New Rep’s “Assassins” explosive, and on target

I arrived at the Arsenal Center for the Arts on a Saturday evening and picked up a ticket from the box office that read, “Sondheim’s Explosive Musical: Assassins.”

Explosive was right. The show, produced by the New Repertory Theater, was packed with extremely energetic singing, and lots of gunfire.

“Assassins” is a very witty musical by John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim detailing the personal stories behind the American presidential assassination attempts.

The play began in a sort of timeless place where assassins from many different periods gathered to hear from their leader, the murderer of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth (Mark Linehan). The show then turned to each character individually, revealing their personal lives and the moment that each one decided to kill the president — often with encouragement from Booth, who traveled through time to visit the other characters. Booth acted as a sort of ringleader for this club of outcasts, and was always looking to recruit new members. 

Although the play is written quite abstractly, each character is given the chance to tell his or her own story through a solo or duet. New Rep’s actors brought these complicated roles to life and gave them real humanity.

“Assassins” offered an extremely interesting and chilling, although sometimes slightly melodramatic, look into the mind of a murderer. Some of the characters became assassins because of strong political beliefs or dissatisfaction with society, while others simply wanted to be noticed.

Two starkly different characters juggle the job of narrating the show: an all-American, patriotic Balladeer (Evan Gambardella), and the Proprietor (Benjamin Evett) who was dressed in what appeared to be a bloodied Uncle Sam costume. At times they competed for the spotlight, each wanting his opinion to be the one that the audience believed.

The show premiered off-Broadway in 1990 and had its Broadway premiere in  2004. Although it is one of the lesser-known Sondheim musicals (his more popular works include “Into the Woods,” “Sweeney Todd,” and “West Side Story”), the music was certainly was not of lower quality than that of his other works. Among the most notable numbers were “The Gun Song” and “November 22, 1963”, sung by the whole cast to convince Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate John F. Kennedy.

There were also excellent monologues that stood out just as much as the songs. Samuel Byck (Peter S. Adams), who attempted to fly a plane into the White House during the Nixon presidency, delivered a poignant speech on his way to the airport where he would try to hijack a plane. The dialogue between Sara Jane Moore (Paula Langton) and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (McCaela Donovan) was especially funny; these characters brought the show a good dose of comedy in their failed attempt to kill the president.

The onstage musicians and the set, an enormous iron frame painted like an American Flag, were both stunning. The characters of “Assassins” bring to light a profound and provocative perspective on the American dream. While some were clearly extremists, it is still very interesting to watch as these characters articulate their ideas on issues such as oppression of the poor and societal hierarchy.

Although the play is historical fiction, most of the characters are well known and accessible enough that you won’t need to be an American history buff to understand and connect with them. Because of adult language and violence, “Assassins” should be considered at least PG-13.

This very well-done production, which runs through Oct. 26, 2014, is a must-see for Sondheim fans, or anyone interested in gaining a new perspective on the role assassins play in real-life politics and history.

(For information and tickets for New Rep’s production of “Assassins”, go to http://www.newrep.org/productions/assassins/.)

–Oct. 23, 2104–