• Contact
  • Log In

Everything Sondheim

  • Features
  • About
    • About Stephen Sondheim
    • Sondheim Bibliography
    • About Everything Sondheim
  • Sondheim Fun
    • Puzzles
    • Sondheim Valentine’s Day Cards
  • Sondheim Shows
    • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    • Pacific Overtures
    • A Little Night Music
    • Follies
    • Company
    • Do I Hear A Waltz?
    • Anyone Can Whistle
    • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
    • Gypsy
    • West Side Story
    • Saturday Night
  • Contact

Assassins in Sydney

October 5, 2017

Production Has a Timely Resonance for Australian Audiences
October 5, 2017
REVIEW BY PETER KHOURY

“Come on and kill a president,” the Proprietor (Rob McDougall, right) urges the would-be assassins at Hayes Theatre Company in Sydney. PHOTO BY PHIL ERBACHER

The Hayes Theatre Company in Sydney delivers a riveting, high energy and highly accomplished production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s 1990 musical Assassins (Sept. 15-Oct. 22, 2017). The political backdrop of the production strongly evokes a Trumpesque universe that is divisive, bizarre, threatening and unpredictable. On the show’s September opening night the Sydney audience gasped then laughed in recognition when the Balladeer sang:

Every now and then the country
Goes a little wrong.
Every now and then a madman’s
Bound to come along.

From the moment the theater doors open and audience members take their seats, the Proprietor is onstage in a director’s chair, engrossed in reading Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal while listening to alt-right commentary on a portable transistor radio. This sets the scene for a Trump backdrop and acts as a prelude to the opening number, “Everybody’s Got the Right.”

The themes in Assassins are timeless and translate well across national boundaries. The individual stories of the assassins (from 1865 and 1981), as well as the collective meanings of their deeds, provoke both introspection and reflection on national dreams, aspirations and myths — whether American, Australian or any other.

Though satirical in tone, the show resonates with concerns that people across the globe now have about violence and terror. Indeed the seeds that create the would-be assassin (or the would-be terrorist) often stem from a similar terrain of disempowerment, frustration and a thirst for revenge. The assassins and their voices in this musical are recognizable — whether on the streets of Charlottesville, the Trump election rallies of 2016 or the agitated far-right marches on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne.

The wayward, diverse characters that inhabit this musical, each with his or her peculiar logic and reason, oscillate between sorrow and stupidity, farce and tragedy, comedy and horror. That’s a challenge for any director undertaking this unconventional show, and Dean Bryant achieves balance brilliantly between the drama and the vaudeville. As the characters fluctuate between the comical and the shocking, Bryant’s careful and slick direction ensures that it doesn’t descend into slapstick or melodrama. The transitions between scenes and within songs and ballads are smooth, fluid and executed with surety and confidence.

David Campbell as John Wilkes Booth in Assassins.      PHOTO BY PHIL ERBACHER

There was much anticipation of David Campbell playing John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and he doesn’t disappoint, giving an impressive performance vocally and dramatically. In this role we see Campbell’s evolution and maturity in another major Sondheim role. American audiences will know him from the New York premiere and cast recording of Saturday Night (2000) in which he played the role of Gene. His previous Sondheim role was as Robert in the Sydney production of Company (2007). As Booth he brings to the role a sense of self-righteous vindictiveness, vanity and the insecurity of a failing alcoholic actor with an exaggerated view of his role in history.

While Campbell well deserves the accolades for his noteworthy performance, equal recognition must be given to the ensemble. Each and every one of them gives a formidable performance. A splendid line-up of vocal richness reverberates throughout the theater and scene after scene as the performers dazzle with their acting, singing and personification of this array of misfits and madmen.

Because of the limited role he plays, we are only given glimpses of Rob McDougall’s lush and commanding baritone voice as the Proprietor. As a would-be poster boy for the NRA, he gives the assassins their weapons, supplies them with ammunition and entices them to “kill a president.” Onstage he exudes a sinister character, fuelling their rage. His delivery of “Everybody’s got the right/To be different./Even though/At times/They go to extremes” is chilling yet operatic.

