Assassins- Page 2

[Jamie Hat]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 12:59pm

I wouldn't necessarily agree that the men are superior to the females...
I think that Booth and Czogolz are given strong bases (by that I mean that they thought they were doing good for their own people -others did too yes-but anyway--Booth acted for the South and the Confederate states --he says "What I did was kill the man who killed my country", he felt Lincoln was responsible for the deaths of all of the Americans -confederate or no- during the civil war, Czolgolz feld that he was serving as a voice of the working class and blamed "the man" basically, for the unfairness of the system -capitalism we love you- I think these are more "understandable" than some of the other assassin's reasonings).
Whereas some of the other characters in a modern eye seem to be a little more nuts than the others. Not to say that Booth and Czolgolz weren't a little off their block, hell, Booth was an actor! ("They say you killed a country John because of bad reviews") Zangara couldn't stand the pains in his stomach, so he eventually blamed the president, Guiteau wanted to promote a book and be ambassador to France, Hinckley wanted to impress Jodie Foster...the motives start to be a little less reasonable("understood" again) by all...know what I mean?
Fromme wanted to kill someone to allow Charlie Manson to be heard in court, crazy? stupid? (She did think he was the son of god) Take your pick, but her goal worked. I don't think you could say her devotion to Charlie was unpassionate, or that her and Charlie's views weren't visionary (weird and unpopular maybe). You can't say she didn't reflect the same devotion that Booth or Czolgolz demonstrated.

However, Sara Moore is painted somewhat less for us all in the show. She really serves as the comic relief in the piece. I don't think it's a woman thing, I just think her character is the popular in the public eye. I mean who has even heard of her? I think John Weidman used her in a role to help the script stay out of the dark fro the whole time. Her assassination attempt came only like two weeks following Fromme's attempt, so I am sure that it was swallowed a bit by her. AND, if you think about it, the characters that are the most developed of the men, are those that were SUCCESSFUL in their attempts (Garifield, McKinley, Lincoln, Kennedy), so it makes sense that we know more about them historically. Maybe Moore was that lackadaisical about the whole thing? Don't know.

Point is I don't see seperation of the sexes in that way, Zangara is sort of a weak build, and you can't really say that that is Oswald's story is about him anyways, it's really about the psyche of a man at a crossroad.

ENOUGH ALREADY! Bleh...sorry for all that.

Posted: 4/9/04 at 3:36pm

but fromme, she was pictured getting high and talking about doing it for her man... the change in the world she was discussing wasnt going to be the result of her shooting, just something she thought would eventually happen. the vision she discusses wasnt her own, she was a follower.

and i realized the other woman was comic relief. im not a hardcore feminist or anything lol i just thought it was worth noting.

[robbiej]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 3:46pm

I haven't seen it yet...but am going soon.

Fascinating point about the men/women thing...but I actually think it's more of a shift in consciouness throughout the century + that's covered in the show. Notice how the assassins (with the exception of Guiteau) murdered out of some sort of sense of justice and the assassins in the later part of the 20th Century murdered (or attempted to) out of a selfish desire to be heard. I think it nicely charts the internalization of the American psyche (I totally just made that up).

[Jamie Hat]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 11:02pm

well fromme was a hippie :)

[tpdc]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 11:20pm

I don't think this score is weak at all. There are a lot of the fine lyrics you expect of Sondheim and the music is perhaps the "catchiest" he has ever written. I think it's in the score that the show get under your skin. It's when the assassins sing that you "get inside their heads" and I think Sondheim pulls off as many chills in those moments as he does in SWEENEY TODD.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 11:34pm

well, the Squeaky-follower issue wasn't fabricated, she WAS/IS that much of a crazy follower of Charles Manson's. It's true...


and THANK YOU, tpdb! You are the first person (that i've seen) that has aggredd with me on the AMAZING score! It. is. chilling.


cchhiilliinnggggg
d.b.j

Posted: 4/9/04 at 11:42pm

i know it wasnt made up, but they down played the 'i could impress manson' notion and played up the 'charlie says' ...

notice i dont think the men in the show affected by a crush/love were following, because the idea itself was their own. sure you could argue that booth shows up swaying the characters but in those scenes i saw him more as an inner voice.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/9/04 at 11:55pm

well, later in the show, Sara Jane Moore says

"...I did it so I would know where I was coming from..."

not following.
yes, i do see what you mean though.

d.b.j

Posted: 4/10/04 at 12:00am

yeah she said it, but i didnt really 'get' that. i think her motive was the least developed. and as already stated she was pretty much there for comic relief.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/10/04 at 12:08am

definetly the least developed.

maybe because she wasn't as "crazy" perse as the rest of them and she wasn't public (to my knowledge) with her motive.

hence the comic relief wringing.

d.b.j

[IssaMe]

Posted: 4/10/04 at 11:46am

Yes, as suggested - these are previews and even though this is not a new show, it is being worked on and there are changes, past present and future.

It will be frozen on Thursday April 15th.

