ASSASSINS at Encores Off-Center — Page 8

I really enjoyed this today. I thought some of the speaking bits lagged, but I really enjoyed the music. I wanted more musical in my musical! The cast was great. It's amazing how topical it seemed at times. And in "Hamilton" fashion, I walked out of the theatre a little more knowledgeable than when I walked in.

I thought that I would jump back to the Victoria Clark appreciation party. She's really an incredible performer and I would love to see her replace Carolee Carmello off Broadway in Sweeney Todd. I think her and Shuler Hensley would be remarkable in that show together. It would be a missed opportunity if that production doesn't try to court the two of them.

BroadwayConcierge said: "GeorgeandDot said: "She's really an incredible performer and I would love to see her replace Carolee Carmello off Broadway in Sweeney Todd."

GeorgeandDot, have you ever considered a career in casting? Most dreamcasts on these boards make me roll my eyes, but every time I see one from you, I say YES.

Maybe I already do.............. *wink, wink*

I already miss Jeanine Tesori as AD of this program.

^Hmm. Good to see that he'll be playing the role. Maybe he should take Sweeney for a test drive at the Barrow Street theatre.

I understand the powerful impact of casting the same actor as the Balladeer and Oswald, but they followed the original production's lead by casting two separate actors in this version. So it seems like it's been done both ways, which are equally valid choices. With two separate actors, I found it powerful to not have seen the face of the most important Assassin until the last fifteen minutes of the show.

ljay889 said: "Ethan Lipton as the proprietor gives one of the strangest performances in a sondheim musicial since denis O'Hare in Woods.I think his performance might be the one controversy of the night. The directors choice for this character is very clear and I feel it's wacky enough that Sondheim might love it. I missed the last revival but judging from the recording, Lipton is the POLAR opposite from Kudisch."

Maybe he's toned it down but I didn't see a clear choice at all. He reminded me of Sonny Bono. After the first song, either his singing improved or I got used to it. Personally, I don't think enough was going on with him that I wouldn't have been just as happy with someone like Kudisch who could sing it properly. But he didn't bother me. It was just fine. Granted, I didn't look over at him much when he was at the corner of the stage.

I liked Victoria Clark and she got a lot of laughs but I think I would have preferred Julie White.

My favorites were Steven Boyer as John Hinckley, John Ellison Conlee as Charles Guiteau, Danny Wolohan as Sam Byck, and Shuler Hensley as Leon Czolgosz. I thought they were ready to jump into a fully staged production and had found their characters. Steven Pasquale sounded great because he always sounds great but I think he needed more time to find his character given how much of the show he has to carry. It was nowhere near as brilliant as he was in The Wild Party. I enjoyed Clifton Duncan's take on the Balladeer to the point that I missed him when he disappeared from the show. To me, Lee Harvey Oswald and Squeaky Fromme were the weak links this time.

I just don't think this is a show that can have the impact it's meant to have unless everything's working and everything wasn't working with such little rehearsal time. Still very enjoyable but I get more emotional listening to either the original or revival albums.

I got that, but it still didn't work as well as it might have done the other way round. Maybe with more rehearsal time it could be made clearer.

Just got back and overall I thought it was great. Pasquale stole the show for me, he was just so buttery.



My my two gripes, as it seems common to most here, were Lipton's singing and the balladeer/oswald split. When I saw it last that reveal/transition was my favorite part of the show. Not having it robbed the show of a lot meaning.

wonkit said: "I was at the matinee yesterday. I thought the production was very good for a quickly rehearsed Encores! concert version. Lipton didn't bother me as much as some; it was an interesting choice to make him so smarmy, as though only such a man could encourage others to violence, but I did miss the stronger singing voice I am accustomed to from the recording.

The cast was uniformly fine with Shuler Hensley and Erin Markey making the biggest impressions on me. I could not hear any of the lyrics in Alex Brightman's song, but I understand that singing with an accent is doubly difficult.

My one disappointment was the addition of "Something Just Broke" which is a fantastic song but it weakened the ending for me. I have always been blown away by the transition from those majestic chords after the Oswald gunshot into the carnival tune (with a difference) for the final number. Having a song inserted there gave me a chance to recover and made the ending seem less effective.



I agree. I think Something Just Broke breaks the momentum of the show's ending. I was very disappointed with the production. Having a new actor who we haven't seen all evening take on Oswald I found distracting. As the Balladeer was wearing jeans, I thought that he would be Oswald, so when the new actor suddenly arrived, wearing a very tight and distracting white t-shirt, I was thrown. I also thought the failure to play the Zapruder film on his t-shirt was a miss. I was floored by this scene during the Roundabout Revival and this was a dud. Having the screens turn - manually by the way so that you saw the off stage stagehands turn them at various speeds - was just a poor decision.

Glad I saw it, a disappointing Sondheim show is better than most shows, but this one should've been much better.

I caught this yesterday afternoon. It was my first introduction to the show, and my first time attending an Encores! production. I absolutely LOVED every second. I was completely hooked on every lyric and book scene. This felt like a fully realized production more than a concert. The cast was excellent, with Steven Pasquale, Victoria Clark, and Erin Markey being the standouts. Clark and Markey were both hilarious, and they had me in stitches. I am so glad I saw this production and made myself familiar with this show - it is truly genius with a great book and score.

By last night's final performance, when I got to see it, Encore's ASSASSINS was mesmerizing. I would also love to see what could happen if this partial production could be developed into a full one.

I agree that the choice - an interesting one - of Ethan Lipton to play the Proprietor either needs development or can't work. It launches the show off flatly, although I thought he was intriguing further in.

A LOT of exciting work by top-notch performers: Victoria Clark, Steven Pasquale, Clinton Duncan, Shuler Hensley, Steven Boyer, John Ellison Conlee, Alex Brightman, Danny Wolohan. Wow. I'm now completely converted to the church of Erin Markey. Couldn't take my eyes off her. If the scenes with her and Victoria Clark could be expanded to a full length show, I'd happily watch them for hours and hours. Make it a series. In a much smaller ensemble role, I loved watching Andrew Durand during all of the small amount of time he was on stage.

What a gift to be able to revel in this score and book. Thank you Encores. Is this Sondheim's most humm-umm-umm-umm-able score? "Everybody's got the right to be... happy."

Right.

I want to understand what everyone saw in Erin Markey's performance that I did not. I didn't hate it. But I thought most of the things that worked were baked into the script and not anything she added. I found her surprisingly dull given the character and her background in unconventional theater and performance art. And I could not tell if her acting was intentionally dull (like an intentionally flat affect) and her singing was purposefully average (she seemed to struggle with Unworthy of Your Love) or she couldn't do the role properly. Maybe those were direction issues if they were told to underplay things but if so, it negatively affected her character the most for me.