Living & Arts

A play to die for

In print | October 25, 2007

The past Sunday, I was stunned in no less than three ways: 1. discovering that things do happen in the Borough of Swarthmore, 2. having a gun pointed at me, 3. finding that as dark a revisionism of American history as Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” had wormed its way into the quaint theater of the Swarthmore Players Club.

Like much of Sondheim’s work, “Assassins” is not your usual Broadway fodder. Nine assassins or would-be assassins of American presidents are inexplicably brought together and made to interact as if the play were conducting an experiment to find out what they all have in common, despite coming from different time periods and backgrounds. What is it that compelled all nine individuals to want to kill the president of the United States?

The play’s answer isn’t pretty; “Assassins” is trembling with rage at being forsaken by the American dream. It’s a sentiment that director Joseph Southard was gutsy enough to execute to full fruition. In his message to the audience in the production’s playbill, Southard insists, “These are voices we need to hear.” So far, not everyone has agreed. Stage manager Heather Timberman said, “Every night, we’ve had a few people walk out.”

Tonally, the play is a devilish balancing act. Sondheim has subversively melded his beautiful music ~~- filled with Sousa-inspired marching tunes, gospel, and other signifiers of American tradition -~~ to the ugly lyrics of his deranged characters. “Unworthy of your Love,” for instance, is a rock ballad that has John Hinckley pining for Jodie Foster, while Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme worships Charles Manson: “You are wind and devil and God / Charlie / Take my blood and my body.”

Perhaps, the one great example of Sondheim’s dark humor is his unnerving chorus line of assassins, all pointing their guns at the audience in the play’s introduction, “Everybody’s Got the Right.” “Assassins” isn’t a musical that tries to reassure its audience. As Chris McBride, who plays John Hinckley, put it, “You’re playing people that the audience will not and should not sympathize with.”

Stand-outs include Sean Murray as the self-promoting Charles Guiteau, whose small stature but big personality makes his character both entertaining and tragically pathetic, and the play’s odd couple, Liz Seymour and Claudia Carlsson. Their roles as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore respectively are played mostly for laughs, but Seymour and Carlsson milk every second of their performances to black comedy perfection.

Seymour convincingly portrays the fervor with which Fromme followed Charles Manson, while Carlsson makes her paper-thin character both hilarious and terrifying. Carlsson said, “The scenes between Fromme and Moore are just hilarious. You really couldn’t go wrong with them … At the same time, I really tried to show how dangerous she was.”

The character that best captures the voice of the play is Sam Byck, the failed car salesman who planned to fly a plane into Nixon’s White House. David Willis gives Byck a brutally honest and heartfelt performance that makes one momentarily forget about the play’s irony-laced postmodern trappings. Even as Byck, dressed as Santa Claus and shoving fries into his mouth, slouches before his audience as a symbol of all that is execrable in American society, Willis manages to humanize Byck, illuminating his need to be loved.

In spite of how polished this production of “Assassins” seems, Carlsson says that the production had its share of hurdles to tackle. As all of the cast and crew worked for the Players Club are volunteers, it was especially hard to find musicians to play in the pit free of charge and some instrument parts had to be omitted. McBride added, “Every role in this show is impossible,” citing the fact that “Stephen Sondheim, I’m pretty sure, hates singers. His note progressions and chord progressions are just so damn impossible.”

The ensemble cast has nonetheless carried out the play grandly, effectively communicating the play’s fresh ideas about assassins and the ripples they sent through the fabric of our national myths. “Assassins” astutely recognizes assassinations as media events with the power to alter history, as when the narrator tells Booth, “It’s because of you that Lincoln, who got mixed reviews, now gets so many raves.”

Interestingly, “Assassins” also has an underlying compassion for its American heritage that bares itself in a scene where nameless American citizens sing their reactions to their president’s assassination. It is a nuanced number that acknowledges how rthe American dream is both ridiculous yet reassuring. Even as they ridicule the president as a joke, they admit that “something just broke.”

The Players Club Theater is located on Fairview Rd., a ten-minute walk south on Chester Rd. “Assassins” is playing 8 p.m. on Oct. 25 to Oct. 27, 2 p.m. on Oct. 28 and 8 p.m. on Nov. 1 to Nov. 3.