While at work earlier this week, I was having a discussion with a colleague who is not a fan of musicals in the slightest. I can always understand when someone may not like musicals...especially when they are often viewed in the manner of being overly frivolous.
She was curious about Stephen Sondheim as she was not really familiar with him but had a vague recollection of hearing his name before. I listed a couple of his more well known credits to her (lyricist for West Side Story, did the full score for Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods) and then mentioned how he was a monumental and revelatory figure in the musical world, and honestly theatre in general.
I talked about how he once said in an interview that he didn't necessarily want to make people unhappy but he wasn't interested in having his musicals be a place where you could forget your troubles. He wanted to make people think and challenge the audience. I also stressed he loved tackling topics that might make some do a double take when it is described to them. After referring to Sweeney Todd, I said the following:
"He even did a musical in which various assassins from over the years who either attempted or succeeded in killing a President all met in some kind of cosmic void together to sing about their dreams and goals".
Her response: "Wait...what?!?!"
And she was immediately intrigued.
So with that, welcome to my second installment of A Little Sondheim Music and I will be discussing Assassins, which is easily one of the best works in the Sondheim canon top to bottom. It is remarkable that it works as well as it does, especially considering the subject matter at hand.
The origins of Assassins began in 1979 when Sondheim was participating as a panelist at the Ostrow Musical Theatre Lab. While there, Sondheim read a script by a young playwright named Charles Gilbert Jr that was called Assassins. The play actually had nothing to do with what Sondheim and Weidman's Assassins would actually become as it involved a Vietnam vet who would soon become a Presidential assassin (sort of a Taxi Driver element there) but the opening scene would contain a darkly comedic bit in which a bright neon sign would blare out: SHOOT THE PREZ & WIN A PRIZE!
Sondheim, being known for wanting to always try bold subject matter and the challenges in which they offered, was highly intrigued by this scene and asked Gilbert permission to steal the Assassins title and this opening scene with the promise of giving him a "Based on an idea by" credit. Gilbert agreed and also hoped he could write the book for the musical. Sondheim declined as he actually hoped to write the show was his Pacific Overtures collaborator John Weidman.
I feel like describing Assassins in terms of its plot beyond the basic idea of "group of Presidential Assassins meet in some kind of dream world that transcends time and space" is a little hard to do.
The musical begins with a character called The Proprietor who begins singing the song "Ev'rybody's Got The Right" as he entices various misfits into purchasing gun's because they have right "to be happy" and to pursue "their dreams". Though The Proprietor seems more focused on enticing them to do one thing: "C'mon and shoot a president".
As various assassins from history pile in: Charles J. Guiteau (assassin of President Garfield), Leon Czolgosz (assassin of McKinley), Guiseppe Zangara (attempted assassin of FDR), Samuel Byck (attempted of Nixon), Sara Jane Moore and Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme (both failed at getting Ford), John Hinckley (attempted to kill Reagan), the Proprietor then introduces them to the pioneer of the field: John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
From there, Booth quickly departs from the group and we hear a loud gunshot and the proclamation "Sic semper tyrannis!" and we get our first introduction to The Balladeer, usually played by a young man with a folksy edge who symbolizes the idea of The American Dream.
Assassins was the one musical of his works that Sondheim felt came the closest to "perfect". In some ways, I can actually understand why he may feel that way.
I already stated that I felt this was one of his best musicals top to bottom, but I do have to reiterate that if you take the quality of the libretto and place it with the music that Sondheim wrote, this may very well be his most thought-provoking, hilarious, disturbing, and entertaining work.
It has been a dream of mine for a while to get a chance to perform in this piece. Several of the roles are fantastic but I have always been drawn to that of Guiteau, the man who assassinated President Garfield on the basis that God basically told him to.
If you have not heard any of the score, below is "The Ballad of Guiteau" which is sung by The Balladeer along with Guiteau himself as he is being led to his execution. Some of the dialogue and lyrics are directly taken from recitations that Guiteau made on the day of his hanging.
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I am also fond of how they pair some of the assassins together based on common bonds or similar interests, such as how Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme often share scenes together due to how both of them tried to assassinate Gerald Ford...but then you also get Fromme being paired with John Hinckley.
In "Unworthy of Your Love", Hinckley sings of how he wants to earn the love of Jodie Foster and plans to do so by assassinating Ronald Reagan. Fromme proclaims her love for her leader Charlie Manson and is trying to earn his love via trying to commit many violent acts.
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