Assassins

something just broke

The Irish Song was the first Tom Lehrer song I ever heard. I was eight or nine years old, and a day camp counselor (who went to Harvard, where Lehrer lectured) taught it to us. His songs were a staple for me growing up, and if you never heard any, treat yourself by listening to a few (The Vatican Rag, The Element Song, and Wernher von Braun are good ones to start with, but folks in LA and DC might opt for Send the Marines). A couple of months ago, when Tom Lehrer passed on at the age of 97, I listened to some of his songs on Youtube. It had been a while since I heard him, and I was reminded anew of how talented and brilliant he was. I watched some other videos, including interviews, that popped up on my screen. In one, he mentioned that Stephen Sondheim was, hands down, the most brilliant lyricist of all time. If Tom Lehrer gave that endorsement, I thought, I should become better acquainted with Sondheim and see what I’d been missing out on.

Of course, I’d heard a lot about Sondheim and had seen West Side Story (the movie) a number of times. That, Porgy and Bess, and My Fair Lady were the only musicals I’d taken a shine to. For the most part, I find musical theater, well, too theatrical. There aren’t many songs from musicals on my playlist. Lehrer’s songs are theatrical, but irony makes them palatable. The grand theatrical style of Poisoning Pigeons in the Park is part of what makes it funny. I decided to see if I could learn to appreciate a genre I had given short shrift to, but I didn’t know where to start. I watched random scenes of Sondheim plays on Youtube, and came across a performance with Stephen Colbert and Neil Patrick Harris, which sparked some interest, but I didn’t find anything that grabbed me, that made me think, “This is fantastic.”

I needed a guide, and found one in a book called How Sondheim Can Change Your Life by Richard Schoch, that I picked up at the library. At first, I wasn’t too enamored with it, and wasn’t sure I’d my make my way through it, because it seemed to assume knowledge of Sondheim’s work. That turned out not to be the case. Gradually, my interest in it grew, and I realized it was exactly what I’d been looking for—a portal into the world of musical theater and the art of Sondheim. With a dozen chapters, each focused on a different play, Schoch elaborates on the life lessons they provide. Gypsy, for example is about identity or “how to be who you are,” while Company is about relationships or “how to get close,” and Follies is about “how to survive your past.” He dissects the songs, shows how the music supports and sometimes intentionally contradicts the lyrics, provides lots of theater history, anecdotes about performers and performances, and most helpful of all, shines a light on Sondheim’s genius, and provides access into the world of musical theater.

So, did I become a theater fanatic? Hardly, but I do have more interest in it and, I think, more ability to appreciate and learn from what I see. I planned to write about Schoch’s book and my little musical theater journey, and was going to focus on a specific Sondheim play, but wasn’t sure which to choose. I vacillated between Follies, Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George, all of which provided plenty to discuss, and connected with previous posts, but the events of the past week led me to choose a play which didn’t, at first, appeal to me—Assassins. Schoch subtitles the chapter on this play “how to let the darkness in” and at this time, when yet another assassination reminds us of our American history of violence and how the actions of individuals impact national and world events, it’s an apt tale.

Nine assassins and would-be assassins of US presidents, are the main characters of the play, first staged in 1990, and they tell their stories and motivations for their actions. They come off sometimes as pathetic, occasionally sympathetic, and often, just plain loony. While John Wilkes Booth claims he shot Lincoln for love of country and revenge, there are hints that he was troubled by envy, professional frustration, and bad reviews. Charles Guiteau states that he murdered Garfield because he failed to be named ambassador to France; John Hinckley admits that he fired at Reagan to impress Jody Foster; and Squeaky Fromme took a shot at Ford to please Charles Manson. What becomes clear is that these so-called acts of political violence have little to do with politics and much to do with the state of mind of the lonely, alienated, delusional people who committed them. Different as the people are from each other, what they have in common is a longing for acceptance and recognition.

It is a surprisingly funny and entertaining play for such dark and serious content, exploring the American love of guns and penchant for violence, the false myths that we perpetuate about our country and history, and a culture and political system that produces so many hopeless and disaffected people. The song Something Just Broke, embedded above, is performed by “bystanders” rather than the main characters, and refers not only to breaking news, but how broken we feel when acts of violence, such as the one which just occurred, disrupt our lives (the question of whether such acts change the course of history is one posed in the play). The bystanders are, like us, witnesses of horrific events that affect them, but over which they have no control.

There’s lots to say about the play, but I want to return to the topic of my musical theater journey. As you’ve noticed, I’ve become absorbed in a type of entertainment that I previously had little interest in. After viewing a 2017 New York City Center production of Assassins on Youtube, recorded by an audience member, I watched some informative and insightful interviews and commentaries related to the play, and listened to various versions of the songs, noting different interpretations and treatments. Even if I wouldn’t add any of the play’s songs to my playlist, I could see myself humming Everybody's Got the Right exiting the theater. I can imagine that seeing the play live, along with others, would be a moving experience, but as it was, it gave me much to think about and increased my appreciation of many aspects of theater. With some luck, this experience will help me be more open not only to musicals but to other things which I’m not instinctively attracted to.