Maxwell Simon, an exciting new talent making his professional theater debut as the Balladeer, embodies a youthful teen in shorts, sweater, sneakers and guitar-in-hand narrating the stories and following the tradition of Balladeers with songs of hope and optimism. He also interjects and corrects the distortions and falsehoods of the assassins. He powerfully transitions from the cheerful Balladeer to step into the role of Lee Harvey Oswald as a tortured soul, groomed by the other assassins to immortalize himself by shooting President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Such is the power and tension of this scene that it could be imagined in a parallel moment in which Jihadists might brainwash a would-be terrorist to commit a shocking act of vengeance.

Bobby Fox gives the standout performance as Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President James Garfield in 1881 when his desperate desire to become the American ambassador to France was ignored. He sports a haircut straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the fluttering eye movements of a madman and a bowtie to match. Charming but insane, likable but alarming, he gives a brilliant characterization of Guiteau that rises to even more heights as he mounts the gallows steps singing “I am going to the Lordy” in “The Ballad of Guiteau.”

As Giuseppe Zangara, the failed assassin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, Martin Crewes gives an intense and stirring portrayal of the Italian immigrant completely disenfranchised and overwhelmed in a new country. He conveys an agonizing combination of physical pain and mental anguish matched by a forceful vocal performance.

Jason Kos as Leon Czolgosz, President William McKinley’s assassin in 1901, is the convincing embodiment of the wistful proletariat foreign worker, speaking with a heavy Polish accent and burdened by an impending fatalism. Inspired by Emma Goldman, effectively played by Laura Bunting, he powerfully articulates and illuminates a political manifesto of a capitalist system that reproduces vast inequalities between the haves and have-nots in a dog-eat-dog world.

Kate Cole as Sara Jane Moore and Hannah Fredericksen as “Squeaky” Fromme in Assassins. PHOTO BY PHIL ERBACHER

The duo of Kate Cole as Sara Jane Moore and Hannah Fredericksen as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme greatly impress and tantalize as the stoned, ridiculous would-be assassins who shot at President Gerald Ford in 1975. (Fromme had no bullets in her gun!) Their ludicrous machinations generate amusement and awkward laughter from the audience.

Connor Crawford as John Hinckley Jr. and Hannah Fredericksen as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme sing “Unworthy of Your Love” in Hayes Theatre Company’s staging of Assassins. PHOTO BY PHIL ERBACHER

Connor Crawford as John Hinckley Jr. gives a compelling portrait of a troubled, brooding and deluded young man, obsessed with young actress Jodie Foster; to win her love in 1981, he decided to shoot President Ronald Reagan. The duet “Unworthy of Your Love,” sung with Hannah Fredericksen, expresses the pain of unrequited love and the deluded mindset of their infatuation with their love objects: Hinckley with Foster and Fromme with mass murderer Charles Manson.

Justin Smith gives a memorable performance as Samuel Byck, the comic/tragic disheveled fast-talking failed assassin who plans to highjack a plane and crash it into the White House to kill President Richard Nixon in 1974. Dressed as Santa Claus, he mesmerizes and captivates the audience with manic pronouncements and tape-recorded messages to Leonard Bernstein.

Assassins does not follow a typical musical theater structure. It is assembled as a revue, a montage of interconnected scenes. It starts with the dreamlike and mechanical sounds of a carnival fairground and covers a range of musical genres including infusions of traditional folk tunes and rhythms of John Philip Sousa and Stephen Foster. Under the musical direction of Andrew Worboys and Steven Kreamer, and blessed with an ensemble of rich, well projected voices, the singing, tempo control and music arrangements are beautifully realized.

Alicia Clements’ carnival-like scenic design for Assassins at the Hayes Theatre Company in Sydney. PHOTO BY PHIL ERBACHER

The set and costume design by Alicia Clements present a rich multitude of colors, lights, fairground props, posters of presidents as shooting targets, merry-go-round, bumper cars and other carnival regalia depicting a surreal world into which the assassins can escape. A retreat from the real world! Complementing Clements’ colorful and detailed sets is effective lighting by Ross Graham who highlights with careful precision the show’s changing movements and moods. On the Hayes Theatre’s small and limited stage, choreographer Andrew Hallsworth sets in motion steps and movements that add coordinated expression and meaning to the stories.

The show climaxes with “Another National Anthem” in which all of the assassins, in a spirit of defiance and unified dissent, lament the American dream that they have been denied:

There’s another national anthem, folks,
For those who never win,
For the suckers, for the pikers,
For the ones who might have been …

Soon after, the lights focus on the Proprietor happily holding up a copy of The New York Post with a triumphal Donald Trump beaming on the front cover. At last their savior has been found. But be careful what you wish for!

