Marina Nebro: Arts and Culture

Assassins

Zangara, Byck, Moore, Booth, Oswald, Czolgosz, Guiteau, Hinckley, Fromme

Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth are two infamous assassins in history that I think every student has learned about, but who knew there were so many other people who tried to kill presidents in the past two-hundred plus years? Charles Guiteau (assassinated Garfield), Leon Czolgosz (assassinated McKinley), Giuseppe Zangara (attempted FDR), Samuel Byck (attempted Nixon), John Hinckley (attempted Reagan), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (attempted Ford), and Sarah Jane Moore (attempted Ford) are an additional six murderers (or “wannabe” murderers) that I learned about last night. John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln are part of what I would call the “Well Known Presidents Club.” For this reason, their assassins are also well known. Garfield was killed before he could celebrate his one-year presidential anniversary, and for some reason, McKinley doesn’t ring a bell for most people – hence, Guiteau and Czolgosz are not common household names. And for everyone else? They failed to kill their presidential target, so unless you lived through the event, you won’t remember them.

The Queens College Summer Performing Arts Festival put on a production of Assassins, a musical written by Stephen Sondheim (music/lyrics) and John Weidman (book). The dark comedy features all of the above criminals, recounting their tragic stories and the events that led to their crimes. To make it easier for an audience that might be unfamiliar with American history, the actors created highly stylized character traits to help identify the murderers. John Wilkes Booth (Kevin Schwab) was very dapper in his tailcoat, speaking with a slight southern drawl as he kept hinting (quite dramatically) to the fact that he was a serious actor back in the day. Charles Guiteau (James Terrell) was actually believed to be insane, as the court hired a psychiatrist to analyze his behavior. Terrell did an amazing job of conveying Guiteau’s insanity, as he changed his speech patterns in certain scenes, and dazzled the audience with his eyes. Leon Czolgosz (Alex Schirling) was your average, run-of-the-mill Polish immigrant disillusioned after working hard and getting nowhere. His voice was gruff, and Schirling surely portrayed a depressed, working class sort of guy. Zangara (Jessica Altieri) would not stop complaining about his stomach pains, and it is believed that these cramps had caused him to go somewhat delusional. Altieri’s shouting and almost inarticulate speaking created quite a crazed character – albeit, difficult to understand. Samuel Byck (Tom Sauro) was an old, beaten down, poor man who had nothing going for him. He is known for having sent multiple tape recordings to important figures around the world, telling them his plan to kill Nixon. Sauro, plopped down on a bench in a decrepit Santa suit, ranting into his tape recorder with his American-Jewish accent definitely painted such a pathetic air around Byck! John Hinckley (Tom Rotondo) was a sad kid, who was enamored by actress Jodi Foster and tried to kill Reagan just to get her attention! In the musical, he would sing love songs to her image. Finally, Fromme and Moore (Victoria Guerra and Sarah Hysjulien), the two girls in our group! Fromme was a member of the Manson Family, dressed in hippie clothing and raving about how “Charlie is the son of God!” Moore was played as a ditzy, southern housewife, though in researching her after seeing the musical, I don’t see why this direction was taken. Don’t get me wrong, though, she was probably my favorite character of all! Hysjulien was hilarious and spot on with her acting!

And Lee Harvey Oswald (Michael Verre)? What of him? The whole story ties together on the day that Kennedy gets shot. All of our cozy, criminal friends come to convince Oswald to shoot. Verre doesn’t really give Oswald an exaggerated persona, but why? Unlike all of the other characters in the play, Oswald didn’t begin his story with the intention of killing anyone but himself (though in researching, I have only read of one suicide attempt back when he was in the Soviet Union). It was only the cunning of Booth and the other killers that convinced him to “move his little finger” and pull the trigger. I think this leaves the story open ended, in a way. What were Oswald’s motives? Why did John Weidman decide to surround his character with such ambiguity?

It’s all well and good that you now know the basic history of America’s assassins, and how the actors portrayed them, but how was the musical as a whole? Stephen Sondheim is an interesting composer. Sweeney Todd, a grim and morbid musical, was written by Sondheim, and rightly so, as the composer uses tons of dissonance and atonal melodies in his works. This makes for a difficult task for vocalists! I don’t think, though, that this grim quality worked for the songs in this production. Whether it was due to the sound imbalance of the M-11 theatre (a small, black-box theatre), or the weakness of some of the voices featured, the songs just didn’t sound right to me. I feel they detracted from the overall story and were a bit distracting. The talented orchestra, led by Joanna Rocco, was great, but perhaps too large and too loud (overpowering the voices) for the small corner into which they were squished.

Assassins
Queens College M-11 Theatre
July 14, 2013

Marina B. Nebro