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Dana
Tyler: Studio 54 has an evil and carnival-like feel as you
time travel through the lives of 9 people who either tried
to, or succeeded at murdering a US president. Uneasy. Composer/lyricist
Stephen Sondheim and librettist John
Weidman take on the inflammatory subject by going into the
mind of the killers and wannabees hoping you will find it
thought provoking. Neil Patrick Harris, who you may remember
as tv’s Doogie Houser is part of ensemble cast which
profiles the assassins vignette style.
Neil
Patrick Harris: This show tries to not justify their deeds
certainly, but to show how a person’s life can become
mired in such a way that they might be inclined to have
the kind of anger to do something like that.
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| DT: The
gunwielding performance features Tony nominees Dennis O’Hare
and Michael Cerveris who play John Wilkes Boothe.
CLIP
(Michael Cerveris)
Michael
Cerveris: He believed himself to be a patriot and really
had very clearly outlined reasons for doing what he did.
I also had not idea that Lincoln was such an enormously
unpopular president at the time. Even in the North. So there
were reasons that Boothe would have expected to be kind
of adored.
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DT: Harris
is the modern day Balladeer who lets the audience know America
survives all this. He also plays Lee Harvey Oswald.
NPH:
Lee thinks by killing himself, people will know - will remember
him. And then John Wilkes Booth comes in and he and all
the rest of the assassins gather together in the Texas Schoolbook
Depository and convince Oswald that instead of shooting
himself, if he shot JFK, then they would all live on in
infamy. That he will be remembered on a much larger scale.
(smiling) I don’t think that’s what actually
happened, but that’s our conspiracy theory.
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| DT: Performing
a scene with 1 character in 1963 and the other in 1865 is
a challenge.
MC: In rehearsal, the temptation was to
always want to relax and be as real as Neil was and I had
to fight that all the time to sort of stand Booth’s
ground.
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DT: A
rock and roller at heart, Cerveris even named his dog Gibson
after the guitar. The actor was the first Tommy in the revival
of the Who’s rock opera and he loves the gritty Studio
54.
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| MC: I
always feel like a downtown guy who just kinda sneaks uptown
periodically, so this kinda feels like uptown/downtown so
it’s kinda perfect for me. |
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DT: A
lot of nights Michael is onstage in Midtown as Booth and then
rushes downtown afterward to play in his band. The Roundabout
Theatre Company’s “Assassins” is at Studio
54 now through the 4th of July.
Don’t forget you can catch the Tonys right here on CBS
2 – that’s June 6th hosted by Hugh Jackman. |
