A Killer Musical -- Seattle Troupe Unfurls Sondheim's `Assassins'

Imagine an uptempo song-and-dance revue about the killers and would-be killers of U.S. presidents.

Think of it: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme harmonizing with John Wilkes Booth. John Hinckley swapping choruses with Lee Harvey Oswald and Sara Jane Moore.

And all of them, along with five others bent on knocking off various presidents, belting out a number set in a carnival shooting gallery.

Stephen Sondheim is probably the only major American composer who could get away with such a minor key concept. And Sondheim might just be the only one who would dream of attempting it.

"Assassins," with music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by John Weidman, will open its debut Seattle run Thursday at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre, under the charge of the Music Theatre Workshop.

It's a show about a particularly American breed of violence. And the Off-Broadway premiere in 1991 alienated many critics.

Known for pushing boundaries

That wasn't the first time Sondheim challenged his audience by pushing the thematic boundaries of the American musical.

In "Pacific Overtures" (a 1976 collaboration with Weidman), Sondheim crammed 120 years of Japanese history into his musical study of East-West relations and social transformation.

In 1979, with Hugh Wheeler, he forged "Sweeney Todd," a grisly indictment of the Industrial Revolution.

Sondheim also has charted the pressures of aging and marital erosion in a society obsessed with youth and beauty ("Follies"), and the excesses and rewards of obsessive love (in the current Sondheim-James Lapine musical, "Passion").

But "Assassins" has attracted one of the harshest critical receptions. Time Magazine wrote it off as "a sketchbook, sparse and almost forgettable in its musical elements, dominated by skits that would have been too extreme for `Saturday Night Live' in its heyday."

New Republic critic Robert Brustein approved of the theme, but objected to the (pardon the expression) execution.

"Scorsese's `Taxi Driver' provided much more insight into the motives of political assassins," Brustein complained, "and Altman's `Nashville' accompanied such insights with better music."

Such criticism prompted Sondheim to add a new song to "Assassins" (the reflective "Something Just Broke") and he made other alterations before a London run.

The English version won many more kudos than the short-lived New York production. And it is the revamped "Assassins" that director Tammis Doyle is introducing to Seattle.

A musical with ideas

Doyle, who runs the 4-year-old Music Theatre Workshop, says the daring show fits her mission to mount "musicals with challenging content. I'm excited about musicals that have ideas."

And the idea that anchors "Assassins"?

"I think it asks us to look at some of the assassins' motives. Sondheim and Weidman aren't glorifying or trivializing those motives, but they're saying these people can't just be dismissed as freaks and crazies. They don't come out of nowhere, they come out of us."

The 90-minute musical offers a string of short scenes and darkly acerbic tunes about the longings and frustrations of presidential stalkers. These are linked by a balladeer's commentary and the reactions of an "everyman" chorus.

Hinckley and Fromme team up for a bizarre love duet ("Unworthy of Your Love"). And Moore and Booth, joined by James Garfield assassin Charles Guiteau and William McKinley killer Leon Czolgosz sing a celebratory "Gun Song."

Though "Assassins" never reached Broadway, it's had a strong afterlife in college and regional theaters. Doyle is proud her small company has first Seattle dibs on the work - which it is mounting on a modest $15,000 budget. "I'm really lucky to get such a good cast for this," she reflects. "Most of these people are used to being in much bigger shows, at Village Theatre and Seattle Civic Light Opera."

To get a handle on the subject at hand, Doyle urged her actors to bone up on their infamous characters. She also took them to a shooting range for target practice.

"We're using guns and blanks onstage, but it's important for everyone to know how it feels to shoot at something with real bullets. I want them to understand that very ironic `Gun Song' lyric: `Squeeze your little finger back/ And you can change the world.' "