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Assassins (theatre): Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
''[[Assassins (
The show is narrated by the Balladeer, who comments on the assassins' actions and motivations. The various killers (including John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, John Hinckley, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Leon Czolgosz) interact throughout the play, regardless of time period. Their assassination attempts are represented like a carnival game -- a bell rings when they succeed, and a buzzer sounds when they fail.
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Notable in that the music largely mirrors popular music from the assassins' lifetimes. And also for the HUGE amounts of [[Lyrical Dissonance]].
Not to be confused with [[Professional Killer]]. Also not to be confused with [[Assassins (
{{tropelist}}
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* [[Big No]]: Zangara at the end of "How I Saved Roosevelt."
* [[Black Comedy]]
* [[Blood
* [[Bonding Over Missing Parents]]: Fromme and Moore.
* [[Book Dumb]]: Arguably, Sam Byck. He is very eloquent and capable of crafting surprisingly poetic metaphors, but he doesn't understand megatonnes or holes in the ozone layer.
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** Squeaky and Guiteau as well.
* [[Confused Bystander Interview]]: Half of the song "How I Saved Roosevelt" is bystanders who witnessed the attempted assassination of Roosevelt talking to the press, and inflating their own importance in the event.
* [[Contract
* [[Crapsack World]]: The show depicts America as one.
* [[Crazy Enough to Work]]: Zangara's plan to get rid of his stomach ache by assassinating the president of the United States.
** Most of the assassins' plans boil down to "I want something, killing the president will help me get it". How crazy this idea is in context varies from assassin to assassin.
* [[Crowd Song]]: "How I Saved Roosevelt".
* [[Cry for
{{quote| ''Let them curse me to hell, leave it for history to tell/What I did, I did well, and I did it for my country/Let them cry 'dirty traitor!', they will understand it later/The country is not what it was . . . [[Sound-Only Death|*BANG*]]''}}
* [[Curse Cut Short]]: In the opening:
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* [[The Eleven O'Clock Number]]: "Another National Anthem".
* [[Eloquent in My Native Tongue]]: Zangara, which is used to gorgeous dramatic effect in "Take a Look, Lee".
* [[Face Death
* [[Fat Bastard]]: Sam Byck. So very, very much.
* [[Funny Foreigner]]: Subverted with Giuseppe Zangara in two ways: first, as he mentions in "How I Saved Roosevelt," he's a (naturalized) American citizen. Second, in the scene where he begs Oswald to go through with killing Kennedy, he chooses to speak Italian, with the other assassins translating for him, proving he's more [[Eloquent in My Native Tongue|eloquent in his native tongue]]. It's also oddly referenced with Czolgosz: according to the script, he was "born in the middle of Michigan," making him an American citizen, but he comments that he comes down in history as a "deranged immigrant."
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* [[Gilligan Cut]]: Guiteau's "I am a terrifying and imposing figure!" is often followed by something not terrifying and unimposing.
* [[Grief Song]]: "Something Just Broke", where the American people grieve for the victims of the assassinations.
* [[Gunman
{{quote| '''Booth:''' Why do all these rednecks have three names? James Earl Ray! John Wilkes Booth!<br />
'''Oswald:''' Lee Harvey Oswald! }}
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* [[Rage Against the Author]]: The song "Another National Anthem" has elements of this, culminating in the Assassins ''running the Balladeer off the stage'' (in the original version) or turning him into ''one of them'' (in the revival, where he becomes Lee Harvey Oswald).
** Also, a minor reflexive example: one of Sam Byck's tirades is aimed at Leonard Bernstein and Byck angrily quotes the lyrics of ''[[West Side Story]]'' back at him. Those lyrics were, of course, written by Stephen Sondheim.
* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: Sarah Jane Moore is written to be played with no regard for the proper operation or storage of her .38 revolver. She accidentally discharges it no less than five times during the course of the show, once while it's still in her hand bag, narrowly missing Squeaky Fromme, once into the air when she's supposed to be clicking the hammer of an unloaded weapon in "The Gun Song," once when startled with her finger prematurely on the trigger, damaging Charles Guiteau's hearing in the process, and twice during two separate scene change blackouts, with the lights coming up on her scene the second time to reveal she's just [[I Just Shot Marvin in
{{quote| '''Sara Jane''': [[Crowning Moment of Funny|''Shit, I shot it!'']]}}
* [[Rummage Fail]]: Sarah Jane Moore and the "really great gun".
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* [[Silly Love Songs]]: Expertly pastiched with "Unworthy of Your Love" (see above).
* [[Sir Swearsalot]]: Moore and Byck, to a lesser extent Fromme.
* [[Stalker
* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|The Reason You Suck Song]]: The Balladeer's half of all the ballads and "Another National Anthem," mocking the gathered assassins of their aspirations, telling them they just shed a little blood each. The Balladeer is ''not'' impressed by the rhetoric of the assassins and makes that blatantly clear.
* [[Throw the Book At Them]]: During "November 22,1963", "This is stupid. Up here on the sixth floor, what would I do? Throw school books at him?"
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