User:SillySaltyFish/Assassins (musical)

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... and explores what their presence in American history says about the ideals of their life and country. ...

Sacrificing for the Greater Good / Fighting Against Political Injustice
According to Schrader, out of the nine assassins in the musical, six of them (John Wilkes Booth, Giuseppe Zangara, Leon Czolgosz, Charles Guiteau, Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, and Samuel Byck) possess the motives to assassinate their targets due to "political injustice and sacrifice for the greater good," and among the six assassins, Booth and Czolgosz have been portrayed to have such motive as their primary reason for their assassination.


 * John Wilkes Booth - Sacrificing for the Greater Good
 * In the musical, John Wilkes Booth believed that his assassination on President Abraham Lincoln is for the greater good (and was an act of patriotism), which is "supported historically: the Ford’s Theatre Museum notes that Booth was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in order to put the Union in a state of disarray and anarchy." Knapp states that Booth's motivation is "conveyed musically, self-servingly by his own singing in a quasi-hymnic, sometimes inspirational style," based on the 1991 Original Off-Broadway Version.


 * Leon Czolgosz - Fighting Against Political Injustice
 * In the scene before The Gun Song, an anarchist Emma Goldman inspires Leon Czolgosz to take actions for his anarchist beliefs and the "societal injustice" that he noticed. In The Gun Song, Czolgosz had a "moody contemplation of how one gun connects backward to the many lifes it consumes in its manufacture," and later he claims that "[a] gun claims many men before it's done. Just one more," where his assassination target was President William McKinley. The political injustice in Czolgosz's timeline would be the "class inequalities in America."

Desiring Attention
Many assassins in this musical have their lines reflecting their need for attention, and according to Wang, "what unites each of the assassins is the desire for attention." In How I Saved Roosevelt, Zangara was extremely angry about not having a photographer even at his execution: "and why there no photographers? For Zangara no photographers! Only capitalists get photographers!" Another assassin, Moore, "proclaims that one of her motives was ‘so that her friends would know where [she] was coming from.’"


 * Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme and John Hinckley - Trying to Draw Attention of Their Crush
 * Fromme and Hinckley are described to be a "loving couple" in the musical, but they are actually showing their love to try to draw attention from two different persons. Unlike some assassins such as Zangara whose goal and story might reflect many of the themes, these two assassins had only one - to get attention from the person they love (for Fromme, it was Charles Manson, and for Hinckley, it was Jodie Foster). In the short monologue before the song Unworthy of Your Love, Hinckley states that "[he] will win [Foster's] love, now and for all eternity."

Idealism and Optimism
This theme is mainly represented by the assassin Charles Guiteau, who was responsible for the assassination of President James A. Garfield. His idealism and optimism might make audience members "feel more sympathy for Guiteau than for some of the other assassins."


 * Charles Guiteau - Look On the Bright Side
 * Throughout the musical, Guiteau has his lines and lyrics all trying to show his idealism and optimism towards his life and the world. The quartet The Gun Song, which Guiteau participated in, and the song The Ballad of Guiteau both have him portrayed as an optimist while others being dark and not so optimistic. For example, in The Gun Song, Guiteau "‘waltzes in cheerfully, holding a gun up admiringly’, and declares: ‘What a wonder is a gun! What a versatile invention,’" while Czolgosz just stated that "[he hates] this gun." Guiteau's idealism is demonstrated by his failed delusions: he always desires what he wants, and when he cannot get it, he gets angry. For example, he angrily shouts to Moore that "[he wants a kiss] " after Moore has already turned him down, and he assassinated President Garfield because he could not be the ambassador to France. His idealism and optimism shows even in his execution scene (in The Ballad of Guiteau): he believed that "[he] shall be remembered" for him assassinating President Garfield.

Pain, Desperation, and Disillusionment
Pain and desperation are keywords in Zangara's character and lyrics: he is portrayed to be a poor immigrant who suffers a very strong stomachache. In How I Saved Roosevelt, Zangara's pain in the stomach and his desperation of not being able to cure his stomachache have even turn into his anger and hatred towards upper-class people. According to Schrader, the real-life Moore attempted her assassination due to political reason, yet in the musical, she did so due to an entirely different reason: she was so frustrated and desperate about "how to understand and express herself" that she took the "drastic action." On the other hand, Byck's attempt of assassination on President Richard Nixon, is also to "satisfy his personal frustrations." His solo scene, being the only recording that is not a song in the musical, presents his pain and disillusionment through his words and emotion expressions in Have It Your Way.


 * Lee Harvey Oswald - The Unwilling Assassin
 * Unlike all the other assassins in the musical, "[ Oswald] is portrayed as a desperate man attempting to commit suicide and as the only assassin who had no intention of killing a President." In the scene correspond to this (The original 1991 Off-Broadway version is called: November 22, 1963), John Wilkes Booth as the leader of all assassins, tries to convince Oswald to assassinate President John F. Kennedy instead of suicide using countless tactics, yet he had to rely on other assassins to convince Oswald to do so. Schrader argues that "audience members who have encountered depression may find a level of consubstantiality with [him], at least until he is convinced to commit murder."

Community
As Schrader states, "Mark Fulk and Angela Howard suggest that ‘family’ is Assassins’ central metaphor, particularly noting that family is ‘the central concept that binds the group of American assassins and would-be assassins.’"


 * Community for Assassins
 * In scene November 22, 1963, assassins join together in order to persuade Oswald for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy while assuring him that he can "connect" to the other assassins. In addition, assassins from different timeline do come to each other and interact with each other. For instance, assassins from different timeline interact with each other in the scene Ladies and Gentlemen a Toast before How I Saved Roosevelt, the scene I Am a Terrifying and Imposing Figure before The Ballad of Guiteau, and the songs (Everybody's Got the Right, Another National Anthem, Everybody's Got the Right (Reprise)) where all assassins participate.
 * Community for Bystanders
 * Comparing the 1991 original production and other later versions, there is one song added into the musical, which is Something Just Broke. This song is an assassin-free one, where five bystanders mourning for four different assassinated Presidents. These bystanders have different occupations and were in different timeline, yet are brought together by those assassination tragedies, indicating a community among them.