ASSASSINS - TRINITY HALL MUSICALS
Multiple assassination may not at first seem like a good idea for a musical. But in the hands of Stephen Sondheim and his librettist John Waldman, this is a damn good shot. The show premiered in 1990 and has never been in the first rank of Sondheim productions. It is fairly rarely seen. So bullet-proof hats off to Trinity Hall Musical for putting on ‘Assassins’ in its small lecture theatre. The intimacy of the venue, added an extra charge to what was a hugely enjoyable, high energy, very well acted and sung production. The play with music, envisages a kind of Purgatory for actual and would-be killers of US presidents. They gather in a kind of haunted limbo to egg each other on to commit the gunning down of Lincoln, Garfield, Reagan (survived) and Kennedy. We peer through dialogue and acerbic song into the psyche of the killers: Booth the furious Southerner doing his Brutus to Caeser act, and Lee Harvey Oswald egged on by the assassins of the past.
The production fizzed and crackled with some excellent solo singing including Greg Worden as a demented fantasist angry that his president has not made him US Ambassador to France. Izzy Lane dressed as a sinister clown did a wonderful job as the devilish MC in a circus of despair. There was total commitment from the whole cast and ensemble and given the tiny stage, some clever stage management balletics directed by Jaeyen Lain and Naomi Rafferty.
Will Bennet as Wilkes Booth was plausibly furious but kept his anger at Lincoln as trapped steam in a pressure cooker. His character becomes an agent provocateur to the other murderers while Hattie Jones as the killer of President McKinley needs little encouragement. Her character of Leon Czolgosz was brought chillingly to life (and death), and we learn about his drive as an anarchist to kill the symbol of social oppression. Batya Reich was a tour de force as another unhinged would-be killer, Samuel Byck, a self-loathing loner who blames the world, not least President Nixon, for his life’s failure. His plan to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House came to nought (but perhaps gave an idea to other more successful murderers in 2001).
There is a lot packed into this show and Trinity Hall made it work. True, some of the actors were a touch too shouty and most assassinations (or attempts) were unseen off-stage (which I thought dissipated the tension unnecessarily). That said this was a fine student production that should have encouraged the audience to listen to the album and seek out other productions of this neglected Sondheim.