 

PETER KHOURY is a writer and academic in Sydney.

Facebooktwittermail

Filed Under: Review, Sample Contents, Uncategorized

Trackbacks

  1. mlp sex games banned from says:
    December 7, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    rough sex games https://cybersexgames.net/

    Reply
  2. tropicana casino online says:
    December 10, 2021 at 3:30 pm

    turning stone online casino https://casinoonlinek.com/

    Reply
  3. bingo casino online marc lugtenber says:
    December 11, 2021 at 5:37 am

    best online casino usa real money https://onlinecasinoad.com/

    Reply
  4. hallmark casino online says:
    December 12, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    new online casino pa https://casinogamesmachines.com/

    Reply
  5. casino online best payout says:
    December 12, 2021 at 6:35 pm

    top casino online https://conline-casinos-hub.com/

    Reply
  6. best online real money casino says:
    December 13, 2021 at 5:56 am

    canadian online casino https://onlinecasinos4me.com/

    Reply
  7. newest pa online casino says:
    December 13, 2021 at 12:08 pm

    newest online casino pa https://online2casino.com/

    Reply
  8. casino online terpercaya says:
    December 13, 2021 at 8:06 pm

    free online casino no deposit https://casinosonlinex.com/

    Reply
  9. keto gummy bears says:
    December 14, 2021 at 8:49 am

    are chickpeas keto https://ketogenicdiets.net/

    Reply
  10. keto chinese food says:
    December 14, 2021 at 12:19 pm

    keto lunch ideas https://ketogendiet.net/

    Reply
  11. keto salmon says:
    December 15, 2021 at 7:10 am

    keto chicken thighs https://ketogenicdietinfo.com/

    Reply
  12. keto cookies recipes says:
    December 15, 2021 at 11:19 am

    keto cream cheese pancakes https://ketogendiets.com/

    Reply
  13. website to write essays says:
    December 15, 2021 at 4:36 pm

    writing essay conclusion https://anenglishessay.com/

    Reply
  14. writing compare and contrast essays says:
    December 15, 2021 at 11:05 pm

    mba essay writing service https://topessayswriter.com/

    Reply
  15. essay writing company says:
    December 16, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    write essay for money https://yoursuperessay.com/

    Reply
  16. write my essay.com says:
    December 17, 2021 at 3:11 am

    writing essay online https://howtowriteessaytips.com/

    Reply
  17. i need 2021 gay dating site says:
    December 17, 2021 at 10:57 am

    local gay dating sites https://gayprideusa.com/

    Reply
  18. jonathan bennett gay dating says:
    December 17, 2021 at 12:03 pm

    gay handicap dating https://gayfade.com/

    Reply
  19. gay aids dating site says:
    December 17, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    gay boy dating game https://gaysugardaddydatingsites.com/

    Reply
  20. critical thinking in schools says:
    December 19, 2021 at 11:05 am

    critical thinking requires https://criticalthinkingbasics.com/

    Reply
  21. critical thinking questions and answers pdf says:
    December 19, 2021 at 11:52 am

    critical thinking examples in real life https://criticalthinkinginstitute.com/

    Reply
  22. critical thinking skills says:
    December 19, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    critical thinking image https://criticalthinking2020.net/

    Reply
  23. nursing critical thinking says:
    December 19, 2021 at 3:52 pm

    critical thinking test https://uncriticalthinking.com/

    Reply
  24. 3 paragraph essay says:
    December 19, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    opinion essay https://choosevpn.net/

    Reply
  25. long essay says:
    December 19, 2021 at 11:57 pm

    argumentative essay topics 2020 https://thebestvpnpro.com/

    Reply
  26. essay extender says:
    December 20, 2021 at 4:31 am

    memoir essay https://vpnshroud.com/

    Reply
  27. a essay says:
    December 20, 2021 at 5:57 am

    sat essay https://vpnsrank.com/

    Reply
  28. poetry analysis essay example says:
    December 20, 2021 at 8:00 am

    which sentence most likely comes from a narrative essay https://vpn4torrents.com/

