Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Music: Stephen Sondheim
RADIO ANNOUNCER: And now we take you live to KTEX--
(Oswald turns off the radio, re--reads the note, opens the lunch pail and pulls out a pistol.)
(As he puts it to his head, he hears whistling. John Wilkes Booth appears.)
ВООТН
Oh! I'm sorry. I was just browsing. Please carry on with whatever you were --
ls that the right time? Yes? I don't know what's the matter with this watch. Excuse me for a moment --
(He turns the radio on.)
RADIO ANNOUNCER
-- Speaking to you from Love Field,
Where the President's plane has just touched down and is taxiing toward us across the tarmac.
We understand the President plans to speak briefly --
(Oswald stalks over and snaps the radio off. Booth picks up the note.)
BOOTH
Dearest Marina. Today l end my life so that your life can begin. Last night --
(Oswald snatches the note.)
l'm sorry, was that your note?
OSWALD: **** you.
ВООТН
We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here. Its my fault. I shouldn't --
You're not going are you? Come on, I didn't mean to -- Alik.
OSWALD (stopping): What did you call me?
BООТН
Alik. You used to like that nickname. Back in Minsk.
Marina said Lee sounded Chinese, so she called you Alik.
Of course I don't have to call you Alik. I just thought --
OSWALD: How do you know what Marina called me?
BOОТН
I know lots about you, Lee. Let's see...
Born, New Orleans, October 18, 1939. Father, Robert, died before your birth. Crazy mother, Marguerite.
Dropped out of school at 17. Joined the Marines. Court-martialled twice.
Defected to the Soviet Union, October 1959. Defected back, June 1962.
Married, Marina Nikolaevna. Two children, June and Rachel.
Current employment, stock boy, Texas School Book Depository, Dallas, Texas...Oh.
And this morning, depressed over your estrangement from a wife who views you as a dismal and pathetic figure,
You rose before dawn, kissed your sleeping children, put your last hundred dollars and your wedding ring
Into a demi-tasse cup which Marina's mother gave you for a wedding present, and came here to kill yourself…
OSWALD: Who are you?
BOOTH: I'm your friend, Lee.
OSWALD: I don't have any friends.
BOOTH: Yes, you do. You just haven't met them yet.
OSWALD: Show me your badge.
BOОТН: Му whаt?
OSWALD: You bastards think you are so smart. I know my rights.
You try to interrogate me in my place of business I can sue you for harassment.
BOOTH: Ah! You think I'm with the F.B.I.!
OSWALD: I have a right to see your badge.
BOOТН
Search me, Lee. You think I've got a badge. Come on, search me.
The F.B.I. You really love those morons, don't you?
Hell, why wouldn't you? No one else cares if you live or die. Those quys can't get enough of you.
"How was your day, Lee? Sell any secrets to the Soviets?
Sabotage any defense plants? Kick off your shoes and tell us all about it!"
OSWALD: **** you, whoever you are!
BООТН
l'm sorry, Lee. It's just so sad. I mean, it's all you ever wanted, isn't it?
Someone who won't leave you alone. Someone who wants to hear about your day.
Someone, anyone -- your mother. Mother Russia. The Marines. Your wife Marina...
Attention must be paid.
OSWALD: What's that mean?
ВООТН
lt's from a play, Lee. About a salesman. A man very much like you, Lee.
lndependent, proud, a decent man who tries and tries but never gets a break. So he does something really dumb.
When things go really sour when he realizes that his whole life has been a failure built on lies, he kills himself.
And when he's dead, his wife stands at his grave and says attention must be paid.
She has to beg the world to pay attention to this poor, misguided nobody.
I'II tell you something, Lee. I'm an actor. And I'm a good one.
But Willy Loman is a part that I could never play. And I don't think that you should play it either.
OSWALD: I don't know what you're talking about.
BOOTH: What do you want, Lee?
OSWALD:You know so much why don't you tell me?
BOOTH: You want what everybody wants. To be appreciated. To be valued. To be in other people's thoughts.
For them to think of youand smile. You want someone to love you, Lee. Right?...Isn't that it?...Lee?
OSWALD: Yes.
BOOTH: Forget it.
OSWALD: What?
BOOTH: It's never gonna happen. It's a fantasy. You've got to give it up.
OSWALD: I'm going to kil myself! Don't you think I've given up?!
ВООТН
No, I think you're going to kill yourself because you think that's how to get it.
"When I'm dead, then they'll be sorry! When I'mdead, they'Il know how much they loved me!"
When you close your eyes you probably see the funeral, don't you, Lee?
A gentle rain is falling. Everybody has umbrellas --
OSWALD: Shut up!
BOOTH: There's Marina, weeping quietly. Your sobbing children clutching at her skirt.
Your mom, your dad. Every boss who ever fired you --
OSWALD: Shut the **** up!
BOOTH: Sorry, Lee. It's just so childish. It's so dumb --
OSWALD: You think it's dumb?! If I shouldn't kill myself what should I do?!
Go home?! Beg her to take me back?! Plead with her?! Beat her up?!
BOOTH: You tried all that. It doesn't work.
OSWALD: I know it doesn't work! So tell me what I should do!
BOOTH: You should kill the President of the United States.
OSWALD: What?
BOOTH: His plane landed at the airport fifteen minutes ago. He's coming into town to make a speech.
His motorcade is going to go right past this window. When it does, you shoot him.
OSWALD: You're nuts.
BOOTH: Maybe l am, so what?
OSWALD: I didn't come here to shoot the president.
BOOTH
He didn't come here to get shot...
All your life you've been a victim, Lee.
A victim of indifference and neglect. Of your mother's scorn, you're wife's contempt, of Soviet stupidity.
American injustice. You've finally had enough, so how're you planning to get even?
By becoming your own victim.
OSWALD: l am not a murderer.
BOOTH: Who said you were?
OSWALD: You just said I should kill the President.
BOOTH
Lee, when you kill a president, it isn't murder.
Murder is a tawdry little crime; it's born of greed, or lust, or liquor.
Adulterers and shopkeepers get murdered.
But when a president gets killed, when Julius Caesar got killed -- he was assassinated.
And the man who did it..
OSWALD: Brutus.
BOOTH: Ah! You know his name.
Brutus assassinated Caesar -- what? --two thousand years ago,
And here's a high school drop-out with a dollar twenty-five an hour job in Dallas, Texas, who knows who he was.
And they say fame is fleeting…
OSWALD: This is stupid. Up here on the sixth floor, what would I do? Throw school books at him?
BOOTH: What's in the package?
OSWALD: What package?
BOOTH: The package that you brought to work. What's in it?
OSWALD: Curtain rods.
BOOTH: You sure?
OSWALD: Sure I'm sure. Marina wanted me to take them to the--
(Booth tosses the package to Oswald, who opens it, revealing a high-powered rifle.)
BOOTH: That's a Mannlicher-Carcano. 6.5 millimer. Stopping range 900 yards. The sight's already been adjusted.
OSWALD: Who are you?
ВООТН: Му патен іs Jоhn Wilkes Booth, Lee.
OSWALD: John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.
BOOTH: Attention has been paid...
All your life you've wanted to be part of something, Lee. You're fially going to get your wish.
(Booth gestures. The other Assassins appear.)
OSWALD: What is this?
BOOTH: The past you never had, the future you'd abandoned-- it's called history, Lee.
GUITEAU: My name is Charles Guiteau. I assassinated President James Garfield.
CZOLGOSZ: Leon Czolgosz. William McKinley.
BYCK: Sam Byck. I'm going to try to kill Dick Nixon.
HINCKLEY: John Hinckley. Ronald Reagan.
FROMME: Lynette Fromme --
MOORE: Sara Jane Moore --
FROMME & MOORE: Gerald Ford.
ZANGARA: Zangara. F.D.R.
OSWALD: I don't get this --
MOORE: It's simple, Lee.
CZOLGOSZ (indicating pre-Oswald Assassins): You're going to bring us back.
HINCKLEY (indicating post-Owald Assassins): And make us possible.
GUITEAU: We're in you're debt, old boy.
BYCK: This Bud's for you, babe.
GUITEAU: Bravo!
(The Assassins applaud. They crowd in around Oswald, patting him on the back, reaching for his hand.)
(Oswald throws down the rifle and grabs his lunch pail.)
HINCKLEY: What's he doing?
OSWALD: Getting out of here.
GUITEAU: You mean you're not going to do it?
OSWALD: Goddamn right.
(The Assassins turn to Booth.)
BOOTH: Shhh...Lee, I'm sorry. I know things are happening kind of fast here. But you can't leave now.
OSWALD: No? Watch me --(He heads for the door.)
BOOTH: No. You have a responsibility here, Lee.
OSWALD: To who? To you?
(a chorus of "yes"s from the Assassins)
OSWALD: I'm responsible to me and no one else!
BOOTH
Not anymore, Lee.
Fifty years from now, they' still be arguing about the grassy knoll, the Mafia, some Cuban crouched behind a stockade fence,
but this --right here, right now --this is the real conspiracy. And you're a part of it.
