"Assassins", by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman

kestrell and I ended up seeing this show more or less by accident. A theater company that we had subscribed to had bad numbers, had to cancel some shows, and gave us free tickets to "Assassins" as partial compensation. It's a musical about all the people who have tried (successfully or not) to kill a President of the United States. It's an odd premise, but hey, Sondheim, so it was a good bet to be entertaining. The bet paid off well, and I recommend the show to fans of musicals and/or political commentary. Tickets and more info here.

The music is varied, clever, and catchy, as one expects from Sondheim. The performances were excellent, in terms of both acting and singing. It's a small theater, so the production values are modest, but they used what they had to good effect.

The structure of the show is... odd. There's no intermission, because there's no place where you could logically put one. (The show runs an hour 45 minutes, so it's not missed.) It's about as far from the Aristotelian Unities as you could get, skipping about in time and space with complete impunity, allowing characters from different times and places to interact. This all reaches a climax with Lee Harvey Oswald's scene. He only comes on late in the show and... well, avoiding spoilers here, they treat his story in such a way that it has emotional truth whether or not you believe any of the conspiracy theories -- an impressve authorial accomplishment.

The show treads a delicate line: making these characters sympathetic, while not supporting their actions. And all of them *are* sympathetic at least at times. You feel you understand what drove them to violence, even if you don't necessarily agree with it. As Kes said afterwards, you feel a little odd when you realize you've just applauded someone being executed in an electric chair on stage -- but he had a really great song leading up to that!

Despite the odd premise, this is not the most depressing Sondheim show I've seen. Parts of it are strangely uplifting. If you're interested in some powerful theater in an unusual flavor, check it out.

"Assassins", by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman

kestrell and I ended up seeing this show more or less by accident. A theater company that we had subscribed to had bad numbers, had to cancel some shows, and gave us free tickets to "Assassins" as partial compensation. It's a musical about all the people who have tried (successfully or not) to kill a President of the United States. It's an odd premise, but hey, Sondheim, so it was a good bet to be entertaining. The bet paid off well, and I recommend the show to fans of musicals and/or political commentary. Tickets and more info here.

The music is varied, clever, and catchy, as one expects from Sondheim. The performances were excellent, in terms of both acting and singing. It's a small theater, so the production values are modest, but they used what they had to good effect.

The structure of the show is... odd. There's no intermission, because there's no place where you could logically put one. (The show runs an hour 45 minutes, so it's not missed.) It's about as far from the Aristotelian Unities as you could get, skipping about in time and space with complete impunity, allowing characters from different times and places to interact. This all reaches a climax with Lee Harvey Oswald's scene. He only comes on late in the show and... well, avoiding spoilers here, they treat his story in such a way that it has emotional truth whether or not you believe any of the conspiracy theories -- an impressve authorial accomplishment.

The show treads a delicate line: making these characters sympathetic, while not supporting their actions. And all of them *are* sympathetic at least at times. You feel you understand what drove them to violence, even if you don't necessarily agree with it. As Kes said afterwards, you feel a little odd when you realize you've just applauded someone being executed in an electric chair on stage -- but he had a really great song leading up to that!

Despite the odd premise, this is not the most depressing Sondheim show I've seen. Parts of it are strangely uplifting. If you're interested in some powerful theater in an unusual flavor, check it out.