    Reply
  29. how to make your essay longer says:
    December 20, 2021 at 9:27 am

    globlization essay https://windowsvpns.com/

    Reply
  30. 1laboriously says:
    December 31, 2021 at 6:35 am

    3singles

    Reply
  31. which of the following statements about dating in gay male and lesbian youth is true? says:
    January 2, 2022 at 11:56 am

    republican gay dating ap https://gayfade.com

    Reply
  32. is plenty of fish a gay dating site? says:
    January 2, 2022 at 12:23 pm

    gay dating sites for people in the closet https://gaysugardaddydatingsites.com

    Reply
  33. 1belated says:
    January 12, 2022 at 7:17 pm

    3promotional

    Reply
  34. gay hot chat says:
    January 14, 2022 at 7:11 am

    free asian chat lines gay https://bjsgaychatroom.info/

    Reply
  35. gay dating stockdale texas says:
    January 14, 2022 at 11:03 am

    gay french dating https://gaypridee.com/

    Reply
  36. gay sex cam chat mobile android says:
    January 14, 2022 at 2:14 pm

    cookeville tn gay chat https://gaytgpost.com/

    Reply
  37. gay dating suite fresno says:
    January 15, 2022 at 8:09 am

    gay dating game orgy https://speedgaydate.com/

    Reply
  38. quick hit slots free says:
    January 28, 2022 at 1:36 pm

    my konami slots for pc https://2-free-slots.com/

    Reply
  39. vegas free slots says:
    January 28, 2022 at 3:16 pm

    caesars casino slots https://freeonlneslotmachine.com/

    Reply
  40. play slots for free says:
    January 28, 2022 at 10:46 pm

    fre slots online https://pennyslotmachines.org/

    Reply
  41. free slots to play online says:
    January 29, 2022 at 1:48 am

    mail slots for walls https://slotmachinesworld.com/

    Reply
  42. slots codes says:
    February 3, 2022 at 12:21 pm

    500 nations free slots https://slotmachinesforum.net/

    Reply
  43. lincoln slots says:
    February 3, 2022 at 4:41 pm

    wow character slots https://slot-machine-sale.com/

    Reply
  44. charlestown slots says:
    February 3, 2022 at 10:03 pm

    free vegas slots online https://download-slot-machines.com/

    Reply
  45. my vegas slots cheat tool says:
    February 4, 2022 at 2:27 am

    free giants gold slots https://411slotmachine.com/

    Reply
  46. jackpotjoy slots says:
    February 4, 2022 at 5:46 am

    birds of prey free slots https://www-slotmachines.com/

    Reply
  47. filthy rich slots free says:
    February 4, 2022 at 10:55 am

    i won $4 at penny slots https://slotmachinegameinfo.com/

    Reply
  48. affordable dissertation help says:
    February 10, 2022 at 1:29 pm

    doctorate without dissertation https://buydissertationhelp.com/

    Reply
  49. dissertation binding says:
    February 11, 2022 at 9:38 am

    online dissertation writing https://dissertationwriting-service.com/

    Reply
  50. cheap dissertation writing services says:
    February 11, 2022 at 1:04 pm

    academic dissertation help https://help-with-dissertations.com/

    Reply
  51. dissertation help services says:
    February 11, 2022 at 5:06 pm

    free dissertation help https://mydissertationwritinghelp.com/

    Reply
  52. best dissertation writing service review says:
    February 11, 2022 at 11:11 pm

    dissertation help services https://dissertations-writing.org/

    Reply
  53. professional dissertation writing help says:
    February 12, 2022 at 2:00 am

    doctoral dissertation writing help me https://helpon-doctoral-dissertations.net/

    Reply

Latest Features

The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia

Rick Pender, founding editor of Everything Sondheim, has created a brand new, … [more]

Keeping Good Company: The Prince-Sondheim Partnership

“We had the same priorities.  We wanted to take the audience where we wanted to … [more]

Interviewing Sondheim

In 1997, Stephen Sondheim sat down with Library of Congress Senior Music … [more]

Everything We Know (and Don’t Know) about Sondheim’s Surrealist Collaboration with David Ives

Editor's note: Since the printing of this article, Sondheim is reportedly no … [more]

The Ups and Downs of ‘Send in the Clowns’

Isn’t it rich? His career arc stretches from writing the lyrics for West Side … [more]

A Gender-Bending Company

Stephen Sondheim and Company director Marianne Elliott discuss the new … [more]

Copyright © 2023 · Everything Sondheim. All rights reserved. · Log in | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT