Saturday Matinee

I couldn’t help but to wonder if recent election results dampened the urgency of the message in Sondheim’s Assassins, as I watched the excellent production put on by Sacramento’s Artistic Differences. This musical explores the seedier underworld of American history, focusing on the motivations of people who have attempted, successfully or not, to commit the most egotistical of crimes, to kill the most powerful person in the world. In the land of opportunity, these characters highlight the doubt in the American dream that everyone gets the same chance to be great, and shows that this isn’t accessible to everyone, including immigrants, outcasts, and young people rejected by their family. Obama’s recent election softens this message a bit because he proved that anyone CAN be president. I still found the message to be extremely current especially for a musical written many years ago.

To fight against the creed, “living lives of quiet desperation”, these men and women claw and clamor to make themselves important in their own way. As an audience member, it’s unsettling to be able to relate to these characters at all in their fight to be heard. I am in awe of Sondheim and his courage to even question America’s greatest virtue, freedom, to make the statement that a completely free country includes living with the people who exercise their freedom to kill.

Other links:

• News Reviews review
• Sarah Vowell’s excellent book, Assassination Vacation – I’m not much of a history buff myself, but Vowell makes history interesting and very very funny. Find out which assassin was a member of a sex commune who could never get laid. I wish Vowell had been my history teacher.
• Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast), with Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Cerveris, Denis O’Hare, and James Barbour.

Artistic Differences presents Assassins. Runs through November 9. Click here for more info.