Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Polly Findlay
Designed by Lizzie Clachan
Choreographer Neil Bettles
Chichester Festival Theatre
Tuesday 6th June 2023, 19.30
CAST
The Proprietor – Peter Forbes
Leon Czolgosz – Sam Oladeinde
John Hinkley- Jack Shalloo
Charles Guiteau- Harry Hepple
Guiseppe Zangara- Luke Brady
Samuel Byck- Nick Holder
Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme- Carly Mercedes Dyer
Sara Jane Moore- Amy Booth-Steel
John Wilkes Booth – Danny Mac
Ballader 1- Liam Tamne
Ballader 2 / Bystander 5- Lizzie Connoly
Ballader 3/ Lee Harvey Oswald – Samuel Thomas
Herold / Bystander 1 / McKinley / Ford – Bob Harmes
Bystander 2/ Fairgoer 2 / Garfield- Ivan de Freitas
Bystander 3 / Fairgoer 1 / Emma Goldman – Charlotte Jaconelli
Bystander 4 / Fairgoer 3- Kody Mortimer
Onstage swing – Daniel Bowskill
Onstage swing- Jamie Pruden
Boy – Reuben McGreevy / Alex Medina
Supernumeries- Neil Chadwick, Tiffany Clark, Luc Oratis
Assassins is the often-produced, highly-acclaimed late Sondheim musical, first produced in 1990. We’re seeing it on its third day in Chichester, ahead of press night, so early in the run. As it seemed so highly polished and professional, I’m assuming it’s at full quality.
It’s done in one act at 1 hour 45 minutes (actually a good five to seven minutes longer).
Chichester goes to town with lobby decoration setting the tone, flags, garlands, staff in baseball caps, popcorn. There’s a hot dog stall outside. The musicians are in red baseball caps and US flag ties too when we get in. The theatre space has been dramatically altered.
The eight horn / woodwind players are in two curved pits highly visible on the stage. A walkway has been built right out into the centre of the audience. There are large video screens either side. Go in as soon as the doors open, because you’re straight into a pre-show with music and dancers in carnival / US convention costumes. So it starts off with loads of ZING! It maintains it. The picture is before the show from my seat. We were REALLY close to the action.
I haven’t seen it before, but I bought the play text, and it is a radical and elaborate interpretation. The centre area is supposed to be a carnival stall (i.e. fairground stall), but it’s here the Oval Office. Later it gets trashed (the Biden inauguration riots instigated by Trump? If so, it’s not pointed out. They are just tidying it up).
The “proprietor” or carny (Peter Forbes) has now become a tanned, smart-suited politician with stars ‘n’ stripes tie in presidential style. A “booster.”
The ‘Balladeer’ (“a 20th century folksinger with guitar or mandolin” in the play script) has become a trio of TV news presenters from channels like CCN and FXX singing into their news mics.
The characters we focus on are nine American assassins or would-be assassins. Eight are brought up from the audience in modern US street clothes, and invited to participate in ‘Shoot the Prez’. Each of the eight goes to their assigned lighted places, and at the end of the scene, they pick up the costume boxes placed there. Once the story commences and we see them in their historical roles, they are in the appropriate costumes and wigs. At the end, they return to street clothes / own hair.
Thirteen people have tried to kill the President of the United States,. Four have succeeded, These murderers and would-be murderers are generally dismissed as maniacs and misfits who have little in common with each other , and nothing common with the rest of us.
John Weidman, intro to play text.
The programme says that Sondheim and Weidman thought of other assassinations, like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, but decided to focus only on presidents.
The story is bookended by the best-known two, John Wilkes Booth (Danny Mac) and Lee Harvey Oswald (Samuel Thomas), though Oswald is not one of the original eight and only appears at the end.
On Lincoln. Sorry, for the umpteenth time, the journalist joke:
That’s all very sad, Mrs Lincoln, and my deepest condolences, but what did you think of the play?
The play has been produced in the UK before but does have cultural issues with the characters. I have a degree in American Studies with a third year option on US politics, and I can’t remember who all the assassins were or when. The programme is an essential and clear guide.
I’ll simplify it here:
| year | assassin | president | result |
| 1865 | John Wilkes Booth | Abraham Lincoln | killed |
| 1881 | Charles Guiteau | James A. Garfield | wounded, died 79 days later sepsis |
| 1901 | Leon Czolgosz | William McKinley | killed |
| 1933 | Giuseppe Zangara | Franklin D. Roosevelt | missed, killed Mayor of Chicago next to him |
| 1963 | Lee Harvey Oswald | John F. Kennedy | killed |
| 1974 | Samuel Byck | Richard Nixon | plot to crash plane into White House failed, but killed two people |
| 1975 | Lynette Squeaky Fromme | Gerald Ford | gun failed |
| 1975 | Sara Jane Moore | Gerald Ford | missed |
| 1981 | John Hinckley | Ronald Reagan | wounded, saved by modern medicine |
Quite a catalogue.
