Assassins

music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

book by John Weidman

directed by Phoebe Wray

at The Boston Conservatory Theater

"Hey pal-feeling blue? Don't know what to do?/ Hey pal-I mean you/ ...C'mere and kill a president," chants the Proprietor at the opening of Assassins, the Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical about the frustrated men and women who have attempted to assassinate presidents of the United States. Area theatergoers were afforded a rare treat this weekend as The Boston Conservatory staged an entirely professional and well executed production of Sondheim's latest work.

Assassins, which was originally produced in 1990 at Playwright's Horizons, played only a limited engagement in New York, forcing all who wanted to see the show, save those lucky enough to have gotten a subscription, to wait up to eight hours in line each day in the hope of gaining one of the few available seats.

Assassins is a uniquely Sondheim piece in its unconventional subject matter. Yet it is a rather short work, (it runs about 90 minutes), almost half of which consists of John Weidman's witty scenes which play more like a series of vignettes than as a progressing storyline.

The show, which covers over a century of history, from John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln in 1865 to the present, is a "non-realistic" presentation whose characters and events betray time and space, travelling between years to connect with each other.

The musical numbers are similarly fashioned. They are a cycle of very different styles, comprising a virtual history of traditional American music, from folk ("The Ballad of Booth") to Souza ("How I Saved Roosevelt") to Bubblegum Pop ("Unworthy of Your Love").

These scenes and numbers are connect by the sentiment that the assassin's stories make up a single history which is a uniquely American one, the despair of people whose dreams have not come true in a country whose citizens can, and do, expect so much.

Sondheim's score, though lean, cleverly adapts American styles, adding a frighteningly ironic twist though lyrics which portray anything but traditional American sentiments.

The Souza March is a press conference delivered by people who witnessed the attempted assassination of FDR by Giuseppe Zangara, each of whom is clawing for the media attention which the lucky happenstance has provided them.

The beautiful pop-love song, "Unworthy of Your of Love," is a duet in which John Hinckley declares his devotion to Jodi Foster ("I am unworthy of your love, Jodi darling") while Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme declares hers for Charles Manson.

Unlike other Sondheim musicals, however, the score is not the towering star of the evening. John Weidman's book is excellent, and provides many of the best moments of the evening.

The monologues of the unemployed tiresalesman Sam Byck, his tape-recorded messages to Leonard ("Lenny") Bernstein and Richard ("Dick") Nixon, are marvelously witty and display a perfect understanding of the mind of the paranoiac.

The most powerful scene in the play, wonderfully directed by Phoebe Wray, in which Leon Czolgosz tells of the torture of slaving over a hot oven in a bottle-making factory, but cannot bring himself to release his anger by breaking a bottle at a bar, is almost too painful to watch.

Phoebe Wray's staging is a solid recreation of the original which works well. The set and lighting designs, which seem brighter than those of the New York production, add an energy which the all too dark designs of the original lacked.

The nine-piece orchestra also adds a fullness to the production which the original, performed with only three pieces and an elaborate computer system, did not have. (The CD recording, made after the New York production, was done with a 33 piece orchestra.)

The performers are powerful actors and singers and create convincing portraits of the assassins. Abe Sylvia's portrayal of Czolgosz is heart wrenching, Matt Walton (John Wilkes Booth) and Brian Mack (Zangara) are similarly captivating. Strong-voiced Jennifer Zimmerman makes a wonderfully comedian Sara Jane Moore.

Perhaps the fact that many of the best moments of this musical are non-musical sequences is a weakness of the show. And Weidman's book writing, though strong and witty, is not entirely successful at weaving a continuum between the scenes.

However, Assassins is a very effective and interesting work and the Boston Conservatory production was certainly worthy of the material.