Other than that - no comment.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/10/04 at 3:49pm

"It will be frozen on Thursday April 15th."

huh?

am i missing a performance notice or something?

d.b.j

Posted: 4/10/04 at 5:00pm

that just means theyll stop being able to change things on april 15th.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/10/04 at 6:06pm

ohh. gotcha.

d.b.j

[Kicks8567]

Posted: 4/10/04 at 6:48pm

I saw the matinee today, and really enjoyed the show. It was very funny, and I thought the females were the best because they were so funny.

[Rypm25]

Posted: 4/17/04 at 9:22pm

I saw Assassins at todays matinee. I was so pleased to finally see a production of this show...having lived off the cast recording for so many years. I know this show isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it. I thought pretty much everything worked, even "Something Just Broke," which I have read that many people don't enjoy in the production, but I felt it added to the whole show. They had a discussion with two of the actors after the show today, but I couldn't stay... I would have enjoyed that. Updated On: 4/17/04 at 09:22 PM

[Jamie Hat]

Posted: 4/18/04 at 2:12pm

The discussion was fantastic. Denis, Michael, and BAB spoke. The highlight was one man in the audience who asked something to the effect of:

"Do you think it is okay to trivialize murder, and present these assassinations in such a light way (glorifying the acts in a way)?"

To which Denis replied: "Is that what the rest of you think the show is doing?"

To which 95% of the remaining people in the theatre replied "NO!!!".

It was fantastic.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 4/18/04 at 2:17pm

when are the discussions taking place?

d.b.j

[Roscoe]

Posted: 4/18/04 at 2:19pm

I saw it. I liked it a lot. I thought the production was admirable, the direction was first rate (I forgive Joe Mantello for Wicked now), and the acting and singing excellent. The show bogged down a bit during some of the dialogue scenes. It is unfortunate that Weidman's average to good book can't compete with Sondheim's excellent to brilliant songs. But it does finally come together into a piece of intelligent, funny, heartbreaking theatre. I can heartily recommend it to anyone willing to watch a show that has something more serious on it's mind than deciding which song from Abba's catalogue to trot out next.

[Rypm25]

Posted: 4/18/04 at 2:27pm

I don't know how often, or when the discussions are planned to take place, but when we arrived at our seats, inside the playbill was a slip of paper inviting whoever wanted to, to stay after and hear a discussion on "Acting Assassins," and that it would last approx. 40 minutes. And when the show ended, it was announced that anyone who wanted to stay, would they please move up closer to the stage in the orchestra.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/19/04 at 10:54am

I was disappointed with the recording of the Playwrights' production, and unlike any other SS show (besides PACIFIC OVERTURES) the CD gathered dust for a decade. But I found the score in the theater to be mostly enthralling, among the most melodic of Sondhiem's work (as someone noted) -- and this production a very persuasive case for the show. It seemed far more accessible than the recording suggested, and for my money, the Wiedman book is very underrated. It does far more than stitch together SS's stunning sequences; it's economically crafted, a compelling framework for mixing and matching these people who actually never met, finding numerous flavors of thematic counterpoint. Because SS uses sometimes poetic/esoteric words to express the unspeakble feelings of the characters, many book scenes kept us connected to the pedestrian lives lead by these mostly poignantly ordinary miscreants. Wiedman wisely found much black humor -- though it's never cheap or exploitive. Just when it veers close to sitcom (the KFC sequence, which is truly funny), we get a moving moment of another emotional color (the Emma Goldman encounter -- a beautifully written exchange).

This is a predictable observation: So many shows are called "ambitious," but this one truly is. (SPOILER:) The people around me at the Sunday matinee began to weep as the Zapruder footage was projected onto Harris's Oswald. Their reaction made me react. All of a sudden, I remember being in 7th grade when JFK was shot. A show that began as a chilly Brechtian intellectual experience became a deeply emotional one in the final moments.

Updated On: 4/19/04 at 10:54 AM

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 4/19/04 at 11:57am

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw Assassins, and I should have chimed in back then, but better late than never...

I didn't "get" it all when I saw it, and in fact still don't fully understand either the opening or closing numbers, in terms of what they were trying to say about the times, the assassins and would-be assassins and society as a whole.

And yet I really enjoyed the show, in large part because it seemed so cutting-edge for Broadway today. Parts of it were absolutely hilarious and I thought it was extremely well acted. I've thought a lot about the show since seeing it, and I think that in and of itself is a mark of a meaningful production.

It'll be interesting to see the reviews this week. Even though I shouldn't spend the money, I'd like to get back to NYC and see the show again before it closes (if it does) on May 30.

[Jamie Hat]

Posted: 4/29/04 at 12:43am

The talk backs are every couple of weeks sort of sparratically. The next one is this Sunday. With about 6 or 7 cast members.

[mominator]

Posted: 4/29/04 at 6:49am

Saw it on Sat.night Really wished the had a talk, maybe with the show being extended to July I will have another chance. This is a show that you have to see more than once because there is soo much to take in. i can't get over how well Neil Patrick Harris was, I wish I had seen him in Caberet.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 4/29/04 at 7:23am

I actually find it unconscionable that the Zapruder footage - probably the most disturbing film ever made- is used in this production.

Updated On: 4/29/04 at 07:23 AM