REVIEW: 'Assassins'
The Seattle Times
May 30, 2004
By Misha Berson

"Assassins" (Studio 54). The Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman blackly comic sideshow musical, depicting nine assassins (and would-be assassins) of American presidents, finally reaches Broadway in Joe Mantello's glossy new production. (It originated Off Broadway in 1991.)

Once again, John Wilkes Booth flashes his handsome smile and brags about killing Abe Lincoln. John Hinckley works himself into a lather over Jody Foster and Ronald Reagan. Lee Harvey Oswald aims a rifle out the window at JFK.

Sondheim's songs are dagger-sharp and rousing, the staging doesn't pull any punches, and Michael Cerveris (as Booth) leads a strong cast. But the linkage made here between "apple pie" American violence and publicity-seeking megalomania is no longer a revelation. And the grouping of these avengers — all crazed, but in different ways — gets more questionable the more you ponder it.

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