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| Isaac Gordon (Leon Czogosz) - Jarrad West (John Wilkes Booth) - Jonathan Rush (Charles Guiteau) |
Co-directed by Kelly Roberts and Grant Pegg
Musical Direction by Alexander Unikowski
Set Designed by Christopher Zuber
Costumes Designed by Jennie Norberry
Costumes Designed by Jennie Norberry
Lighting designed by Stephen Still –
Sound Designed by Nathan Patrech
Presented by Everyman Theatre - Belconnen Theatre until 21st
Sept.
Reviewed by Bill Stephens.
“Assassins”
is not a likeable musical. But then it’s not meant to be. With a book by John
Weidman and brilliant music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, “Assassins” is a
searing comment on gun violence in America, and feels even more prescient today
than when it was first premiered in 1990.
The musical
focusses on nine disparate characters who've embedded themselves, either
deliberately or by accident, in history, by assassinating, or attempting to
assassinate, an American President.
For their
production for Everyman Theatre, directors Kelly Roberts and Grant Pegg have
chosen a stark, Brechtian presentation, with a minimalist setting, designed by
Christopher Zuber, which embraces the ambiance of the Belconnen Theatre to
create a harsh, alienating environment. The only decoration being a canvas
drape suggesting a faded Stars and Stripes hanging on the back wall, a rack of
costumes, and a decaying western chuck-wagon from which the nine characters
emerge, each carrying rough wooden crates, emblazoned with their names. These
crates contain any props they need for their performance.
The entire
cast remain onstage throughout the performance, which lasts around 100 minutes
without an interval. So does Alexander Unikowski’s excellent seven-piece band
which is tucked in one corner in full view of the audience.
Within this
uncompromising environment the action revolves around the interaction between
these characters, who with one exception, never met in real life, with the
directors confidently employing excellent lighting and sound, appropriate
costuming and a range of theatrical devices, including balloons, bubbles and
confetti, to enhance and embellish the fine performances of their uniformly
excellent ensemble cast.
To justify
the taunting ballad which opens the show, “Everybody’s got the right to be
Happy”, each character is given the opportunity to explain their perverted
motivations, either in song or monologue, often to unintentionally comic
effect, even though none is set up as a caricature.
As actor
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre
in Washington, Jarrad West offers an appropriately theatrical performance,
particularly chilling as he convinces the confused Lee Harvey Oswald that he
should assassinate President Kennedy.
Jim Adamik unnerves with his intense portrayal of the Santa
Claus-costumed Samuel Byck who attempted to hijack a plane to assassinate
President Nixon by flying it into the White House.
Joel
Hutchings gives a strong portrayal of Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara whose
attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt seventeen days
before Roosevelt’s inauguration, sent him to the electric chair complaining
that there were no photographers at his execution.
Belle Nicol
is mesmerising as the hippy member of the “Manson Family”, Lynette “Squeaky”
Fromme, who joins forces in an attempt to assassinate President Ford, with the
confused Sara Jane Moore, sympathetically portrayed by Tracy Noble in a
delightfully comic performance.
Jonathan
Rush finds pathos in the predicament of the crazed bearded evangelist, Charles
Guiteau, who desperately sings “I’m Going to the Lordy” as he’s hanged for
assassinating President James Garfield, while Isaac Gordon as Leon Czolgosz the
steel worker who assassinated President William McKinley and Will Collett as
would-be assassin, John Hinkley Jr, who attempted to assassinate President
Ronald Reagan, both provide compelling characterisations.
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| Pippin Carroll (The Balladeer) |
However,
among all these excellent performances,
it is the superbly sung performance of Pippin Carroll as the charming
balladeer who morphs into the confused Lee Harvey Oswald, taunted by the
assembled ghosts of the others assassins, into shooting President John Kennedy,
reprised with chilling footage of the actual event to provide a haunting climax
to this excellently realised production, that
burns itself into the psyche and lifts this production beyond just mere
entertainment, especially in a week which heralds the trial of the perpetrator
of the New Zealand massacre.
Photos by Janelle McMenamin
This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 8th Sept. 2019