OSWALD: Get out of my way.
BOOTH: Listen to me, Lee. You have to do this. Now. You won't get another chance.
OSWALD: So what? So I'l do something else. I'Il shoot my wife. I'Il shoot my kids. I won't shoot anyone! Who cares?!
BOOTH: He wants to know who cares...
I care, you stupid fool! We all care! Haven't you been listening, for Christ's sake?! Are you such a vapid, vacuous nonentity --
(The Assassins make a quiet "shushing" sound.
BOOTH: Sorry. I'm sorry...John
HINCKLEY: Yes, sir?
BOOTH: John, when Lee was 8 he had a dog. What was its name?
HINCKLEY: Tex.
BOOTH: The Marines sent him to radar school. Where?
HINCKLEY: The Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, Florida.
BOOTH: The K.G.B.official who de -- briefed him in the Kremlin -- what was his name and rank?
HINCKLEY: Lieutenant-Colonel Boris Kutzov.
BOOTH: Lee. Eighteen years form now, when John tries to assassinate President Reagan, they're going to search his room,
And do you know what they're going to find? Every book about you ever written.
HINCKLEY (to Oswald): Can I have your autograph?
BOOTH(opening the window)
Take a look, Lee. You knoW what that is, outside that window?
That's America. The Land Where Any Kid Can Grow Up To Be President. The Shining City, Lee.
It shines so bright you have to shade your eyes.
But in here, this is America, too."The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." An American said that. And he was right.
But there are no lives of quiet desperation here. Desperation, yes. But quiet? I don't think so. Not today.
Today we're going to make a joyful noise. This is the big one. You're the big one.
You're the one that's going to sum it all up and blow it all wide open. Why, after you...
GUITEAU: Tell him.
BOOTH: Should I tell him?
ASSASSINS: Go on!...Tell him!...Go ahead!
BOOTH: What the hell..Is Artie Bremer here tonight? Where's Artie Bremer?!
BREMER'S VOICE (from somewhere in the audience): It was a bum rap! My penis made me do it!
BOOTH: Who's next?! Wha else is out there?!
ANOTHER VOICE: Death to the enemies of Palestine!
BOOTH: Of course, of course! Sirhan Sirhan!
(A rebel yell is heard.)
BOOTH: And James Earl Ray!
(The Assassins give a rebel yell.)
BOOTH: Why do these rednecks always have three names?James Earl Ray. John Wilkes Booth --
OSWALD: Lee Harvey Oswald!
BOOTH: I have seen the future, Lee. And you are in it.
(He snaps his fingers -- the radio comes on.)
RADIO ANNOUNCER
-- And now the motorcade is turning onto Ellm Street. There's someone holding up a banner.
"All the Way with JFK."
The President is smiling and waving as his car heads for Dealy Plaza
Where it will swing past the Texas Book Depository and --
(Booth snaps his fingers -- the radio goes off. He holds out the gun.)
OSWALD: People will hate me.
BOOTH: They'l hate you with a passion, Lee. Imagine people having passionate feelings about Lee Harvey Oswald…
(Oswald reaches for the gun, hesitates, then drops his hand.)
BOOTH: Somebody. Help me…
(Zangara steps forward, speaks in Italian. The Assassins translate.)
MOORE: Please. I beseech you.
CZOLGOSZ: We are the hopeless ones. The lost ones…
GUITEAU: We live our lives in exile…
BYCK: Expatriates in our own country…
HINCKLEY: We drift from birth to death, despairing…
FROMME: Inconsolable…
GUITEAU: But through you and your act, we dare to hope…
MOORE: Through you and your act we are revived and given meaning...
CZOLGOSZ: Our lives, our acts, are given meaning…
HINCKLEY: Our frustrations fall away…
BYCK: Our fondest dreams come true...
FROMME: Today, we are reborn, through you...
BOOTH: We need you, Lee.
MOORE: Without you, we're just footnotes in a history book.
GUITEAU: "Disappointed office seeker."
CZOLGOSZ: "Deranged immigrant."
BOOTH: "Vainglorious actor."
FROMME: Without you we're a bunch of freaks.
HINCKLEY: With you we're a force of history.
GUITEAU: We become immortal.
ZANGARA: Finally we belong.
MOORE: To one another.
CZOLGOSZ: To the nation.
GUITEAU: To the ages.
BYCK: Bring us together, babe.
MOORE: You think you can't connect. Connect to us.
CZOLGOSZ: You think you're powerless. Empower us.
ВООТН
lt's in your grasp, Lee.
All you have to do is move your little finger.