SINGING ASSASSINS
a review of the Shotgun Players' production of Steven Sondheim's Assassins, playing until November 11th
By Velia De Iuliis
 |
| Here we go |
As pure theater goes, there’s nothing like a Presidential assassination. It might be a one-time-only performance, but what a performance. The Shotgun Players' production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins follows nine of our most infamous citizens and tries to get at what drove them to think that assassinating the President was a good idea and that they were ready to play the starring role or at least the villain in a national epic. It’s a complex and ambitious project and Shotgun’s choice of material at this moment and time is deliberately purposeful. If you love theater, you love chaos; although assassinations are not the type of theatrical chaos we want, or if we do, we should think long and hard about our desires. Shining a light on these characters is a necessary act and we don’t just get the ones we are well aware of, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald (they both have three names), but a host of lesser known assassins ranging from Charles Guiteau (Steven Hess) who killed James Garfield (1881) and Leon Czolgosz (Dan Saki) who killed William McKinley (1901) to Giuseppe Zangara (fabulously played by Aleph Ayin), who assassinated Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak but who really wanted to kill President Roosevelt (1933).
