'THEATER REVIEW
Broadway's old song and dance really has changed
Musicals are more challenging today, but they're enjoyable just the same.
The Orlando Sentinel
June 5, 2004
By Elizabeth Maupin

NEW YORK -- You could look at this season's Broadway musicals as something for everyone -- or as the oddest collection of song and dance since . . . well, since last year or the year before.

As Sunday's Tony Awards approach, it's obvious that musical theater is not what it used to be. Box-office managers probably aren't happy about that, because musicals have gotten much less mainstream. But for those who are looking for something challenging, Broadway still has a ticket with your name on it.

This season's biggest musical hits are Wicked, the back story on the witches from The Wizard of Oz, and The Boy From Oz, the back story on Aussie songwriter Peter Allen. But it's some of Broadway's other musical-theater offerings that give you more bang -- sometimes literally -- for your buck.

Take Assassins, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's 1990 musical, which finally has made it to Broadway after a couple of tries. The show about the ragtag collection of men and women who tried to kill U.S. presidents -- and sometimes succeeded -- first aimed for Broadway at the time of the first Gulf War, when Americans didn't want to hear about it. Another production, scheduled to open just after Sept. 11, 2001, was postponed, and that's the one, directed by Joe Mantello, that opened this spring.

Assassins is strong stuff. Sondheim and Weidman set their piece in a carnival sideshow, where the diabolical Proprietor (Marc Kudisch) invites prospective killers to take their places. "Everybody's got the right to be happy," he sings, and he persuades this bunch of losers to solve all their problems by picking up a gun.

The idea is that America's focus on fame, fortune and that right has led to such violence: John Hinckley, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, thought that by murdering somebody famous he could win actress Jodie Foster's love; Charles Guiteau, who killed James Garfield, had expected Garfield to make him ambassador to France.

Sondheim and Weidman lure you into this unpopular notion. The tuneful music includes bits of patriotic themes and a barbershop quartet, and there's plenty of sardonic humor mixed with the bone-chilling truths.

Mantello has shaped the show further, turning the all-American Balladeer (Neil Patrick Harris), who starts out as the voice of reason, into Lee Harvey Oswald at the climax of the show. And he has the help of a terrific cast, from Kudisch and the sweet-voiced Harris to Michael Cerveris as John Wilkes Booth and especially Denis O'Hare (a Tony-winner last year for Take Me Out) as the loony Guiteau. Theater as impeccable as this is more persuasive than you might think.

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