Assassins Conflicts

The central conflict of Assassins comes from the the backstories of the US presidential assassins, and how these backstories represent another side of the American dream. Throughout the play, the assassins are frustrated with their life, so they decide to take it out on the president, and their frustrations that led to violence are part of the same America that despises these assassins. In other words, the conflict is that America is not one fantasy dream; there is darker side that has the right to be upset and to achieve its dreams. Assassins demonstrates this in the song “Another National Anthem” in which all the assassins reveal another America. The conflict reaches its climax when the assassins attempt to legitimize their side of America

Each assassin had his or her own unique mannerisms that were showcased to explain how the assassin could turn his or her personal strife to violence. For instance, Charles Guiteau, played by Kevin Woodrow, had spastic and over-exaggerated movements. In his ballad, Charles went from deep squatting to a dance that had his arms flying and legs jumping. Moreover, Charles’ voice in the same ballad ranged from ecstatic when singing “Look on the bright side...”, but then it would shift to a solemn tone when he sang “I am going to the lordy…” As a result, Woodrow was able to create Charles Guiteau as an intense individual with strong emotions and convictions – convictions that could lead him to assassinate the president. Woodrow’s character is only one example of how each actor was successful in creating and communicating his or her character with odd behaviors to the audience that could explain how he or she could assassinate the president. The actors clearly communicated to the audience how each of the characters were capable of assassinating the president because they all had some kind of personal issue and unusual mannerism that would lead them to murder. For instance, Lynette’s “evil eye” on a bowl of fast food chicken was utterly absurd because Lynette believed she could kill someone by giving him or her the evil eye. Therefore, the actors were successful in creating and communicating their characters with the