Review - Assassins

Assassins

Porchlight Music Theatre

http://www.porchlighttheatre.com

Taking into consideration the stellar cast, great singing and a high production value, the biggest star of Porchlight Theatre’s Assassins is the director, Michael Weber. His first gig with Porchlight, Weber’s staging is highly innovative, always searching (and finding) a new perspective on the material; placing his actors on the stage in picturesque manner (with the help of choreographer Tammy Mader); finding the obscure humor; dramatically squeezing out every drop of compassion or pathos in the characters. A good example of this occurs in a short scene featuring a struggling, beaten-down immigrant, who offers to carry anarchist Emma Goldman’s bag. This is a brief exchange, but Weber unearths the resoluteness of Goldman’s feelings of independence versus her empathy for the immigrant’s grasping for any type of masculine dignity. Remarkable.

Assassins is nowhere close to your typical musical. It lays out the gutsy and/or twisted theory that our country’s succession of presidential assassins and assassin-wannabes tells a truly American story. And Stephen Sondheim, with his signature witty and introspective lyrics, and John Weidman, offering up an excellent book, are fairly successful in this endeavor. Represented on stage are the infamous likes of John Wilkes Booth (Jeremy Rill), Lee Harvey Oswald (Bradford Lund) and John Hinckley (Kevin Bensley). But also represented are historical figures that do not roll off one’s tongue - President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau (Steve Best); President McKinley’s grim-reaper, Leon Czolgosz (Brandon Dahlquist); Giuseppe Zangara (Jeremy Trager), who attempted to shoot FDR (and instead shot and killed Anton Cermak, then mayor of Chicago), and the kooky Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Maggie Portman), who ineptly failed to knock off President Ford. The rest of the stellar cast includes Sara Sevigny, Michael Mahler, Ben Dicke, Andy Robinson, Jarrod Zimmerman, Sam Schumacher and Elizabeth Tanner. Though not so much a singing role, the best performance is offered by Daniel Allar, who plays the overwrought and psychotic Nixon-hating Samuel Byck. Byck’s scene, where - sitting in a Santa suit - he tape-records a rambling but humorous message to composer Leonard Bernstein, presents some of the best acting seen on stage over the last year, and helps punctuate the rest of the stellar cast.

There are some wonderful songs in the show, most notably the rousing “Everybody’s Got the Right”, the disturbing “Another National Anthem”, and John Hinkley’s haunting anthem to Jodie Foster, “Unworthy of Your Love”. The one song that does not fit into the rest of the score is “How I Saved Roosevelt”, which - despite Michael Weber’s noteworthy staging and Doug Peck’s excellent vocal work - just seems out of place, the only song that does not directly comment on the actual assassins. This piece seems to be one where the creators of the show said “We need a funny, light patter song”, and so wedged in this piece to fill that supposed need.

Kevin Depinet has constructed a memorable set, an attic stacked full of American memorabilia. Mike Tuta, video designer, has created some moving video clips and pictures of the targeted presidents, much in the style of a PBS documentary. Jessie Klug (lighting), Carol Blanchard (costumes) and Kevin Carney (sound design), all turn in topnotch work. Special kudos go out to musical director Doug Peck. The voices are flawless, both solo and as an ensemble, paying perfect homage to Sondheim’s exemplary score.

Not so much a criticism as a wish: twice in the show there is an in interesting staging of a tour guide walking between the actors and the audience, a line of preppy tourists in tow, suggesting to the audience that the assassins are actually part of a museum exhibit. This is an intriguing idea, one that begs for further exploration and exploitation.

By all measures, Assassins has had a tumultuous past. Opening off-Broadway in 1990, Assassins played for less than 4 months, closing after only 74 performances. Then a revival of the work, preparing to open on Broadway in late 2001, was abruptly cancelled – considering the subject matter – because of 9/11. Assassins finally made its Broadway debut (in Studio 54) in a limited run in 2004, opening with rave reviews and a cadre of Tony awards. Thankfully, commandeering the historically jaunty waters of this important piece of musical-theatre, Porchlight’s production elevates Assassins to a dead-on bull’s-eye. Assassins successfully hits its artistic target from start to finish, a bona-fide must-see.

