Assassins Will Blow You Away!

On the Ides of March Marcus Junius Brutus assassinated the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar thus securing an enduring legacy for himself that still immortalizes his name over two thousand years later. In Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical Assassins (1991), being mounted in a co-production between BirdLand Theatre and Talk is Free Theatre and playing at the Theatre Centre until January 23rd 2011, nine assassins, or would-be assassins, of American presidents, from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan, are examined in one of musical theatre’s darkest, most controversial and politically provocative pieces.

Assassins is a concept musical, which means that it does not follow a traditional narrative, but rather uses a unifying idea, or concept, to give depth, subtext and a sense of cohesion to songs, scenes and monologues, which might otherwise not seem to be so intricately connected. Instead of providing an entirely historically accurate survey of the assassinations of the American presidents presented either as a revue or a documentary book musical, Sondheim and Weidman have their ensemble of murderers interacting with one another across time and space in the fictitious No Man’s Land of a seedy shooting gallery at a tawdry nightmarish shadow of an iconic American fair. Here the Proprietor engages with all nine angry, disillusioned, desperate misfits and appeals to them with familiar American rhetoric. He alludes to the American Dream and the rights and freedoms of all citizens to pursue and protect their own happiness and their power and potential to aspire to become whatever their hearts desire—even the killer of the President of the United States.

Instead of vilifying these figures or encouraging the audience to identify with them too closely or to show them pathos and understanding, Sondheim and Weidman dramatize how the same red, white and blue ideals that have been perpetuated not only by the presidents, but also by American culture in general throughout the decades since the Civil War were, in each case, distorted or used to defend each assassination. In this way, the assassins themselves become a distinctly American phenomenon and citizens that have been clearly influenced by the culture, history and politics of their country and their time.

If it sounds intellectual, intense and disturbing, those elements are certainly inherent to the piece, but in the construction of the show as a musical Vaudevillian spectacle in the hands of a wry, sardonic Proprietor, the dark humour pervades most of the scenes, which makes the overall experience an oddly hilarious and cathartic one. In this production, directed by Adam Brazier, the carnival aspect of the show is intensified, with actors playing their own instruments (directed by Reza Jacobs) and adding to the meta-theatrical and Brechtian aspects of the show. This allows the audience to apply Sondheim’s use of pastiche in music (he borrows from all iconic genres of American music: waltz, cakewalk, folksong, gospel and 70s soft rock) to root the assassins in their disillusionment with the mainstream culture they lash out so aggressively against in a delightfully theatrical way. Brazier is also magnificently effective in conjuring an ambiance of tension on his stage. The play begins, magically and with a bang, as each assassin in turn takes aim at a balloon on a giant target, and after that, although the guns are implied by pistol-shaped pieces of what looks like pipe, I found myself flinching as I watched our motley crew carelessly swinging them around enthusiastically amid their singing and dancing. I also couldn’t help but draw a connection between the pipes and the sad reality that the promise of prosperity and success in America has been for so many nothing but an empty, bitter pipe dream.

Sondheim and Weidman have created an incredibly compelling piece of theatre, but what makes this production pack such a wallop of a punch is its powerhouse ensemble, who work together seamlessly to root the play in its wide array of fascinating characters. Alex Fiddes gives quiet dignity to Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated William McKinley in 1901, and his scene with Whitney Ross-Barris (as Emma Goldman) is the sweetest in the show. Kevin Dennis gives a nice combination of wild rage and excruciating pain to Giuseppe Zangara who attempted to kill President Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt because he did not want to travel out of a temperate climate to kill President Herbert Hoover. Steve Ross is a spotlight chaser as Charles Guiteau (who killed President James A. Garfield in 1881), and Sondheim gives him a production number he likely would have relished in, which, of course, Ross delivers with ultimate panache. Christopher Stanton and Janet Porter, as John Hinckley and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme respectively, sing about obsessive and delusional unconditional love in “Unworthy of Your Love,” a hilarious and disturbing ode to Jodie Foster and Charles Manson. Porter also has an equally hilarious rapport with Lisa Horner’s Sara Jane Moore and Horner gives a vivid and detailed performance of the impulsive, lost, disorganized housewife with wild mood swings who tried to kill Gerald Ford and ended up killing her dog. If you’re looking for some joy in this production, set your eyes on Ezra Tennen, as “boy,” he is sure to make you smile.

Geoffrey Tyler emerges as Lee Harvey Oswald out of the all-American Balladeer in this production, a hesitant working class man on the brink of suicide before he is convinced by John Wilkes Booth and the other assassins that he must be the culmination of all their work, that he is the one who truly has the power to change the world, to make it weep and squash its optimism and its innocence in a radically significant way. In this portrait of history there is no doubt that Oswald certainly did not act alone.

Martin Julien is sneaky and slimy as our Proprietor, weaving in and out of the action, stirring up violence but abandoning all responsibility and disappearing from the consequences of the future, like a shifty dark thought that permeates the minds of everyone. Graham Abbey, as Samuel Byck clad in a dirty Santa suit, who tried to hijack an airline and crash it into the White House in attempt to kill Richard Nixon, is mesmerizing in his monologues during which he makes tapes documenting his feelings of resentment as his attempts to connect to public figures, such as Leonard Bernstein, go unnoticed and his employment and personal prospects are just as grim. Abbey evokes true pathos, while never relinquishing his own sardonic humour. Paul McQuillan is both fiery and charming as John Wilkes Booth, the first to assassinate an American President (Abraham Lincoln in 1865), showing off both his gorgeous baritone voice and all the sweeping charisma “Wilkes” would have needed as an actor in the 19th Century.

In the wake of the tragic assassination attempt on Democratic Member of the House of Representatives Gabrielle Giffords on January 8th, with Sarah Palin using shooting rhetoric and iconography on her website, Assassins is sadly more relevant than ever. Last year in an interview for Metro Canada Adam Brazier said, “It’s very seldom people take the risk of producing theatre that is thought provoking. We produce fiscally minded shows and that means being brave sometimes.” Assassins is absolute proof that being brave and choosing artistic merit over money in musical theatre can often lead to a sure fire hit.