Rumormill: REPUBLICAN CONVENTION Closes ASSASSINS

Overheard a discussion about how the Republican Party felt it was against their best interests to have Assassins running in New York during the Republican Convention, so they made some requests to the Roundabout...

Do what you will:

The idea that anyone at the republican national convention would care enough to CLOSE a not-for-profit musical is crazy. First of all the convention isn't until the end of August and Assassins is closing mid July. Second it would seem like recomending it's attendees don't go see Assassins might do the trick...rather than going out of the way to close it(which is unrealistic). Third...don't you think the convention would be more worried about protesters(most likely there will be many) than an artsy out of the way musical that targets the faltering of the American Dream(Not the republican national convention)...Finally...why on EARTH would you think Roundabout would bend to such "requests". This sort of talk is silly. Isn't it possible that there just aren't enough tickets selling...isn't that a much more realistic possibility... especially 'cause the show in question is ASSASSINS...one that doesn't nessarily play to the ticket buying masses?



KC

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Updated On: 6/30/04 at 12:52 PM

It's all over the "other" board...but it was quickly squashed by similar posts. Except over there they were trying to included The Normal Heart...as if there was a comittee that was going about closing shows. Actually Jamie Hat misheard a rumor about how the Republican National Convention was going to "Assassinate" Larry Kramer and Neil Patrick Harris. An easy mistake to make.

KC

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Updated On: 6/30/04 at 12:55 PM

I also heard that Rod Paige and Lynne Cheney are going to be in Wicked for the month of August while the convention is here.

It could be construed that ASSASSINS is harmful to Republicans because the show depicts people like Charles Guiteau and Samuel Byck who were furious with their respective presidents for LYING (sound familiar) - and attempting to kill them....

(Not that I believe a word of this original post)

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I think one of the scariest parts about the show for some people is that not everyone appears to be mad in the show, which offends a lot of people. They feel like the show is glorifying these acts, and some scenes seem to argue that their decisions were the right thing to do.

Tell me why John Wilkes Booth was "mad".
Oswald is a different story.

I know, isn't it great.

The Ballad Of Booth is by far my favorite part of the show. I just love it!

And I completely agree about Czolgosz not being mad. At least that's how he was portrayed in the show (and he was beautifully played by Barbour) as just being a very lost and sad soul.

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Actually, the BALLAD OF BOOTH is way more subversive than how it appears. It's actually brilliant in the way it sets up the rest of the show. The fresh-scrubbed, all-American balladeer goes through of litany of very superficial, even silly, reasons as the why Booth would kill Lincoln. It shows how even then, Americans needed an easy scapegoat for such a devastating act.

I would never say Booth was 'mad'. It's a convenient word to place on someone whose experience we could (hopefully) never fully comprehend. The acts men commit when they've lived through the death and humiliation of losing a war may be extreme, but they are not necessarily 'crazy'.

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Updated On: 6/30/04 at 02:02 PM

OK - Granted that the south was all angry with Lincoln - but for someone to execute a premeditated murder upon the President of the United States - there HAS TO BE SOMETHING 'OFF' WITHIN HIM...call it mad, crazy, psycho, angry, WHATEVER - SOMETHING was wrong...

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MJR,

You call him 'off' because you can't possibly imagine yourself doing such an act. But you also can't possibly understand the life of a Southerner at the end of the Civil War. None of us can. In fact, I truly do not want to know what I'm capable of if pushed to some horrible limit.

'Crazy' is an easy term to apply. And indeed it can be applied to many of the characters in the show. But then what's interesting about watching a bunch of crazy people we can distance ourselves from? And what's the point of writing a show about 'them'?

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I think the Republicans have more to worry about then a Sondheim musical. Try, oh I don't know,

Getting Re-Elected
Sex Scandals
Deaths in Iraq
Overblown Budget
Interest Rates
American Jobs Going Overseas
Handing Power to Iraq
War in Afghanistan
France
Germany
A New Pakistani Prime Minister
Prisoner Abuse
Israeli Palestinian Relations
The War on Terror
Fahrenheit 9/11


The list goes on and you can find "Assassins" very close to the bottom.

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