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 cutthroat, 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. Library Theatre Manchester - LogoForty 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
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODU3MzQ=