The second landmark, in Oneida, New York, is the Oneida Community Mansion \u2013 an historic house that now offers rental apartments and overnight lodging for travelers and sightseers as well as a small museum dedicated to the memory of the Oneida Community<\/a>, a religious Utopian commune founded in 1848 that originally occupied the site.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also where the man who assassinated Garfield \u2013 Charles Julius Guiteau \u2013 lived for five years as a member of the commune.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really neat to, on my drive here, hit two majorly important locations to this story,\u201d says Wolfgang, who visited both sites.<\/p>\n But his stops at the two landmarks weren\u2019t on a whim.<\/p>\n They were all about research into a former U.S. president and the man who took his life, and an effort to tell their story through a new, original production, supported by an undergraduate fellowship at UConn<\/a>.<\/p>\n What Brings You There?<\/strong><\/p>\n John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, and Lee Harvey Oswald.<\/p>\n In American history, their four names live in infamy \u2013 each was an assassin who took the life of a sitting American president.<\/p>\n Though they often inspire curiosity much in the same way that documentaries about serial killers and stories of true crime can captivate an audience, assassins are a different kind of killer, says Wolfgang.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something about assassins,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause to kill someone, it\u2019s already, Oh my God! But to kill a figure, someone who most of these people don\u2019t have any personal connection to \u2013 to me, that is so much more interesting. It\u2019s so complex. Because what goes into that? What brings you there?\u201d<\/p>\n But the story of one of the four canonical presidential assassins, in particular, has fascinated Wolfgang for years.<\/p>\n \u201cCharles Guiteau caught my mind because his story is crazy and very theatrical,\u201d says Wolfgang.<\/p>\n And the theater is where Wolfgang, himself, thrives.<\/p>\n Wolfgang grew up in a small town in central Indiana, and started acting in the third grade, but it wasn\u2019t until high school that he realized he wanted to pursue acting as a career, while also stretching his wings as a \u201ctheater creator.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have such love for directing, and I have such love for writing, and I always have,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I was younger, I wanted to be a writer, even before I wanted to be an actor.\u201d<\/p>\n He came to UConn to study acting, because he liked all that the University\u2019s program had to offer. Unlike many other programs, UConn\u2019s BFA wasn\u2019t focused on musical theater, he explained, and the small program size and opportunities for collaboration with other dramatic arts \u2013 like the puppetry program \u2013 really drew him to Storrs.<\/p>\n Writing a play about Charles Guiteau had been an idea of his for years.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve worked on and off, on and off \u2013 I start work, I make my timeline, start some research, and then I get busy,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m in a show, and it kind of falls off.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, he learned about undergraduate fellowships available through UConn\u2019s Humanities Institute<\/a>, which provide opportunities for individuals at various levels to pursue advanced work in the humanities. Fellowships are year-long and offer support, mentorship, time, and space to research, write, and collaborate on work that extends and supports humanities scholarship.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have an opportunity to create a humanities project based in research \u2013 it was the perfect fit for this idea I already had and wanted to do, that was already on my mind,\u201d says Wolfgang, who applied and was accepted into the current cohort of fellows<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNever before have I had so much support for a project,\u201d he says. \u201cI have so many enthusiastic voices around me, which on one hand it’s like, OK, I\u2019ve got to deliver now. But really, for me and my personality, that’s so much more freeing.\u201d<\/p>\n For the last several months, Wolfgang has been extensively researching the lives of Guiteau, Garfield, and the people who surrounded them and contributed to their story \u2013 diving into their original papers and diaries, their biographies, and other historic documents available in digital archives housed at the Library of Congress and other institutions.<\/p>\n And visiting the historic sites in Ohio and New York, where he\u2019s already made connections with other scholars who have helped guide him in his playwriting.<\/p>\n What he\u2019s learned so far is that the already theatrical story is far more human, complex, and relevant than he originally anticipated.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a serious and a farcical side to Guiteau\u2019s story,\u201d Wolfgang says. \u201cHis biographers describe his trial as this combination \u2013 they use the words tragedy and farce, because it is so absurd. That intersection is really interesting to me, and there’s so much that speaks to our world today.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause at its heart, this is a story of radicalization.\u201d<\/p>\n To the Lordy<\/strong><\/p>\n Born in 1841 in Illinois, Charles Guiteau had an unusual life, notable for its curiosities as well as its lack of accomplishment. He failed an entrance examination to attend the University of Michigan in 1860, and joined the Oneida Community<\/a> that same year, but left within five years after his relationship with the commune\u2019s founder soured.<\/p>\n An unsuccessful lawyer, Guiteau settled in New York in 1872 and took an interest in politics. After he survived a boat crash on the Connecticut River in 1880, Guiteau reportedly believed he had been spared from harm in order to serve a higher purpose.<\/p>\n During the 1880 presidential campaign, the Republican Party was largely split between two factions \u2013 the Stalwarts, led by Roscoe Conkling, who supported President Ulysses S. Grant for a third term, and the Half-Breeds, led by James G. Blaine.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a real partisan divide that’s happening at that time between Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds,\u201d says Wolfgang, \u201cand that political turmoil leads to the assassination as much as the religious fanaticism.