Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
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Music CD Cover
Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 2004-08-03
Music Label: P.S. Classics
Soundtracks:
- Everybody's Got The Right
- Ballad Of Booth
- Ladies And Gentlemen, A Toast!
- How I Saved Roosevelt
- What Does A Man Do...?
- Gun Song
- Ballad Of Czolgosz
- Unworthy Of Your Love
- I Am A Terrifying And Imposing Figure...!
- Ballad Of Guiteau
- Have It Your Way
- Another National Anthem
- Take A Look Lee
- Something Just Broke
- Everybody's Got The Right
Free Music Notes for Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
Free Music Review: Parting shots
Hit: 4 Stars
Stephen Sondheim's 1991 revue-style musical about US presidential assassins, which intelligently shows the drak Dionysian underside of the Apollonian American dream, has acquired a great cult following since its premiere. In 2001 it was decided to re-mount the show in New York, this time on Broadway, but the events of 9/11 prompted the producers to put it off for another three years until feelings were less raw about national tragedies. In many ways this is a much more successful re-mounting of the show than the original off-Broadway production: the orchestrations are much richer and more clever, and allow for more texture to the entirety. Moreover, this version retains the song added during the London run of the musical, "Something Just broke," which shows the shock and horror of ordinary US citizens when they heard of the four successful presidential assassinations (of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy), which may7 not be musically the most beautiful song Stephen Sondheim has ever written but which is absolutely necessary to convey the repercussions of what the assassins have done. In the original production, Oswald's assassination of Kennedy was treated as more important and more devastating than the assassinations of Garfield and McKinley (and perhaps even of Lincoln), a sentimental choice which may have reflected the personal experience of Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine but which seemed to work strongly against the transhistorical perspective of the musical (which has all the assassins existing and committing their crimes in near simultaneity). Here all the assassinations are treated as devastating, which seems much more in keeping with the show's intentions and seems much fairer to the memories of those who lived in the time of Garfield and McKinley.
The best thing about this show is it offers a wonderful showcase for singing actors to show their stuff as the assassins and as their two provocateurs and commentators, the Proprietor and the Balladeer (who later morphs into Lee Harvey Oswald). The cast here features several absolutely splendid singers, led by Marc Kudisch (in glorious voice as the Proprietor), Michael Cerveris (who won a Tony Award for his sweet-voiced portrayal of John Wilkes Booth), Jeffrey Kuhn (as Giuseppe Zangara, the explosively furious unsuccessful assassin of FDR) and Neil Patrick Harris (as the Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald). Equally strong is Denis O'Hare, who gives an adorably optimistic and scruffy voice (somewhat reminiscent of Paul Winchell's Tigger for the Disney films) to Charles Guiteau, the assassin of Garfield.
Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast) Poster
"Everybody's got a right/To their dream." So begins Stephen Sondheim's 1991 show Assassins--and in this case, said dreams involve killing an American president. The characters form a veritable rogues' gallery, including John Hinckley, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth of course, but also half-forgotten luminaries such as Leon Czolgosz (who killed McKinley) and "Squeaky" Fromme (who aimed for Gerald Ford with an unloaded gun). While Sondheim's lyrics are trenchant as ever, his music, which ranges from Sousa pomp to clever little waltzes, is technically brilliant but also oddly uninvolving. (Many fans prefer the recording of the 1991 Off-Broadway version, though "Something Just Broke," which was added to the 1992 London production, makes its recorded debut here.) Still, there are several high points. In "Unworthy of Your Love," for instance, Hinckley and Fromme wax poetic about their unrequited love for Jodie Foster and Charles Manson, respectively, in a Burt Bacharach-style ballad that's deliberately (I hope!) sappy. And of course as with most Sondheim shows, the cast of this revival--Michael Cerveris, Mario Cantone, Becky Ann Baker, Marc Kudisch, Denis O'Hare--is very good. --Elisabeth VincentelliBroadway & Vocalists Music CDs
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