This Thursday evening we go see The Stray Cat production of Sondheim’s ‘Assassins’. It is our first Stray Cat show in many years; it will be cheery to attend.* However, The Stray Cat doesn’t put on cheery shows and “Assassins'” is no exception. For thems unfamiliar with this musical, it is about the men and women who shot or attempted to shoot U.S. Presidents. I like history and psychology so it is fascinating to try to understand why someone would want to kill one.
Over time thems that shoot sovereigns transform into clichés and legends; it is hard to know who they really were and their motives. My ‘favorite” (if that is the right word) is Charles j Guiteau who shot and killed President Garfield. Neither man got into the national muscle memory like Mr. Booth or Mr. Oswald. This is probably because Mr. G and President G were sort of bland and the scene of the shooting was ‘tame’ and the latter fellow sort of languished and died in a relatively quiet way. No public spectacle was involved. No fun this.
I suppose my interest in Mr. Guiteau’s case is because by modern accounts he was more than a little nuts. He wasn’t driven by political beliefs or economic matters like some of the others, he was driven mostly by delusional thinking he had greatly contributed to Garfield’s election and was therefore owed a political payback in a job. When this sensibly did not happen, he figured to save his political party, Garfield had to go. He wasn’t tried as a lunatic but as a political anarchist and was hanged.
In tonight’s play as Mr. Guiteau mounts the scaffold he sings a slightly deranged song full of grandiose delusional religious zeal “I am going to the Lordy”:
“Charlie said hell, if I am guilty than G-d is as well.
But G-d was acquitted and Charlie committed, to hang”
I never know whether to laugh or cry to see this. Religiousity combined with paranoia makes for some of the worse tragedies of mankind* but it does have its dark humor. If you are going to make a musical about killers one has to include some farce to make the lunacy bearable.
In hindsight Charles G would have been not judged not guilty by reasons of insanity and locked up and President Garfield wouldn’t have died given modern surgery and antibiotics. The real tragedy is this stuff keeps happening as there are always inspired zealots with access to guns to keep on the tradition of taking pot-shots at presidents. It’s all rather sad.
* Hong Kiuquan comes to mind here. Oh the horror.
*The odds are good both of us will fall asleep before the first number. Oh the embarrassment.
28 comments
May 12, 2022 at 2:05 AM
DwightW.
I was in second grade when they came to the door and told Mrs. Brown , that Kennedy had been shot and killed . None of my classmates reacted at all, I. began to cry. School was let out of course for many days something else I don’t remember. I remember watching it , (the funeral )in Dunnellon, Florida a small River town where we lived at the time , in black and white. I saw Oswald assassinated as well. I believe Walter Cronkite was the sad ring master. All the things we watched, my parents afraid we were missing history. I don’t remember Thanksgiving that year , I don’t remember a loss of hope I don’t remember crazy unhappy people like now. We had just lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
May 12, 2022 at 7:05 AM
Urspo
I was too young to recall the Kennedy matters.
Tonight’s drama ends with Oswald, who is inspired by the ghost of Booth to act as he does.
May 12, 2022 at 8:11 AM
DwightW.
As much as I like Sondheim, this is the one I have no interest in . I realize
Just how young I was and how having actually lived this makes me a dinosaur. I guess a lot of the small troubles we have had since 1963 , pale in comparison in my mind to this. I calculate you were about a year old.
May 12, 2022 at 4:29 AM
johnmichael42003
i haven’t heard of that play. And it sounds interesting! I will have to do some research and find out whether or not in comes to Columbus.
May 12, 2022 at 7:06 AM
Urspo
It is not a frequent flyer Sondheim musical. It is somewhat disturbing and not as ‘fun’ as his favorites.
May 12, 2022 at 5:34 AM
Debra She Who Seeks
Personally, I subscribe to the theory that the second shooter on the Grassy Knoll was the Winter Soldier and it was he who assassinated JFK for Hydra. Captain America would have stopped it if he hadn’t been frozen in the Arctic ice at the time.
May 12, 2022 at 7:06 AM
Urspo
I am sticking with The Wonder Twins for all my hero needs.
May 12, 2022 at 7:42 AM
Old Lurker
Oh! I hope you stay awake, and if you snooze please don’t snore.
