Assassins (1990)

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.