Assassins

THEATER Kicking off its 20th season with a bang, Philadelphia’s Arden Theater Company presents Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical Assassins. With movies like Shoot ‘Em Up and The Brave One recently opening, the show, with a book by John Weidman, is a perfect fit in a fall season where murder is in the air. Though the body count is much less the victims, and their killers, have a much higher profile.

The show maintains a carnival atmosphere profiling men and women who have attempted to assassinate US Presidents. Director Terrence Nolan makes good use of the entire theater space to expand the area where these living ghosts can suddenly appear. As with history, they’ve made their mark and will never go away. Nolan has perfectly put together a solid cast that really knocks ‘em dead.

The opening song lures us in with a jolt as the character of the Proprietor (Jay Pierce) says if you’re feeling blue to "c'mon and shoot a president" to cheer yourself up. And as the song goes on, everyone is eventually, lovingly singing, “Everybody’s Got the Right” to their dreams, as if they were in A Little Night Music.

We initially meet “the father of presidential assassins” John Wilkes Booth (Jeffrey Coon) who is serenaded by the Balladeer, musically asking, “Why did you do it, Johnny?” The Balladeer is also the character of Lee Harvey Oswald (Ben Dibble) who is pushed by Booth to avoid suicide and make a name for himself. Strong portrayals of these two pistol-packing powerhouses bookend the show filled with profiles by performers that all also hit a bulls-eye.

The conversation between Lynette `Squeaky’ Fromme (Erin Brueggemann) and Sara Jane Moore (Mary Martello) who both made attempts on the life of Gerald Ford displays a lot of humor while contrasting the imbalance of one woman who was obsessively devoted to her man, Charlie Manson, and another who had paranoid tendencies and married five times. Unrequited love is the reason John Hinckley (Timothy Hill) attempted to kill Ronald Reagan, looking to gain the attention of actress Jodie Foster.

Scott Greer has a few intensely manic moments as the Santa suit-wearing Samuel Byck who attempted to off Richard Nixon, but a real scene-stealer is James Sugg as the man who killed President Garfield, Charles Guiteau. He is incredibly delighted at his success, climbing the stairs to be hanged and gleefully singing “I am going to the Lordy.”

We live in a time when the themes of this show can be disturbing. Suicide bombers regularly pick their mark, reasoning that they are making the world better. The selected assassins may have been delusional but had similarly varied reasons – love, anger, or egotism – for what they did. But it’s the outstanding performers who recite the cleverly constructed words and make us look beyond the famous events presented here that make this a killer show.