\u201d<\/p>\n Guiteau, who had become a staunch Republican, took sides with the Stalwarts and wrote a speech supporting Grant, which he changed to Garfield \u2013 changing little else in the speech besides the name \u2013 when the latter ultimately won the party\u2019s nomination. Guiteau delivered the speech twice, at most, but nonetheless believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield\u2019s ultimate victory and expected to be rewarded for his efforts, in particular by being named consul to France.<\/p>\n In reality, Guiteau played no role in Garfield\u2019s electoral win in November 1880. The two had never met.<\/p>\n While Garfield was beginning his term after his inauguration in March 1881, Guiteau grew more disillusioned, convincing himself that Garfield would destroy the Republican Party and needed to be replaced by the elevation of his vice president, Chester Arthur.<\/p>\n On Saturday, July 2, 1881, Guiteau shot Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station in Washington D.C. Guiteau was immediately arrested, and Garfield died two and a half months later.<\/p>\n Guiteau\u2019s trial was one of the first high-profile U.S. cases based on a temporary insanity defense, though Guiteau insisted he was not insane.<\/p>\n The trial was also described as a circus, and Guiteau became a media sensation for his behavior. He cursed at and insulted the judge, witnesses, the prosecution, and even his own defense attorneys. He delivered his testimony in the form of epic poems. He was almost assassinated twice himself.<\/p>\n Guiteau was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to death. Before his execution on June 30, 1882, he recited a poem he had written that morning \u2013 the now infamous, \u201cI Am Going to the Lordy.\u201d<\/p>\n “I saved my party and my land, Glory hallelujah! But they have murdered me for it, and that is the reason I am going to the Lordy. Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy!\u201d — Charles Julius Guiteau, 1882<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Carving out Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n Though the story of Guiteau and Garfield is now nearly 150 years old, some of its key elements don\u2019t feel so far away from modern times, Wolfgang says.<\/p>\n Issues surrounding religious radicalization.<\/p>\n How young white men who are lacking identity can find themselves drawn to radicalized ideologies.<\/p>\n How human relationships are complex, whether they occur in the 1800s or the 2000s.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I\u2019ve researched these people, it’s always, \u2018mad man shoots the president, crazy guy shoots the president,\u2019\u201d says Wolfgang. \u201cWhich, strictly speaking, isn’t untrue. We understand that Guiteau had a lot of mental illnesses. But there’s so much there.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Mad man shoots the president\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s such a reductive statement.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s never that simple.<\/p>\n \u201cNo sane person is shooting the president,\u201d he says. \u201cBut what else is here? Someone like Roscoe Conkling, who’s this big head of this political party \u2013 what role does he have? What complicity does he have? This whole religious ecosystem of the mid-1800s?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd because it is a drama, it forces us, as audience members, to also question our own complicity.\u201d<\/p>\n Wolfgang hopes to give audiences that chance by premiering his play \u2013 titled \u201cI Am Going to the Lordy: A Dramatic Parable\u201d after Guiteau\u2019s conclusive poem \u2013 in the spring.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s not his first work as a playwright \u2013 he presented his own adaptation of Lewis Carroll\u2019s \u201cAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland\u201d this past spring at the first Rojo Fest<\/a> \u2013 it is his largest original project as a young creator.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also one of two projects currently under development through the production company he\u2019s founded with fellow UConn acting student Kat Corrigan \u201925 (SFA) called Jump the Creek Productions<\/a>. The second is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov\u2019s 1895 work \u201cThe Seagull\u201d performed with puppets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe identity we’ve carved out is working with classical and historic works,\u201d Wolfgang says. \u201cThat’s something I find very interesting. I\u2019m very interested in the works of yore and recontextualizing them. Old stories have always fascinated me. What can they do? How can we retell these?\u201d<\/p>\n When Wolfgang graduates from UConn this coming spring, he hopes to start his acting career in either New York or Chicago and potentially to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree sometime in the future \u2013 he\u2019s taught youth theater in his hometown for a number of years and would like to teach on the collegiate level someday as well.<\/p>\n But he definitely doesn\u2019t plan to stop writing, or to stop pursuing opportunities like the Humanities Institute fellowship, which allowed him to become immersed in his intensive, historically based project.<\/p>\n \u201cThis fellowship has been so enriching, and this was something that I didn’t even initially consider as an option,\u201d he says. \u201cBut now, this has been completely opened up to me, and it has been one of the most fulfilling projects of my undergrad. So, I will be applying to fellowships and residencies on top of normal acting gigs. And then, continuing to create my own work \u2013 I kind of feel that I am incapable of not doing that.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, this fellowship project is the culmination of everything I’ve done at UConn, because I have done so much more than just rehearse scenes. It’s been the directing, and the writing, and the puppeteering, all of this. The connections \u2013 I have people and collaborators. That’s what this play really is.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To follow Wolfgang\u2019s progress on \u201cI Am Going to the Lordy: A Dramatic Parable\u201d and other productions, follow Jump the Creek Productions on Instagram <\/em>@jumpthecreek<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Evan](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2024-10-23_EvanWolfgangSFA-2-300x200.jpg\")
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