Rob Couteau's Intro to Stanley Marks JFK Play

[James DiEugenio]

Rob Couteau has done us all a service by uncovering the works of the late Stanley Marks.

Marks was one of the very few lawyers writing on the JFK case in the early days.  And he had even more scorn for the Warren Report than Lane did.

But he was also one of the earliest to see a pattern between the assassinations of the sixties and to write about them that way.

But another aspect which makes him so unusual is what Rob just put together in a book form.  Marks wrote a three act play on the JFK case.  Again, no other writer in the field that I know of did such a thing.  But beyond that, I cannot think of another piece of stagecraft  about the JFK case.  MacBird does not count because that is really an adaptation of Shakespeare's MacBeth into the case for satirical purposes.  Its not really about the Kennedy case.  Stanley Mark's play is really about the JFK case. What an unusual person this guy was. Would have loved to have met him.  Anyway here is Rob's intro to his play.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ripple-effect-an-introduction-to-stanley-j-marks-three-act-play-about-the-jfk-assassination

[George Govus]

@James DiEugenioAt the end of Rob's introduction, posted at K & K, is a link to a BookFinder page intended to guide a buyer to where the book made from Marks' play may be purchased. The first time I clicked that link I got

Quote

Sorry, we found no matching results at this time

But, the second time I clicked that same link it worked way better than Duck Duck Go, it pulled up twenty-two instances of the book for sale. Go figure.

Edited May 1, 2023 by George Govus
If I could delete my post, I would have.

[James DiEugenio]

Really sorry George, I will tell Rob about it and let you know.

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Rob Couteau has done us all a service by uncovering the works of the late Stanley Marks.

Marks was one of the very few lawyers writing on the JFK case in the early days.  And he had even more scorn for the Warren Report than Lane did.

But he was also one of the earliest to see a pattern between the assassinations of the sixties and to write about them that way.

But another aspect which makes him so unusual is what Rob just put together in a book form.  Marks wrote a three act play on the JFK case.  Again, no other writer in the field that I know of did such a thing.  But beyond that, I cannot think of another piece of stagecraft  about the JFK case.  MacBird does not count because that is really an adaptation of Shakespeare's MacBeth into the case for satirical purposes.  Its not really about the Kennedy case.  Stanley Mark's play is really about the JFK case. What an unusual person this guy was. Would have loved to have met him.  Anyway here is Rob's intro to his play.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ripple-effect-an-introduction-to-stanley-j-marks-three-act-play-about-the-jfk-assassination

The link below is to a local production of a play I saw a few years back. It was actually pretty good. It took shortcuts, of course, trying to make the JFK case fit into a Shakespearian narrative, but the actors were all in, and many of the facts presented came straight from the research community. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjIqdOK4NT-AhVgLkQIHR87BIgQFnoECBIQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.performingartslive.com%2FEvents%2FThe-Tragedy-of-JFK-as-told-by-Wm-Shakespeare-The-Skylight-Theatre&usg=AOvVaw2MZavOy6vv1EmYcv6U1SzZ

[James DiEugenio]

I never saw this Pat and I live in LA.

So what was the play about?  Was It like Hamlet updated?

I  wish I could have seen it.

[Joe Bauer]

Your K & K essays are enlightening.

In so many human history civilization advancement thought areas besides the JFK/RFK/MLK truth mission effort.

And doubly appreciated by me personally as well in their expansion of my own limited vocabulary.

Joeseph McBride same thing.

The following comments by Jackie Kennedy regards JFK and even RFK sincerely caring about the lives of lower income people just re-inspires my reverence for them as humanitarian icons.

 

[2] And if anyone has any doubts about JFK’s remarkable empathy, this eloquent statement made by his wife four months after the assassination should put them to rest: “Just as an example of him having a heart — I can remember him being so disgusted, because once we had dinner with my mother and my stepfather, and there sat my stepfather putting a great slab of paté de foie gras on his toast and saying it was simply appalling to think that the minimum wage should be a dollar twenty-five. And Jack saying to me when we went home, ‘Do you realize that those laundrywomen in the South get sixty cents an hour?’ Or sixty cents a day, or whatever it was. And how horrified he was when he saw General Eisenhower — President Eisenhower, I guess — in their Camp David meeting before inauguration — and Eisenhower had said to him — they were talking about the Cuban refugees — and Eisenhower said, ‘Of course, they’d be so great if you could just ship a lot of them up in trucks from Miami and use ‘em as servants for twenty dollars a month, but I suppose somebody’d raise a fuss if you tried to do that.’ You know, again, so appalled at all these rich people just thinking of how you can live on — not thinking how you can live on just twenty dollars a month, but just to use these people like slaves. He was just so hurt for them, though he’d say it in a sentence [.…] And then, another time, when you were trying to raise money for the cultural center, and a Republican friend of my stepfather said, ‘Why don’t you get labor to do it? If you took a dollar a week out of all of labor’s wages, you could have the money raised in no time at all.’ And he was just really sickened by that and said, ‘Can you think what a dollar a week out of their wages would mean to all those people?’ So all those things show that he did have a heart, because he was really shocked by those things.” Interviewer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. adds: “Of course, he had a heart, [but] it wasn’t on his sleeve … But he was deeply affected.” See Jacqueline Kennedy, Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, New York: Hyperion, 2011, p. 66-67. Jacqueline also recalled a telling incident involving Robert Kennedy. When the CIA failed to protect Oleg Penkovsky, a secret agent in Moscow who was arrested and executed, RFK approached Jacqueline, “just looking so sad … and he said, ‘It’s just awful, they don’t have any heart at CIA. They just think of everyone there as a number. He’s Spy X-15.’ And he said that he’d said to them, you know, ‘Why? This man was just feeding you too many hot things. He was just bound to get caught. And they’d keep asking him for more. Why didn’t someone warn him? Why didn’t someone tell him to get out? He has a family. A wife or children or something.’ Bobby was just so wounded by them — just treating that man like a cipher.’” Ibid., pp. 192-93.

[James DiEugenio]

From my understanding, that book is really underrated by Jackie Kennedy.  Monica Wiesak used it several times in her fine book America's Last President.

JFK never forgot where he came from, being Irish that is and that whole colonial domination by England.

[James DiEugenio]

Here is the link and Rob says it works at Bookfinder.

Does this help?

https://www.bookfinder.com/isbn/9781736004975/

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

I never saw this Pat and I live in LA.

So what was the play about?  Was It like Hamlet updated?

I  wish I could have seen it.

It was built largely on Hamlet. As I recall, the story runs all the way through the JFK, MLK and RFK killings, but I couldn't swear to it. I do remember a surprising gospel music interlude and am fairly certain that happened after MLK was killed. I assumed at the time it would come out on DVD, or be shown on cable somewhere. A number of the actors were recognizable from minor TV roles and I think they were hoping for more exposure as well. You might want to contact the playwright and see if he has a video he can share. He is a researcher and would almost certainly enjoy hearing from you. 

[James DiEugenio]

Yes, I think I will, and I would really like to read the play.

Thanks.