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| Politics and dreamers merge in Sondheim musical
‘Assassins’ | ||||||||
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| FALL RIVER -- Berthold Brecht could make you think with musical theater. His classic "Mack The Knife," by the way, is not a comedic song. |
| Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim is perhaps less the social
commentator than Brecht. Still, Sondheim’s "Assassins," is a fine
musical comedy about political assassins, particularly those who
kill (or try to kill) presidents. Not amused by the concept? Well, to call this "musical comedy" is not to say that the show tries to be "ha-ha funny" with the memory of Lee Harvey Oswald. "Sondheim is known not to do the usual thing," said Beverly Robinson, one of the play’s two stage managers, the other being Ron Robinson. The play opened off-Broadway and never made it to The Great White Way, principally because the opening coincided with The Gulf War. It was a bad time for plays about killing. "It had a short run," Beverly Robinson said. "The show is not really about assassins," she added. "It’s about the haves and the have nots." Indeed, whether it’s John Hinckley, Sara Jane Moore or Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, the citizen who shoots at a president is usually a "have not," if not in the financial then at least in the emotional sense. "One of the messages of the play is that in America anyone can grow up to be president and anyone can grow up to kill the president," Robinson said. The American political system requires presidents and presidential candidates to press the flesh, to meet and greet, to plunge gleefully into crowds of strangers. Sometimes, one of the strangers is a "have not," a man or woman whose twilit world is full of ghosts, obsessions and government conspiracies. That man or woman is the assassin, the all-too-featureless face of death. Political assassination "may be the price we pay for freedom," Robinson said. "The point the play makes is that all of those who assassinated American presidents were among the forgotten," she said. They are a sad group, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and the others, much given to self-delusion, little people who live little lives in little rooms until their moment to shine. Songs like "Another National Anthem" tell the loser’s tale, the intolerable smallness of some lives and the mad voice of dementia that makes some of us pick up a pistol and go hunting celebrity. It’s a good show, without any single star. "It’s really more of an ensemble," Robinson said. Ensemble or not, there are some good acting jobs here. David Faria is an excellent Giuseppe Zangara. Somerset Police Officer Bing McGrath is a fine President Ford but a better President Garfield, playing it in stately fashion. John Ashley is superbly smooth as The Balladeer, the play’s one-man Greek chorus, and Christine McCartney is an endearing flower child as Squeaky Fromme, the deluded hippie who took an ill-aimed potshot at Gerald Ford. "It’s not musical comedy," Robinson said, "but it does have its funny moments." Indeed, it does, if only in the general sad sack portrayals of the various assassins. No doubt, these perpetual losers are funny, right up until the shots ring out. "All the assassins except Oswald appear throughout the show," Robinson explained. And Oswald? Well, at the end, Oswald is joined in the Texas School Book Depository by all the assassins, all his brothers and sisters who urge him to scratch that urge for celebrity with his trigger finger. "In that scene, all the assassins are telling Oswald that if he does it, they’ll close the Stock Exchange," Robinson said. The assassins tell him how famous he’ll be, that people will commit suicide because of what he’s done, that they’ll close the schools in Indonesia. "This play does not glorify these assassins," Robinson said. "It just shows how they were people who were left out." Being "left out" isn’t much of an excuse for killing a president, but it is a reason, if a sad reason. "Assassins" is a play about the American right to pursue your dreams and how some, having never caught a dream, seek to catch a nightmare and ride it to fame. INFO FOR BOX: The Little Theatre of Fall River presents "Assassins" tonight on June 16, 17, 22-24 at 8 p.m. and June 18 and 25 at 7 p.m. at The Firebarn. General admission seating is $12. Different subscription options offered for Firebarn series. Student, children senior citizen and group rates are also available. For information and reservations, call 675-1852. |
| ©The Herald News 2002 |
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