Assassins — Page 2

To me, Something Just Broke is a bad song. The next production that I see that uses it, I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom during the song. It's a waste of time.

Maybe someone can explain the song to me. I get the intention behind it, (I personally felt it during 9/11) but it seems like a sentiment that has been shoe-horned in and seems to come out of nowhere. I think it breaks the dramatic tension coming out of the Hail to the Chief music.

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"As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party movement is a direct result of diminishing American expectations with little real understanding of the socio-economic factors at play. And so the Tea Partiers allow themselves to be cynically manipulated into scapegoating everyone from our "Kenyan-born" president to gays and immigrants."

The Tea Party movement is not about diminishing American expectations. The Tea Party movement is about how there is too much government control of our lives.

Additionally, Assassins is the wrong show to make your point. Every time there is a nutjob going "postal" (see that government reference?) they always turn out to be some far out liberal "progressive" Democrat.

Also, take a look at who the Assassins are trying to kill:

Abraham Lincoln - Republican
James Garfield - Republican
William McKinley - Republican
Franklin Roosevelt - Democrat
John F. Kennedy - Democrat (and there's always speculation about who actually killed him)
Richard Nixon - Republican
Gerald Ford - Republican
Ronald Reagan - Republican

Assassins is about a bunch of liberal freaks trying to kill non-liberals they don't agree with.

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I thought Goth's assertation that Obama is going to round up and inter the Jews soon was the funniest/craziest thing he's said in a while, but as he proves just two posts above, he never waits long to top himself.

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"The Republican party has to stop "claiming" leaders from the 19th century.

ESPECIALLY Lincoln."

The Republican Party was formed because Democrats (and the other parties) didn't condemn slavery. And even though slavery has officially been abolished, Democrats want to keep people on the government plantation.

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The Republicans and Democrats of the 19th century are NOT the Republicans and Democrats of today. You can't even make a clean argument that the parties fully flip-flopped, because SO MUCH HAS CHANGED.

Which is why we're seeing far-right politicians TODAY embracing 19th century southern Democrat concepts like nullification and "states rights."

This is irrefutable.

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As someone who grew up in the South during the final days of Jim Crow, I was raised thinking of Republicans as the LIBERAL party in contrast to the Dixiecrat/segregationist wing of the Democratic party.

I even registered as a Republican when I was first old enough to vote. (Many moons ago, I promise you.)

Updated On: 4/24/14 at 04:22 PM

I'm not even gonna dip a toe into the political discussion above. But I do want to take issue with something my good friend Matt has said.

I don't think the use of the Balladeer is inconsistent. It's actually very specific...he is only used to aid in the telling of the 'successful' presidential assassins. All the other would-be assassins need to speak for themselves. Their lives are inconsequential. The ones who managed to kill a president are given folklore status through the use of the Guthrie-like Balladeer. In my opinion, the telling of the stories is corrupting...leading to the Balladeer being overwhelmed by the 'other national anthem' and giving in to the corruption, becoming Oswald (at least in some productions). I think the Balladeer only makes sense if he's affected and corrupted by the assassins. Otherwise, he just disappears and...what?

As for Something Just Broke, I vehemently agree that it pulls the focus onto people we don't know or care about. Had Sondheim created smaller moments after each presidential assassination giving voice to what the public was feeling, then it could work. In fact, I would argue that those moments should have been moments of optimism and strength, with the Kennedy assassination being the moment something just broke.

However, I do think the song is stunning. As sung on its own in Sondheim on Sondheim, it was chilling and beautiful in a way that it wasn't in the otherwise extraordinary revival of ASSASSINS.

The only one on the list who could reasonably be called far-left is Czolgosz.

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"Far from being opposed to him, Guiteau was a supporter of Garfield's--so much so that he thought he deserved credit for his election."

And Mel White was a huge Evangelical. What's your point?

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One thing about the structure... OK, well, several things.

In the original production--which I have seen a VERY fuzzy video of a few times (some of which I see is online, you know where, as is the entire revival production,) the fact that it was a revue seemed to be played up more with less of a clear arc. So it made more sense, in a way, about the fact that there might be a ballad right next to a cakewalk, etc, even if they were pastiches of different eras. By giving more of a role to the Balladeer, bumping up the Proprietor's already kinda confusing role (a character we haven't discussed much,) etc, over time with the revisions they seem to want to clear this up, but I also think it makes it more confusing, if THAT makes any sense (another reason I think the original version, flaws and all, simply works more.)

While obviously a very bleak revue, it does sorta make sense--ie you have the comic one man sketch, the different types of numbers, etc. If there is any sort of shape to the order of the routines, it does seem that, after the intro, you have a pretty serious narrative number with Booth, and then numbers which mostly are "lighter" (in a dark way) until Another National Anthem when the Assassins take over the revue for real and give the Balladeer the boot.

Incidentally, the only published version of the libretto is largely the original one (published in 1993 but though I don't have my copy here, I believe it is basically the original script with no Something Just Broke, etc--it also describes the slides to use for scenes, which was the original design.) So not the revised version which has a TON of small but significant changes aside from just an extra song and the Proprietor returning to lead Another National Anthem which seems to make him a cynical version of the Balladeer, and is, I believe, the only currently licensed version.

And just because this performance is so great, here's the original Garber/Cassidy Ballad of Booth at the Carnegie Hall Sondheim concert, which NPH and Cerveris simply can not match for me.

I saw the original production, and I don't remember much, really, about the dramaturgy. I just remember the extraordinary performances, and the feeling that it was unlike anything I'd seen before.

I can't say it's a show or score I revisit often, but I found it remarkable at the time.

No only did the role fit Patrick Cassidy's voice but he just "was" the character. Much like Keith Carradine just "was" Will Rogers.

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ASSASSINS is so brilliant it hurts. "Another National Anthem" is one of my favorite group number from a musical ever. It is a severely underrated Sondheim, and is hard to do without very strong actors, albeit a shorter (and relatively easier) score than his other shows. I hope I will get to direct it someday, hopefully sooner rather than later...

I have to say though, I am definitely in the camp that Oswald and Balladeer be seperate characters. I think it's extremely gimmicky when it's doubled, and doesn't really make sense to me. I also think the Proprietor's role is confusing as well, but that's besides the point.

Food for thought: How would people feel about an all-female or gender-blind production of Assassins? I could see it being really fascinating if you could get the right voices for it.

Updated On: 4/27/14 at 08:05 PM