, but someone who did what he did for his country, who slew a tyrant
- as Brutus did. But, even as Booth dies, the Balladeer's banjo ballad
returns to point out that, thanks to him, Lincoln, who'd hitherto received
mixed reviews, now gets only raves. The other assassins are in a bar. "Has Nixon been in?"
asks Samuel Byck, still wearing his Santa suit. But it seems not. Booth
is back, though, just in time to hear Giuseppe Zangara complaining about
how nothing seems to relieve the pain in his stomach. Booth suggests shooting
FDR. "Will it help?" asks Zangara. But Zangara's attempt misfires and
he kills, instead, Mayor Cermak of Chicago. Grouped around the radio microphones
in Miami's Bayfront Park, a handful of bystanders boast, over the strains
of a Sousa march, of "HOW 1 SAVED ROOSEVELT", while, strapped into the
electric chair, Zangara insists he is not left or right, only an "American
nothing". The song ends as the current is switched on.
Forty years later, in the mid-Seventies, Sara Jane Moore
and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme meet up over a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken,
discuss the evils of fast food and end up taking pot shots at the graven
image of Colonel Sanders. Neither is very good with a gun, but at least
they have one. "It takes a lot of men to make a gun," says Leon Czolgosz,
a lumbering glass-factory worker contemplating the significance and power
of his weapon. In THE GUN SONG, Czolgosz, Moore, Booth and Charles Guiteau
identify, in barbershop harmonies, the advantages of firearms: all you
have to do is move your little finger and you can change the world. The
others wander off, leaving Czolgosz alone to consider what he should do.
He is an admirer of the anarchist agitator Emma Goldman and, after one
of her meetings, she suggested that he might like to visit the 1901 Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo. He does, and the Balladeer takes up the story in
THE BALLAD OF CZOLGOSZ. As President McKinley shakes hands with visitors
to the Exposition, Czolgosz wraps his gun in a handkerchief, joins the
President's excited admirers and kills Big Bill. 1n the USA, you can work
your way to the head of the line".
Back to the Seventies: Samuel Byck, an out-of-work tyre
salesman, has hatched a bold scheme to kill President Nixon and is explaining
it, via his cassette machine, to Leonard Bernstein, the busy conductor
and composer. "Maybe if you can't listen now," suggests Byck, aware of
the pressures on the maestro's time, "you can listen 'Tonight, tonight
. . .' 1 love that song". His message completed, he leaves singing "Everything's
great in America . . ."
John Hinckley also enjoys singing, but only his own
compositions, angrily accompanied on his acoustic guitar. "I am
UNWORTHY OF YOUR LOVE", he admits in an overwrought ballad addressed
to his "girlfriend", Jodie Foster. Lynette Fromme watches and
then delivers her own version of the number, addressed to her lover (and
the new Messiah) Charles Manson. But Hinckley blows his opportunity to
prove his worthiness to Jodie when he starts shooting unsuccessfully
at a photo of President Reagan that is projected on to the back wall.
The President just keeps wisecracking his way through the bullets - and,
hey, where'd that guy learn to shoot anyway? The Russian army?
Charles Guiteau has better luck. In 1881, he meets President
Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac station in Washington and asks
to be made Ambassador to France. Garfield ignores him and is fatally
shot in the back. Failed lawyer, preacher, politician and author, Garfield's
killer is looking forward to being an angel and, in THE BALLAD OF GUITEAU
(I AM GOING TO THE LORDY), cakewalks up and down the gallows steps with
irrepressible cheerfulness.
Before his assassination of Garfield and execution,
Guiteau had given Sara Jane Moore some lessons in how to shoot up her
Kentucky Fried Chicken more accurately. But they don't seem to have paid
off. Trying now to shoot President Ford, she kills her dog instead. And
she got all her dates mixed up, so she had to bring the kid along and
he's screaming for an ice-cream and Lynette is screaming at her for bring
the kid and the dog to an assassination. "Look, we came here to
kill the President", shrieks Moore. "Let's just kill him and
go home". Enter President Ford, who trips on the bullets she's dropped,
very considerately hands them back to her and proceeds on his way as
Moore and Fromme pull their triggers helplessly behind him.
