Author Archives: Hugh Keenan

What’s the Deal with slasreveR neveS?

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Let’s begin at the end. I think that’s the most fitting for an analysis of a story like this. Reversal 6: The easiest scene to understand. The author has made a self insert from the character of Marla, and an insert for the audience in Jake. Jake is bored and confused because the play is not straightforward. Sure, the show is goofy, but it doesn’t feel substantive to him because it seems to have no cohesion. Jake calls her a Buttinski, which I learned means “One who is prone to butting in; a meddler.” The writer is literally butting in to tell the audience, “Hey! There’s something meaningful here!” Well, if the writer is so insistent on the layered meaning of this play, then perhaps we should do as Reversal 7 does: rewind, and start over. 

This will be a short summary/analysis of each of the main reversals present in slasreveR neveS. I hold a strong belief that each scene is trying to show the audience how the reversals they utilize each make a commentary about how we understand characters in other plays. I will not be engaging with any of the blue-out scenes. I find they encompass a different story. With that said, nigeb suh tel.

Reversal 1: Mixed speech. You kind of know what’s being said, but the longer you listen the less that makes sense. This is done to acclimate the audience to the zany nature of this show, but to also show us that words are not the necessary focus to understand the scene. The actors are forced to use their tone and physicality to convey the plot instead. The costumes do a lot of heavy lifting as well to represent character alignment. This is the more entertaining way to do it, after all. The lines should never be the sole focus of how a scene is told. 

Reversal 2: This scene does a reversal of character goals. Instead of putting focus on the time that is left, Ben and Robin focus on the game. That’s what’s important to them. And why shouldn’t it be? If Robin has cancer, will die very soon, and he got his will together and everything, then he deserves to see the Green Sox win. Who cares about the nuke? It’s not more realistic, but it’s a more honest and authentic way for these characters to live in the moment. Almost an anti-reversal of sorts.

Reversal 3: I don’t understand what is to be made of casting light on the actors before or after they take on the roles of their characters, but I have ideas about Nora, Martha, and Isabelle. The darkness indicates light, and the light is now darkness. Which means to me that when the spotlight shines in a certain direction as a character speaks, it is revealing darkness instead. For Nora, the spotlight is on Isabelle, as she laments about the optimism of her cousins. Nora can easily and succinctly identify the darkness within her cousins, making reasoned and self aware criticisms. Martha wishes to understand Nora, but cannot. That’s why the light moves to Nora’s book. Similar to my CD experience, she can only get external, surface level insights about the people she cares about. As Isabelle speaks, however, the light is brought to random locations around the set. She doesn’t care about the darkness within her cousins. She only cares about their capacity to serve her ends. To Isabelle, they are “2 halves of the same heart, that organ being [her] own.” This works the same, yet almost opposite to scene 1, in that we are removing our ability to perceive the physicality of the characters, but this time we learn about them through the range of the lighting. 

Reversal 4: I have a personal headcanon for this one. I believe that this scene is the position all the characters want to be in. The Villain, as a child, just wants to be loved. Gwen, now as a villain, gets to enjoy having the power to control other people, instead of other people controlling her. Mother, as the hero, has the resources to help all the people she cares about. Lastly, the Hero, now taking the role as the mother, gets to have a more personal role, not as a savior, but as a friend. It is a common narrative tool for characters to assume the role of another character. However, it’s rarely utilized so explicitly.

Reversal 5: Finally, we reach the end of the middle. The grand whodunnit. What’s great about this scene is that because of the main reversal, that of the murderers are now fighting for all the credit, additional, smaller reversals can be packed in. The detective, for example, is no longer the subject of admiration for skill or deductive reasoning. He is now only a vessel to direct admiration to other characters. The maid, which in many stories can also be the butler, is the only person in this house to have not made a kill. The primary reversal of this scene is similar to the second scene, about reversed priorities. But again, this becomes an anti reversal, because villains already love going on diabolical monologues about their evil plans. But don’t we all just want attention after a job well done?

