TWO CRITICS, ONE REVIEW: SONDHEIM’S ‘ASSASSINS’ AT THE ARDEN

Our politics reporter and a theater critic went to the same show. Here’s what they thought.

The cast of Arden Theatre Company's season opener “Assassins”.Ashley Smith/Wide Eyed Studios

Julia Terruso
Alix Rosenfield, For the Inquirer

Published Oct 3, 2023

Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins takes a carnival and makes it a meeting point for historical figures who have all assassinated American presidents. In John Weidman’s book, inspired by a script by University of the Arts professor Charles Gilbert Jr., historical assassins meet fictional ones and what emerges is a biting commentary on the ideals that form the bedrock of America.

A revised version of the musical that opened off-Broadway in 1990 is now playing at the Arden Theatre. The Inquirer’s politics reporter Julia Terruso and theater critic and dramaturge Alix Rosenfeld — who both grew up listening to the musical’s score — watched “this somewhat lesser-known Sondheim” together. We dropped in on their postshow chat.

Alix Rosenfeld
Guest Theater Critic
Alix Rosenfeld: Sondheim is a powerful figure in the history of American theater, so as a professional dramaturge, I’ve dived into his catalog more than once. What are some of your big takeaways from this production?

Julia Terruso
The Inquirer’s Politics Reporter
Julia Terruso: Well, I knew it’d be dark going in. It’s definitely an intense and grim production warning us about how history repeats with an ironic take on the American dream. It’s pretty didactic. My fiancé described it as a “disturbing Schoolhouse Rock.”

Alix Rosenfeld
The musical wants to be dark, and it wants to be an intense and grim ironic take on the American dream, but this production didn’t get there for me.

Julia Terruso
For me, the gunshot effects were a little off-cue and sort of quiet. That took away from what I think would have otherwise been very powerful moments.

The cast of “Assassins” at Arden Theatre Company.Ashley Smith/Wide Eyed Studios

Alix Rosenfeld
At a time when death tolls are shockingly high from gun violence in this country, I was surprised the guns in this show lacked danger. Because of the playfulness with the guns, I stopped associating them with human cost, which is not what I would hope to leave Assassins with.

Julia Terruso
There are moments of levity or humor amid some really dark material. I certainly didn’t hear much laughing. Maybe it’s a sign of the times?

Alix Rosenfeld
I kept jotting down lyrics in my notebook that stood out to me as being particularly poignant, which signals to me that this musical still has relevance. “Everybody’s Got a Right” can be chilling, especially when inciting people to connect with like-minded individuals as we see in the reprise. That can be a dangerous call, these days.

Alix Rosenfeld
Instead of having the group of assassins meet in a carnival setting, director Terry Nolan put them in a basement with a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag front and center, which then morphs into a kind of homage to the madcap aesthetics of a carnival through bright lights.
Paige Hathaway’s robust set was striking, but the conceit busted for me when The Proprietor (played by an underutilized Matteo Scammel) became a gun seller on the dark web. It neutralized the zany and unsettling energy of the original. I got the impression that Nolan didn’t trust the musical’s relevancy and was trying too hard to make it connect to audiences.

Julia Terruso
The overall tone is more morose when you’re watching someone sell guns from a dark basement than the campiness of a carnival and it sets the show up for a darker, less-energized run. That said, I did like how he changed the opening. It felt super relevant. The relevance of the lyrics really stood out to me, too. Lines like “The country is not what it was,” or seeing the man who plotted to assassinate Nixon in a shabby Santa suit pondering, “Who do we believe? Who do we trust?” I thought that monologue was especially effective.

Pictured is Miles Jacoby as John Wilkes Booth and Robi Hager as Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald in the Arden Theatre Company's production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical “Assassins”.Ashley Smith/Wide Eyed Studios

Alix Rosenfeld
Yes, Scott Greer as Samuel Byck delivered the grounded comedy laced with a touch of despair. He’s a favorite at the Arden for a reason!

Julia Terruso
As a political reporter in 2023, I may be the target audience here. It’s really hard not to make a connection between the discontent and warped sense of patriotism displayed in the production and some of what we’re seeing in the country. I talk to a lot of voters and the divisions are so extreme and feelings of isolation and unfairness so pervasive — to hear some of that in the mouths of historical assassins shook me a little. I covered Jan. 6 outside of the Capitol for The Inquirer, and many of the people engaged in that saw it as a patriotic act.
That said, the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and the assassination of a president are such different events, even if they share similar treasonous themes. But the show seemed to be attempting to connect all sorts of American tragedies to the assassinations.

Alix Rosenfeld
Why do you think that choice was made?

Julia Terruso
There was a song that was added after the initial run. “Something Just Broke” shifts the narrative to non-assassins reflecting on where they were when they found out a president was killed. It seems like the moment in the show where we’re supposed to find a little bit of togetherness and maybe there’s an element of resilience or even hope baked in.

Alix Rosenfeld
I didn’t get a sense of hopefulness, but I confess I was distracted by the projections that were going in the background behind the actors. Jorge Cousineau’s contributions, while visually dynamic and play well with Hathaway’s two-story set, are used liberally, and at times they upstage the action — particularly in “Something Just Broke.” I lost the message of the song.
I also wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be rooting for in the end, which might be part of the issue. A possible message from the show is that anyone has the potential to become that despondent and in need of agency and control to the point that they would take desperate action to get it.

Julia Terruso
That’s a through line I felt — all these people from very different backgrounds united in a feeling they’ve lost out on their version of the American dream (and who probably also had in common some serious mental health challenges). I think at its core, though, the history lesson might be what I enjoyed most. The reminder that history repeats and attention must be paid. Any final takeaways for you?

Alix Rosenfeld
Despite production choices that can cause confusion or water down the intended reverberations of the source material, Assassins is still a musical worth viewing, if only to see the kinds of connections individual audience members can make. That’s part of what made this conversation so enjoyable — we both had varied reactions because of what we brought to the table!

“Assassins,” Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. 2nd Street, Phila., through Oct. 22, ardentheatre.org.

Two Critics, One Review is produced independently by The Inquirer without editorial input by its sponsor, Visit Philadelphia.

Reporters: Julia Terruso, Alix Rosenfeld
Editors: Bedatri D. Choudhury, Kate Dailey
Designer: Nadir Hussain
Digital Editor: Evan Weiss
Copy Editor: Lissa Atkins

TWO CRITICS, ONE REVIEW: SONDHEIM’S ‘ASSASSINS’ AT THE ARDEN

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