"This'll kill ya: singing 'Assassins' "
New Jersey Star Ledger
April 23, 2004
By Michael Sommers

NEW YORK -- A revue-like salute to the people who killed presidents of the United States -- or gave it their best shot -- "Assassins" is one very bizarre musical.

The smarts and crafts of Stephen Sondheim's dark, glimmering score and John Weidman's story fire up some compelling moments, but their disturbing theme isn't for folks whose notion of musical perfection is "My Fair Lady."

Fortunately, the fascinating Broadway production that opened last night at Studio 54 is sponsored by Roundabout Theatre Company, which can mount such an urbane curio as part of its subscription season.

Since its original short run in 1991 at Playwrights Horizons' 80-seat theater, "Assassins" is rarely done. So this is a great chance for musical theater lovers to savor a relatively obscure Sondheim piece fiercely performed by a splendid group of actors and musicians.

The rickety chairs and tables left over from "Cabaret" face designer Robert Brill's looming, dusky set: Splashed in red, white and blue lights, it's the battered scaffolding of a roller coaster merged with the underside of a boardwalk -- altogether a fitting midway limbo for lost souls.

Soon a shooting gallery barker (Marc Kudisch, increasingly satanic in suspenders) smoothly hawks firearms to the revue's real-life misfits and radicals. "Everybody's got the right to their dreams," he sings. This opening with its "C'mere and kill a President" refrain establishes the sick premise that if all else fails, there's one sure way to achieve the American rage for fame.

In a nonlinear series of skits and songs -- some of them surprisingly funny -- the killers go about their business. The ringleader of them all, John Wilkes Booth (elegant Michael Cerveris) prowls around in his swallowtail coat, trolling for followers. In a spooky duet, John Hinckley (Alexander Gemignani) and Squeaky Fromme (Mary Catherine Garrison) dedicate a haunting, unhealthy "Unworthy of Your Love"'70s soft-rock ballad to Jodie Foster and Charles Manson.

Screwy Garfield assassin Charles Guiteau (Denis O'Hare, with a loony glint in his eye) flirts with the ladies and gaily cakewalks upstairs to the noose. Scatterbrained Sara Jane Moore (a priceless Becky Ann Baker) shoots her lunch and ends up throwing bullets at Gerald Ford.

En route to the airport to crash a 747 into the Nixon White House, Samuel Byck (a well controlled Mario Cantone) raves away into a tape recorder. Among summery 1901 crowds, the workman-anarchist Leon Czolgosz (the brooding baritone James Barbour) patiently waits his turn on line to fatally shake hands with William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition.

At last, a friendly balladeer seen in earlier vignettes (boyish Neil Patrick Harris) pops up as Lee Harvey Oswald. In a "Twilight Zone"-style conclusion, Oswald's intent to commit suicide in the Texas Schoolbook Depository is subverted to higher tragedy. "All you have to do is squeeze your little finger," the assassins persuasively croon to him. "You can change the world."

More playful than might be expected, Sondheim's sardonic yet flavorful score riffs with the all-American sounds of Foster, Sousa, Copland and late-period Weill. Musical director Paul Gemignani (Alexander's dad) adroitly guides a dozen musicians through Michael Starobin's smoky orchestrations. Maybe Weidman's narrative trajectory doesn't hit the bull's-eye in the end, but his writing proves inventive.

The two-hour, intermission-less show gets a brilliant staging by director Joe Mantello, whose "Wicked" expertise hooks everything into a semi-silly-sad-serious musical crazy quilt about American madness. For viewers who are willing to go with the flow of one extremely challenging musical, "Assassins" can be extremely thoughtful fun.

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