Why He Smiles

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Performing in FWOP, I most loved getting to scare the shit out of the audience as the Proprietor, for which I received the most praise for my smile. But when my dad asked me, “Why does your character smile so much?” I forgot that my reasoning isn’t intuitive. It took the entire production for me to get a small grasp of who the Proprietor is, and what motivates him. So why does the Proprietor smile? Allow me to offer my interpretation.

The Proprietor tells the audience his message most explicitly in one of the last songs, “Another National Anthem.” The Proprietor rejects the “song” sung by those who enjoy the fruits of America’s wealth. This contrasts with the Balladeer, who claims the anthem still rings true. Throughout the show, they both attempt to convince the Assassins, and thus the audience, of their position. Each scene the Balladeer is in, their goal is to prove how failure is a matter of work ethic. The Proprietor lures vulnerable Americans into his game so he can make his point: these assassins would never obtain their prize. Every game they played was rigged.

This leaves the audience with a seeming contradiction. If the game the Proprietor offers, that of shooting the president, is rigged by the Proprietor, then it doesn’t make sense for the assassins to side with him in “Another National Anthem.” They understand that the game is rigged. They should fight against the systems that rigged it, i.e. the Proprietor. The answer is because the Balladeer is wrong about the anthem. The Balladeer is the archetype of liberal capitalism, claiming the only quality needed to succeed is the hard work to win a prize. Sure, everyone lives in lies, but America is the place to “make the lies come true.” To the Balladeer, the assassins got what was deserved.

These assassins already played other games in the carnival. Czolgosz and Guiteau couldn’t get better work. Zangara doesn’t get treatment for his stomach. Fromme, Byck and Hinckley don’t get the attention they desire. Moore and Booth can’t make their statement. Now they are desperate, searching for someone who will validate their grievances. The Proprietor offers his hand. However, the Proprietor doesn’t steer these characters in a constructive direction. Instead, he fuels their spite. The assassins don’t care about fixing their problems. Instead, they vengefully shout to the country, “this is what you have done to me!” They conclude there is no solution. There is only destruction. 

The Proprietor is also driven by spite. He sees America’s inequalities too. To prove the Balladeer wrong, he turns Americans against the American anthem, and he finds sadistic glee in his success. He smiles when he finds victims to radicalize. He sits back when they aim for the president, and he is happy to be the executioner against each assassin. 

It is in his role as executioner where the Proprietor reveals his colors. He isn’t a rebellious outsider. Instead, he stands alongside the Balladeer as a part of the American machine. In this way, he displays to the audience that he didn’t just rig his own game—he rigged them all. The Proprietor is the one who keeps people from succeeding in America. He rigs the game, exclaims that it’s rigged, and then insists the way to fix it is by playing another extreme, rigged game. The Balladeer, in their effort to bolster the American dream, denies the Proprietor’s power, which leads to the anthem’s downfall.

The Proprietor represents something to me through the act of rigging the system, calling out that it’s rigged, and then rigging 

it further. It reminds me of a specific political block. It’s what Republicans do when they complain about national debt and then cut taxes for the rich. It’s what pundits like Tucker Carlson do when they fetishize freedom of speech but accuse protesters of being anti-American. It’s what Trump did when he sued over voter fraud while coercing governors to “find” hundreds of votes in their states in 2020. Then, just like when the Proprietor emboldened the assassins to attack the Balladeer, so too did Trump with his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Proprietor is a fascist; but he’s a specific kind. The Proprietor doesn’t care about the people he uses, only the pain he can inflict on his enemies for believing America could ever be good for its people. He only cares about the power he wields to torture those he hates. He’s an anti-American coated in the country’s flag, claiming to be a patriot when his actions contradict such claims. The musical, Assassins debuted in 1990. Even so, this other national anthem rings in my ears. I believe even today, the Proprietor still has something to smile about.