Skip to main content

Sondheim: "Assassins"

 Today, people connect Sondheim's "Assassins" to January 6th. They see Sondheim's work as a kind of prophecy about white rage. That's correct--but the work is also just a series of great sentences.


Where's my prize?
They promised me a prize.
What about my prize?
I want my prize.
I deserve a fucking prize.

It's part of the gospel of Sondheim that syntax should match sentiment--form should match content. When the Count sings in "Night Music," he uses short declarations--because he is capable of thinking only in short declarations. That's also the case for the assassins. Syntax reproduces the feeling of a tantrum--with the repetition of "prize," you imagine someone picking and picking at a hangnail until the blood starts to spill off the finger.

I just heard on the news
Where the mailman won the lottery--
Goes to show--when you lose--
What you do is try again.
You can be what you choose...
From a mailman to a President.
There are prizes all around you...
If you're wise enough to see...
The delivery boy's on Wall Street...
And the usherette's a rock star...

The Balladeer has empathy for the assassins. He recreates the noise we all wade through--the "People Magazine" stories about usherettes becoming rock stars. Each metaphor is a simplistic, instantaneous transition from one world to another--from delivering pizza to running the country. The assassins imagine an "Alice in Wonderland" metamorphosis--all problems are immediately solved.

People are suggesting that Kristin Chenoweth's new musical is "not the story we need to hear." I think that's nonsense. It's never really the story that matters. It's the writer's point of view that matters. I suspect that Chenoweth's show lacks a clear point of view--a problem that "Assassins" (surely darker than "Versailles") does *not* have.

Sondheim ends his show with perverse Dr. Seussian ranting:

If you can't do what you want to...
Then you do the things you can.
You gotta try again, like they say...
You gotta keep on trying every day...
Until you get a prize...

To live without values--this is the issue that Sondheim is describing. "Assassins" should be a bigger part of the discussion around Chenoweth's new musical.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more