I'm actually shocked by the number of people who don't realize that this show, in many ways, is not actually about the Presidential assassains (this is coming much more from some of the comments I've read over at ATC...which is supposedly filled with the real movers and shakers). They are just a device to explore the theme that in America, the land where 'everybody's got the right to be happy', many are disenfranchised by our capitalist system of government. That theme is actually echoed in a seemingly more benign piece of theatre, TAKE ME OUT. Marz says he loves baseball because somebody has to lose. It's a purer expression of America than anything any catchphrase can capture.
I love those folks on ATC that say 'Well it didn't happen like that...Booth didn't show up at the depository and talk Oswald into shooting Kennedy!' Well, guess what. No orchestra swelled in when Zangara was being electrocuted. It's not real, nor does it once pretend to be. And the fact is, the characters themselves aren't even Booth and Oswald. That scene is really about a man (and it could be any one of us) at the end of his rope who hears that dark voice inside his head, encouraging him to believe that he has the right to make his mark in any way possible.
We can argue forever how effectively that statement is made. But the message of this show is not dangerous. The danger lies in not truly exploring and understanding what this piece is saying.
"I'm so looking forward to a time when all the Reagan Democrats are dead."
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