ASSASSINS. To 1 April.

Sheffield

ASSASSINS
book by John Weidman music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Crucible Theatre To 1 April 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & 22 March 2.30pm
Audio-described/BSL Signed/Talkback 23 March (+ Touch Tour 6pm)
Captioned 30 March
Runs 1hr 50min No interval

TICKETS: 0114 249 6000
www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden

110 minutes pass with the swiftness of a bullet.
This 1990 Sondheim/Weidman musical almost does what it says on the tin. It’s not called ‘Assassinations’ and the US Presidents at whom its historical characters pointed a gun are rarely glimpsed. The only one to have any real impression is Gerald Ford, who (typically enough for him) walks unaccompanied, an unassuming passer-by, and helps his would-be female assassin pick up the bullets she’d spilled on the floor. It’s a near-farcical moment in a grim, though musically colourful, parade.

These are Assassins and Would-be Assassins, variously motivated. Though individual impulses aren’t Weidman and Sondheim’s main point. Only the first and last, the most-famous killers, are really excavated for psycho-impulses. With Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, possibilities are laid out: idealism (Wilkes was the only Confederate supporter in his family), booze and bad reviews (he was an actor, from a celebrated theatrical family).

Individually misfits, the Assassins collectively form an outcrop of the bright American dream’s shadow side, singing ‘Another National Anthem’. Their Gun Song shows how they transfer their weapon’s force into themselves (“All you have to do is move your little finger”), righting wrongs. Gun culture and drink are solidifying factors; the assassins wander on designer Peter McIntosh’s bare, limbo-like stage, meeting in a shooting sideshow or a bar. And they gather round their most famous member, Kennedy-killer Lee Harvey Oswald, who’ll give their actions, past or future, context and immortality. Assassination's become peer-pressure.

And the sense of insignificance fertilises celebrity culture. Overhead TV monitors project the names of assassins and their presidential targets at the start of Nikolai Foster’s well-played revival. It’s surprising how far into political ideas Sondheim and Weidman take the musical (as they had in Pacific Overtures). Musically, Sondheim’s creative pastiche remains alert, echoing cheery-sounding Midwest gospel and country melodies.

Sheffield does it very well until the final Dallas Book Depository sequence, where the tendency to loud expostulation and over-assertive radio interludes about the Kennedy motorcade don’t build the quiet sustained tension that would allow the contrast between Oswald’s personality and potential public persona to make the most of the conclusion. Otherwise, highly recommendable.

Guiteau: Ian Bartholomew
Proprietor: David Burrows
Czolgosz: Billy Carter
Zangara: Richard Colvin
Lee Harvey Oswald: Matt Cross
John Wilkes Booth: Hadley Fraser
Hinckley: James Gillan
Fromme: Penny Layden
Byck: Gerard Murphy
Balladeer: Matt Rawle
Sara Jane Moore: Josie Walker
Boy: Oliver Birkhill/Massimo Restaino

Director: Nikolai Foster
Designer: Peter McKintosh
Lighting: Guy Hoare
Musical Director/Arranger: David Shrubsole
Video: Yeastculture.Org
Choreographer: Lynne Page
Dialect coach: Neil Swain
Assistant director: Ellie Jones

2006-03-20 08:34:08