Playwright: Stephen Sondheim & John Weidman
At: Porchlight Music Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont
Phone: 773-327-5252; $25-$32
Runs through: March 11
By Jonathan Abarbanel
Presidential assassins are like taxicabs: there's never one around when you need one—at least not a good one, as Assassins colorfully shows. Most attempts on presidential lives have been made by failures, malcontents and certifiable crackpots who are almost always young and motivated by personal grievance rather than politics. The average age of the four successful presidential assassins was under 30, and the average of all nine of the wannabes in Assassins is less than 33. Most thought killing the President would benefit their personal lives, without regard to the country. The first, John Wilkes Booth, was the only proven conspirator ( although Assassins ignores conspiracy ) while the last, Lee Harvey Oswald, was the only experienced marksman. The ideal presidential assassin would be motivated by the national interest, and combine Oswald's technical ability with Booth's charismatic leadership. Such a person hasn't yet turned up in America, even though it may be raining and some people may be looking for a taxi.
Stephen Sondheim's music can appear deceptively simple until you try to perform it. Assassins can fool the unwary with its folk-like ballads, cake walks, quotations from Sousa and other familiar Americana. But, with tricky key changes, tight harmonies, vigorously cross-cutting rhythms and frequent patter lyrics, Assassins isn't easy. Fortunately, the cake walk's a piece of cake for musical director Doug Peck and his velvet-voiced cast. The score itself seems less idiosyncratic as reduced for keyboard, woodwinds and drums. Did they actually simplify it? Or does it sound easier because they're so on top of it?
There's no lapse in the expected Porchlight Music Theatre quality or ingenuity as artistic director L. Walter Stearns hands off staging chores to estimable veteran Michael Weber. He abandons the show's usual carnival midway setting to place the time-shifting action in a warehouse that could pass as Uncle Sam's attic, chock full of American presidential and cultural bric-a-brac as cleverly designed by Kevin Depinet and well lit by Jessie Klug. The controlled clutter is appropriate, versatile and warmly attractive. The shift in locale doesn't damage the show's deeply ironic concept of half history and half side show, which Weber turns into a dime museum diorama. The owner, passing out guns, still intones 'Everybody's got the right to be happy, Everybody's got a right to their dreams.'
Among the deft 16-person cast, Jeremy Rill ( John Wilkes Booth ) and balladeer Michael Mahler are especially sweet-voiced ( and Mahler's banjo-picking provides additional musical detail ) . The comedy scenes are particularly well-played by the scaringly ditzy Sara R. Sevigny ( Sara Jane Moore ) , Maggie Portman ( Squeakie Fromme ) and wild-eyed Daniel Allar ( Samuel Byck ) . From intense Jeremy Trager ( Giuseppe Zangara ) to impish Steve Best ( Charles Guitteau ) to delightful chorus kid Sam Schumacher, there's no fault to be found with this crew.
Curiously amoral, Assassins conveys that shooting the Prez won't fulfill your dreams, but never says it's wrong. Indeed, Booth proclaims, 'What I did was kill a man who killed my country.' Its message about American desire and violence certainly is provocative during our current dark national time.