After Sam Byck's abortive mission to crash an airliner
into the White House, he and the seven other assassins come together
to explain their motives: one did it to avenge the ravaged South, another
so her friends would know where she was coming from. Now, they want their
prizes. For the first time, they are no longer freakish, embittered,
angry individuals but a group with a common purpose, marching to ANOTHER
NATIONAL ANTHEM - not the one you cheer at the ballpark, but the anthem
of those who can't get in. As the march dies away, the Blue Ridge Boys
play Heartache Serenade, and we're listening to a transistor radio in
the sixth floor storeroom of the Texas School Book Depository on 22 November
1963. On the verge of taking his own life, Lee Harvey Oswald is interrupted
by Booth and the other assassins, and invited instead to make history.
The assassins who preceded Oswald say he will bring them back; those
who came after him say he will make them possible, by once again making
assassinations a part of the American experience. His act can give them
historical power as a united force, not as a bunch of isolated "nuts".
Oswald refuses and Booth entices him with the statement that when Hinckley's
room is searched after his assassination attempt on President Reagan,
every book written about Oswald will be found. Through the window, flags
are flying, bands are marching to patriotic tunes, the President's motorcade
is about to pass by the cheering crowds. 1n here, this is America, too",
says Booth - the land where any kid can grow up to be President, or grow
up to kill a President. Oswald picks up his gun and moves to the window.
As President Kennedy dies, his assassin takes his place among his confreres
in the last empty booth at the carnival. He has brought them back, he
has made them possible, and, for those ordinary Americans, who'll always
remember where they were when they heard the news, SOMETHING JUST BROKE.
Their despair stands in quiet contrast to the jaunty reprise of their
theme, EVERYBODY'S GOT THE RIGHT ... to their dreams. And, as in all
the happy endings in all the best musicals, your dream can come true
if you just go out and get it. Characters
-
JOHN WILKES BOOTH - An actor and passionate champion
of the South during the Civil War.
- GIUSEPPE ZANGARA - A short (under five feet) immigrant who failed
to kill Franklin Roosevelt because he had to stand on a chair and
it wobbled.
- LEON CZOLGOSZ - The son of Polish immigrants, a worker in a glass
factory and supporter of anarchist groups.
- JOHN HINCKLEY - A man who shot President Reagan and three others
to impress a girl he'd never met.
- CHARLES GUITEAU - A Republican who wrote a campaign speech for
President Garfield and ended up shooting him to promote the sales
of his book.
- SARA JANE MOORE - A five-times married FBI informer who tried
to kill President Ford to re-establish her radical credentials.
- LYNETTE "SQUEAKY FROMME - A member of the "family" of
disciples of the mass murderer Charles Manson, who pulled a gun on
President Ford so she could call Charlie as a witness.
- SAMUEL BYCK - An unemployed loner who picketed the White House
on Christmas Eve dressed as Santa Claus and died trying to implement
his assassination plan at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
- LEE HARVEY OSWALD - A stock boy in the Texas School Book Depository.
- THE BALLADEER - A singing witness to national catastrophe.
- THE PROPRIETOR - The insinuating barker of a fairground shooting
gallery.
- DAVID HEROLD - Booth's accomplice.
- EMMA GOLDMAN - An anarchist celebrity.
- GERALD FORD - Briefly President of the United States, 1974-1977.
- JAMES GARFIELD - President of the United States, briefly, in 1881.
- BYSTANDERS, CITIZENS, etc.
Musical Numbers:
- Opening: Everybody's Got The Right - Proprietor, Assassins
- The Ballad Of Booth, Part II -
Balladeer, Booth
- How I Saved Roosevelt - Ensemble, Zangara
- Gun Song -
Czolgosz, Booth, Guiteau, Moore
- The Ballad of Czolgosz, Part III -
Balladeer
- Unworthy Of Your Love -
Hinckley, Fromme
- The Ballad Of Guiteau -
Guiteau, Balladeer
- Another National Anthem -
Balladeer, Assassins
- Something Just Broke -
Ensemble
- Everybody's Got The Right (Finale)
ORCHESTRATION
DETAILS
REED I - Piccolo, Flute, Soprano Sax, Clarinet.
REED II - Flute, Clarinet, Eh Clarinet, Bass Clarinet
REED III - Flute, Soprano Sax, Tenor Sax, Bassoon
2 TRUMPETS
HORN
TROMBONE
GUITAR
2 KEYBOARDS
2 PERCUSSION
STRING QUINTET
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