Honestly I am not up to speed on my presidential history, so I fell down a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole. James Garfield had a pretty good beard. (What? Me shallow?) Chester Arthur really didn’t get much credit for taking over, did he? I basically never hear about him when the subject of presidents comes up. (He did not have such a good beard. Those muttonchops seem kind of wispy.)
May 12, 2022 at 8:26 AM
Urspo
Indeed so. I think it was Lincoln who set the trend for Commander-in-Chiefs with whiskers. Too bad it died off. With few exceptions men look better with beards.
May 12, 2022 at 8:38 PM
Old Lurker
Not to worry. Whiskers in the political class are making a comeback. Just think back to the Jan 6 patriots. Many of them were rawther hirsute fellows.
May 12, 2022 at 9:11 AM
Robzilla, Native Of Slam Diego
Now I’m curious about this. I was home sick from school when Reagan was shot, but I was too young to understand why Ford was shot twice within weeks. I’m curious to see what those people were thinking at the time.
May 12, 2022 at 10:06 AM
Urspo
I have a vague memory the characters in the musical, the ones who took a shot at Ford and at Reagan, are conveyed as kooks and love-struck dimwits – curious to see how they are portrayed this evening.
May 14, 2022 at 5:20 PM
Richard Portman
I also was alive in these times. I don’t know what we were thinking. It was very confusing. In the end, everybody voted for Reagan, and now here we are.
I was reading about Shirley Chisholm last night. Everybody should learn a little about her. That is what we were thinking.
May 12, 2022 at 9:24 AM
larrymuffin
I read a book a few years ago entitled The Mother’s Assassin, it is the story of Lee Harvey Oswald mother and her behaviour before and after the assassination of JFK. Oswald came from a very disturbed family life and his mother had like he did ideas of grandeur. Oswald has a child should have gone into therapy but his mother prevented this at every turn. Great book to read especially on her behaviour after Oswald’s death and how she tried to portray herself as a heroine.
May 12, 2022 at 10:22 AM
Urspo
It sounds a well-written book; I continue to be impressed by the quality and diversity of your reading material.
May 12, 2022 at 10:28 AM
larrymuffin
I do it for my public.
May 12, 2022 at 10:39 AM
Urspo
I quickly read this as “I do it in public’ which sounds slightly scurrilous
May 12, 2022 at 5:09 PM
larrymuffin
Hahahaha!!!!
May 12, 2022 at 8:45 PM
Richard Portman
Me, personally i cant carry president Garfield and Guiteau anymore.
I compare them with a bunch of over excited Republicans.
They thought it was so important, and now we barely remember them. Before you turn Christian or Republican, consider your mortality. It comes with responsibility.
May 12, 2022 at 9:45 PM
Linda Practical Parsimony
Tommy knew Guiteau. History is not my strong suit!
May 15, 2022 at 6:47 AM
Urspo
Good for Tommy, few do.
May 13, 2022 at 12:34 AM
David Godfrey
And what would you have done, if you had five minutes alone with “he who must not be named?”
May 14, 2022 at 5:07 PM
Richard Portman
I read this post again. I hope you enjoyed the play. I have been changed ever since trump came along. I still want to see him dead. I never wanted to kill any president before. We have had some bad presidents but i didn’t want to murder them.
Things have changed. Trumpism is finished, but the damage continues. I want to see him dead.
Don’t worry, I am not going to put my old body in my little old wheelchair and scoot on over to Mar A Lago to do the deed.
I want to see him dead.
May 15, 2022 at 6:48 AM
Urspo
I hope you are correct Trumpism is finished but I doubt it. I predict he will run again and win.
May 14, 2022 at 5:09 PM
Richard Portman
Nothing. I would have been paralyzed with fear and loathing.
May 14, 2022 at 2:03 PM
Blobby
I saw ‘Assassins’ on Broadway with Neil Patrick Harris. I was underwhelmed. But I did pee next to Jeff Goldblum in the restroom.
May 14, 2022 at 5:10 PM
Richard Portman
Well hey, that’s something, anyway.
May 15, 2022 at 6:47 AM
Urspo
that would be worth the price of admission.