In Assassins Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore are in concert to kill the hapless Gerald Ford, but in reality were separate and tried 17 days apart. The combination is a bonus, because the two form a double act that gives the best comedy in the musical. Fromme (Carly Mercedes-Dyer) is a Charles Manson disciple / girlfriend. Sarah Jane (Amy Booth-Steel) is from Manson’s home state, West Virginia. Amy Booth-Steel is a brilliant comedian, outstanding throughout, never less so than when sharing a joint and getting the giggles with Lynette. Trying out the shooting on a Colonel Sanders chicken wings tub is a wonderful moment.
Samuel Byck (Nick Holder) is in deranged Santa Claus costume and gets a long solo speech addressed into a tape recorder to send to Leonard Bernstein. This is self-reflecting and a lovely in-joke as Byck wants more lyrics like West Side Story which was Bernstein and Sondheim’s greatest work … my old music teacher thought it the greatest work of the 20th century, but that was in 1962 so there’s a lot he didn’t know.
John Hinkley (Jack Shalloo) is the one obsessed by Jodie Foster, and her face fills the screens (who interestingly was in the film Carny with Robbie Robertson … did Sondheim make a Carny connection there).
The early two, Leon Czolgosz ( Sam Oladeinde) and Guiseppe Zangara (Luke Brady) are the ones we see executed, and manage to bring pathos into the story. It works changing Czolgosolz from Polish to African-American in this version. You start to feel sorry for both, quite a feat given what they did.
We only get glimpses of presidents, if at all. Charles Guiteau (Harry Hepple) brings flamboyance.
A major positive was the choreography- all ages and sizes all dancing. I love to see that, rather than the usual chorus line. Everyone can sing – Luke Brady stood out as Zangara (and the electrocution scene was a theatrical tour de force).
As to the story, or aims, I was unsure. Why is everyone, led by John Wilkes Booth, trying to persuade Oswald to kill Kennedy, which was not his original intent? I suppose the conspiracy theories are a whole other musical (or ten musicals). Yes, the point is everyone’s got the right to be president in the USA, but everyone’s got the right to bear arms and kill people. Which other country has had four leaders assassinated? Then towards the end, there was a parade of presidents on the video screens from Kennedy to Trump, but no Joe Biden. I suppose it would be bad form / bad luck to include the current office holder.
It’s a hard one to assess. We have five stars for direction, set design (if only there was a sixth), comedy performance, singing, choreography. But I’m going for four overall. The reason? Sondheim. This is a bit like saying William Shakespeare. Hamlet. “Could be improved. 4 stars.” This is STEPHEN SONDHEIM! yes, and he tries to be eclectic with the music too, with gospel as Leon goes to be hanged, brassy presidential rally, Appalachian, but early on he does the classic musical thing which always irritates me, carrying too much of the essential setting up and story in song. That dilutes later when characters get to speak more, and Weidman’s dialogue is very good indeed. An obvious response to that is that every song was new to me, so the one that stuck, Everybody’s Got The Right, is the one that appeared twice.
Looking back at my review of Follies I may need to admit that I love Sondheim as a lyricist, but not so much as a composer. He doesn’t evoke 1963 or 1975 or 1981 at all in this. It’s simply not his thing. He’s OK with earlier.
1963 Texas? It should be Country & Western or Girl Group. It’s stage musical.
1975 with a Manson cult member? I’d use a Grateful Dead style. It’s stage musical.
1981 and Hinkley? I’d be torn between John Lennon and Michael Jackson. It’s stage musical.
Going home in the car, Sweet Home Alabama which was playing in the lobby as we went in, stuck in my head, more than the songs in the musical.
Chichester musicals tend to move to the West End. I’d much rather see it in Chichester with the incredible staging, comfortable seats, great eye lines, excellent restaurant, easy and cheap parking. This is also vastly improved comparing it to the text or photos of earlier productions. I’d hazard this is the best it’s been done.
****
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Follies, National Theatre 2019
West Side Story, 2021 film
POLLY FINDLAY
A Number, by Caryl Churchill, Bridge Theatre 2020
Macbeth, RSC 2018
The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, RSC 2016
As You Like It, National Theatre, 2015
The Merchant of Venice, RSC 2015
Arden of Faversham, RSC 2014
PETER FORBES
Jack Absolute Rides Again, National Theatre, 2022
NICK HOLDER
As You Like It, RSC 2013
Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2012
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