Rating: Highly Recommended (4 stars)

Reviewed by Scotty Zacher

[email protected]



	Sweet Smell of Success *Assassins* Porchlight Music Theatre http://www.porchlighttheatre.com Taking into consideration the stellar cast, great singing and a high production value, the biggest star of Porchlight Theatre’s Assassins is the director, Michael Weber. His first gig with Porchlight, Weber’s staging is highly innovative, always searching (and finding) a new perspective on the material; placing his actors on the stage in picturesque manner (with the help of choreographer Tammy Mader); finding the obscure humor; dramatically squeezing out every drop of compassion or pathos in the characters. A good example of this occurs in a short scene featuring a struggling, beaten-down immigrant, who offers to carry anarchist Emma Goldman’s bag. This is a brief exchange, but Weber unearths the resoluteness of Goldman’s feelings of independence versus her empathy for the immigrant’s grasping for any type of masculine dignity. Remarkable. Assassins is nowhere close to your typical musical. It lays out the gutsy and/or twisted theory that our country’s succession of presidential assassins and assassin-wannabes tells a truly American story. And Stephen Sondheim, with his signature witty and introspective lyrics, and John Weidman, offering up an excellent book, are fairly successful in this endeavor. Represented on stage are the infamous likes of John Wilkes Booth (Jeremy Rill), Lee Harvey Oswald (Bradford Lund) and John Hinckley (Kevin Bensley). But also represented are historical figures that do not roll off one’s tongue - President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau (Steve Best); President McKinley’s grim-reaper, Leon Czolgosz (Brandon Dahlquist); Giuseppe Zangara (Jeremy Trager), who attempted to shoot FDR (and instead shot and killed Anton Cermak, then mayor of Chicago), and the kooky Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Maggie Portman), who ineptly failed to knock off President Ford. The rest of the stellar cast includes Sara Sevigny, Michael Mahler, Ben Dicke, Andy Robinson, Jarrod Zimmerman, Sam Schumacher and Elizabeth Tanner. Though not so much a singing role, the best performance is offered by Daniel Allar, who plays the overwrought and psychotic Nixon-hating Samuel Byck. Byck’s scene, where - sitting in a Santa suit - he tape-records a rambling but humorous message to composer Leonard Bernstein, presents some of the best acting seen on stage over the last year, and helps punctuate the rest of the stellar cast. There are some wonderful songs in the show, most notably the rousing “Everybody’s Got the Right”, the disturbing “Another National Anthem”, and John Hinkley’s haunting anthem to Jodie Foster, “Unworthy of Your Love”. The one song that does not fit into the rest of the score is “How I Saved Roosevelt”, which - despite Michael Weber’s noteworthy staging and Doug Peck’s excellent vocal work - just seems out of place, the only song that does not directly comment on the actual assassins. This piece seems to be one where the creators of the show said “We need a funny, light patter song”, and so wedged in this piece to fill that supposed need. Kevin Depinet has constructed a memorable set, an attic stacked full of American memorabilia. Mike Tuta, video designer, has created some moving video clips and pictures of the targeted presidents, much in the style of a PBS documentary. Jessie Klug (lighting), Carol Blanchard (costumes) and Kevin Carney (sound design), all turn in topnotch work. Special kudos go out to musical director Doug Peck. The voices are flawless, both solo and as an ensemble, paying perfect homage to Sondheim’s exemplary score. Not so much a criticism as a wish: twice in the show there is an in interesting staging of a tour guide walking between the actors and the audience, a line of preppy tourists in tow, suggesting to the audience that the assassins are actually part of a museum exhibit. This is an intriguing idea, one that begs for further exploration and exploitation. By all measures, Assassins has had a tumultuous past. Opening off-Broadway in 1990, Assassins played for less than 4 months, closing after only 74 performances. Then a revival of the work, preparing to open on Broadway in late 2001, was abruptly cancelled – considering the subject matter – because of 9/11. Assassins finally made its Broadway debut (in Studio 54) in a limited run in 2004, opening with rave reviews and a cadre of Tony awards. Thankfully, commandeering the historically jaunty waters of this important piece of musical-theatre, Porchlight’s production elevates Assassins to a dead-on bull’s-eye. Assassins successfully hits its artistic target from start to finish, a bona-fide must-see. Rating: Highly Recommended (4 stars) Reviewed by Scotty Zacher [email protected] Hosted by www.Geocities.ws