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Assassins Review
Broadway.com
April 23, 2004
by Ken Mandelbaum
They're back. That line-up of have-nots and nobodies, loners and
loonies, each believing in an inalienable right to happiness.
If their dreams don't come true, surely someone is to blame. So
why not shoot a president? At least it will get you noticed.
The world
premiere production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins
at Playwrights Horizons in 1991 received preponderantly negative
reviews and failed to transfer from its off-Broadway run. And
that was to be expected. Assassins is a deliberately disturbing,
unsettling, disorienting show. An episodic, collage-style vaudeville
about nine men and women who have killed or tried to kill a U.S.
president, Assassins probes the dark underbelly of the American
dream, wondering what it is about the country that causes such
acts to recur.
Some
have deemed these assailants--ranging from John Wilkes Booth in
1865 to John Hinckley in 1989--inappropriate subject matter for
a musical, particularly one that contains a good deal of dark
humor. But Assassins neither glorifies nor trivializes its characters.
Instead, it attempts to take us into their psyches and examine
what led to their hideous acts.
Making Assassins
even more difficult for general consumption is the fact that the
intermissionless work plays with time and place, offering a surreal
dreamscape in which killers from different eras intermingle. Hallucinatory
and sinister, it's a show that ultimately provides no clear-cut
answers.
The Roundabout's
planned fall 2001 Broadway premiere of Assassins was cancelled
after September 11. But at a time when terrorism and security
alerts are subjects of everyday discussion, Assassins would now
seem to be eminently suitable.
Director Joe
Mantello's admirable staging features a number of intriguing innovations,
a couple of which may be debatable. First, there's the venue.
The tiny, confined space of Playwrights Horizons (and, presumably,
London's Donmar Warehouse) allowed Assassins to explode like an
unstoppable nightmare. The sizable Studio 54 is somewhat less
hospitable to what's essentially a chamber piece whose scenes
for one or two characters are occasionally dwarfed by Robert Brill's
elaborate set design.
Mantello has
placed the entire show in an amusement arcade's shooting gallery,
underneath the massive framework of a roller-coaster and presided
over by the Proprietor, who provides each assassin with a booth
and a presidential target. In the '91 premiere, only the first
scene was set at the shooting gallery; thereafter, slide projections
took us from location to location. Here, Brill's unit set, festooned
with flashy lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, is
present throughout, neatly unifying this sprawling, revue-like
work, although losing the sense of an American panorama flashing
before our eyes.
In the original,
when the shooting gallery disappeared, it took with it the character
of the Proprietor. But Mantello has kept the Proprietor around,
building up the part to function as an Emcee-like figure. Marc
Kudisch's creepy, bald-pated, gold-toothed, tattooed carnival
barker sets the scenes, helping the assassins into their costumes
and encouraging them to fulfill their destinies. He observes the
action from the sidelines, serves as an announcer, and has been
added to the ensemble number "Another National Anthem."
But the show
also introduces Neil Patrick Harris as the Balladeer, conceived
as a roaming figure who binds the score together as well as an
ironic observer of history, an intermediary between the killers
and the audience. Rethinking the Proprietor as a satanic instigator
serves to balance the Balladeer's clear-eyed neutrality. But it
may also result in one guide or observer too many. Mantello also
has each assassin, having completed his deed, return to his individual
booth to sit and observe, becoming part of a side-show display
of waxworks, until they all reunite for "Another National
Anthem."
The rethinking
of the Proprietor doesn't wholly convince and may ultimately detract
from the Balladeer character, who, lacking a guitar or folk-singer
outfit, isn't sharply defined here. Matters are further complicated
by the fact that, in this version, Harris becomes Lee Harvey Oswald
for the final scenes but doesn't look much different in his two
roles.
Such issues
aside, however, Mantello's Assassins is a persuasive, crackling
account of a challenging piece. Virtually all of the sequences
are confidently delivered, especially the uproarious encounters
between President Ford's attempted assassins. Becky Ann Baker's
calamitously amusing Sara Jane Moore, a bumbler whose gun is forever
going off at the wrong time, is nicely complemented by Mary Catherine
Garrison's obtusely loopy "Squeaky" Fromme, with her
visions of Charley Manson.
Denis O'Hare's
comically deranged Guitteau is an expected standout. Alexander
Gemignani's perfectly schlubby Hinckley scores in the chilling
duet with Fromme, "Unworthy of Your Love." Mario Cantone
puts to fine use his background in manic stand-up comedy for Sam
Byck's taped messages to Lenny Bernstein and Dick Nixon. Jeffrey
Kuhn is a suitably agonized Zangara.
Singing quite
well, Harris makes a wry but appealing Balladeer and a bewildered
Oswald. Cowed but intense, James Barbour's strongly sung Czolgosz
is particularly fine in his encounter with Anne L. Nathan's Emma
Goldman. Kudisch makes a suitably menacing figure of the Proprietor.
Michael Cerveris is a blustery, vocally strong Booth, even if
the accent is a bit thick. And Baker is good enough to make us
almost forget Debra Monk's sublime Moore. A busy ensemble performs
some effective musical staging by Jonathan Butterell in ensembles
like "How I Saved Roosevelt" and "The Ballad of
Czolgosz."
What holds
up particularly well here is Sondheim's score, a kaleidoscope
of Americana that ranges from folk ballads, Sousa marches, and
barbershop quartets to soft-rock pop, gospel, hymn, and "Hail
to the Chief." The original production had just three musicans,
while RCA Victor's cast recording added thirty more. With Paul
Gemignani back as musical director, the current version allows
Michael Starobin's orchestrations to be heard in stereo, the thirteen
players divided between two upper boxes.
Assassins
features one of Sondheim's shortest scores, and the original had
only nine numbers. This production gets a tenth one, "Something
Just Broke," a song introduced in the 1992 London premiere.
It shows us the human toll exacted by the assassins' actions,
with ordinary citizens expressing their immediate reaction to
the various acts of violence. But the number doesn't seem as strong
as the rest of the score. And it's rather late in the proceedings
to introduce this kind of sentiment. "Something Just Broke"
mostly serves to impede the flow to the finale.
In general,
though, this Assassins is a striking, provocative evening. It
will be interesting to see if it manages to make converts of at
least some of the many who disliked the show the first time around.
As one of the staunchest supporters of the original, I would suggest
that the scary times we now live in are the ideal climate for
such a harrowing piece.
In any case,
tickets for the original Assassins were scarce, and even many
Sondheim devotees never got to see it. Assassins isn't the sort
of crowd-pleaser that's likely to be brought back again and again.
Nor do musicals this audacious come along often. So this is a
second chance you will wish to take.
Assassins
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Joe Mantello
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