Strange
as it may seem, this was actually my first Sondheim show. Not Sweeney
Todd, not Into the Woods, not A Little Night Music, not Sunday in the Park with George, but Assassins, the darkly comic musical
about America’s actual and would-be presidential assassins. During the 2004 Tony Awards, I fell in love
with the Broadway cast’s performance and shortly thereafter bought the CD for
the revival. I discovered that Sondheim
is tricky but supremely rewarding, that Doogie Howser has a nice set of pipes
on him (this was pre-How I Met Your
Mother – that’s weird to think,) and that, if Raúl Esparza couldn’t win best
supporting actor in a musical for Taboo,
the award was safe in the hands of Michael Cerveris as John Wilkes Booth.
The
musical itself is deliciously theatrical.
It’s not so much a concrete story as it is a series of vignettes that
flit through time, framed in a strange sort of limbo in which notorious figures
from different points in history can interact.
It opens with a vaguely sinister carnival proprietor trying to entice
assorted malcontent oddballs to try their luck at a game of chance: “Shoot a prez, win a prize!” It’s an interesting device, giving a festive
backdrop to such awful events. And yet,
we lurch with the chaotic whirl, and we see the dark undertones behind the
lights.
And
really, the classic Americana imagery of the carnival motif also strikes an
unsettling discord with the story of these assassins, regarded as some of the
least American people in U.S. history.
The show’s other main narrative device, an itinerant balladeer who spins
the assassins’ tales into song, is similarly all-American. As the assassins try to speak for themselves
and get us to understand their reasoning, they get increasingly frustrated with
the balladeer’s tuneful interruptions.
Much of
the music combines folk with Sondheim’s usual style, and the result is an
intriguing musical potpourri. All of the
ballads are catchy, clever, and all-around fantastic, especially “The Ballad of
Booth.” In it, Booth rails against the
balladeer’s more cavalier version of his story and tries to explain “why [he]
did it;” it’s a song with a lot of depth, one that unflinchingly examines what
can cause a man to turn to unforgiveable actions. “Unworthy of Your Love” – a duet between John
Hinckley Jr. and Squeaky Fromme, respectively directed to an absent Jodie
Foster and Charles Manson – is as creepy as it is audacious. I also love “Something Just Broke,” in which
a collection of ordinary citizens recall what they were doing when they heard
news of a president’s death by assassin.
Not to
mention, this show makes for a great history lesson. I’d never even heard of Leon Czolgosz or
Charles Guiteau before Assassins, but
now I have a good understanding of all four presidential assassinations and
five unsuccessful attempts. I’ve learned
more about the history behind them and interesting bits of trivia related to
each one – plenty of truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moments! I know that it doesn’t approach Sondheim’s
greatest works, but I’ll always enjoy it as my first, and I’ll always
appreciate it for its boldness, originality, and instructiveness.
Warnings
Dark
subject matter, violence, swearing (including one N-word,) and sexual
references.
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