Why I Want To Shoot the President. Scotsman. 8.17.1998. Jonathan Gibbs.	In 1981, John Hinkley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan for the love of Jodie Foster. Every U.S. President elected in a year ending in zero has died in office. The number of letters in Ronald Wilson Reagan's name is 6-6-6. Make of all of that what you will. The Riot Group make it something very good indeed. The show interweaves Hinkley's poetry with psychological invention, wide-eyed media parody and punk rock rage until its net takes in not just this one obsessive but the whole premillennial United States landscape.	Fame, apocalyptic religion and television are considered and confused until the American Dream and its most extreme, seemingly antithetical elements are exposed as inextricably linked. Apart from a few violent outbursts, the four actors are static, producing a ceaseless flow of confession, commentary and questioning, a dazzling polyphony that fluctuates between harmony and discord. In theatre, there is little to compare it to, but imagine a collaboration between Allen Ginsberg, Hal Hartley and Chris Morris and you're getting close.	It's a long, hard 90 minutes in a hot little room. Definitely not for the fainthearted, but as a piece of experimental theatre, it is stimulating and cerebral and as a performance truly breathtaking.
Why I Want To Shoot the President. The List. 8.20.1998. Brian Donaldson.	Those crazy Americans are so touchy. The Riot Group were forced to alter their work about John Hinckley's assassination attempt of 1981 from Why I Want To Shoot Ronald Reagan Luckily, the spirit remains in this piece dealing with the difficulty of language, media manipulation, the power of advertising and what happens when people don't fit in to the recommended course of society.	The four players give edgily impressive performances as the tale swings back and forth from the apocalyptic millennium. Uncomfortable and at times disturbing, Why I Want To Shoot the President is ultimately greatly rewarding.