CSC’s ASSASSINS Revival - Previews — Page 2

I was there tonight, before anyone attacks me, I am not kidding...I don't get the point of this show at all. Can anyone explain it to me?

The cast is very talented but the show was just pointless to me and very boring and very expensive! I paid $82 for a ticket last minute. There were several empty seats, maybe a 10% of the space or more, but this is a very tiny theater, so it was noticeable.

I am obviously not alone with my thoughts here because I noticed that a few members of the audience left during the show (there's no intermission). If anyone is dying to see this, your chances of getting a ticket last minute are very high.

I just don't know how to respond when people say they don't get the point of this show.

I paid $82 for a ticket last minute

If you consider that expensive in Manhattan, I really don't know what to tell you. People have easily paid $600 for The Music Man revival and don't mind in the least.

Yeah, I have literally NEVER paid that little to see world class theater with top actors. It's insane that anyone would consider that expensive in NYC!

Wee Thomas2 said: "Also in third row in the 200s and were blocked by actors from seeing some of the action. "

Oh no! I'll be in the second row in the 200s when I'm going and thought I'd gotten a good seat, during that mad rush when seats were going fast when they went on sale. Damn. Maybe they'll open up more and I can trade.

musikman said: "This production very much feels like “what’s the point?” The cast is really terrific and doing their best, but they’re given almost nothing to work with. It just seems like Doyle didn’t do anything, which is so very unlike him."

Yes it seems like ever since he became the artistic director of CSC, Doyle has "forgotten" to direct all of his productions for the company. Did you see As You Like It? That has to be one of the most embarrassing productions I've ever seen in Manhattan.

musikman, I agree with you assessment of Doyle's Broadway productions. Once he became the artistic director of CSC, I think the quality of his work decreased dramatically.

I have a long history with Assassins. It's rather a masterpiece. A bizarre as **** masterpiece, but still very much one. Weidman and Sondheim are magic together. I don't know if anything will ever top the first time I heard the ORIGINAL cast recording. That orchestra. Jesus.

I don't think the mounted anticipation throughout the very, very long wait is going to do John Doyle's production of Assassins any favors. I was at the third preview on 11/4 and it was an underwhelming night. That energy I was hoping to be a part of, that crackling electrical energy that buzzes through an excited audience -- it wasn't there. Pre-show was like sitting through a wake. Then, the show began and it was as though the cast was performing the show at a wake. They certainly did their jobs. There isn't a weak link among them. There isn't a strong link either, and, trust me, that was depressing to write. Assassins comes with the same challenge as Merrily We Roll Along. Nobody knows what it should look like. Assassins occurs in a kind of oblivion, a Twilight Zone world that allows John Wilkes Booth to have conversations with John Hinckley and Lee Harvey Oswald. It's very THEATRE!!! that way but successfully avoids the pretentions that often come with a style like this. So, what does that look like? Playwrights Horizons offered an empty stage. On Broadway, they went big, predictably, and decided to wrap the show up in a carnival package, inspired by the opening number. I respect this version has fans but I felt the decision produced a show that was trying much too hard to....look like something. Assassins isn't done much, but this design issue is always the big one. Admittedly, I was the Balladeer in a production that I felt came closest with a raked stage, usually bare, leading up to a large replica of the Capitol building. There were also set pieces that glided on and off for certain sequences to justify locations and time periods, and that didn't work. I don't know why it didn't work but we all knew it didn't. However, my vaudeville costume reveal for the big finish of "The Ballad of Guiteau" was pretty ****ing fabulous, I must admit.

John Doyle doesn't know what Assassins looks like either. From what I could see, John Doyle didn't give it much thought. I mean, they're utilizing chairs that have obviously been plucked from the lobby. There's truly nothing to look at, and that should be okay. Somehow, it isn't. Maybe because the presentation is exactly what you'd expect from any ensemble piece performed on a thrust. It has no identity. Yes, I said it takes place in oblivion, but this felt like a bunch of people walking in patterns on a thrust. Lots of pattern walking. God, what a boring director.

Weidman said to me himself (he was a teacher) he does not like the show touched. He wants it done "as written" and he wasn't kidding. In the original licensed version, pre-Broadway, "Something Just Broke" was provided as an option but it wasn't required. It's not in copies of the book distributed back then, they only offered the sheet music. I wonder how often it would be used if it was still not required. The song in this production feels like the show is interrupting itself. Understand, I love "Something Just Broke." It's stunning. But I've never seen it work. We've spent 90 minutes looking through the assassins' lens and this number kind of happens. The location of it feels right, but it does damage to "Everybody's Got the Right" returning immediately following the Kennedy assassination, which is more effective without the "giving the audience a voice" song shoehorned in between them. As I wrote, I love the song and where they placed it is logical, but I don't think anyone would miss it.

The proprieter presents each assassin his or her gun wrapped in a folded American flag. The assassins unwrap the flag to find the gun and it's very cute. Not sure cute was the intention but it was the result. Gunshots are sound effects, sound like sound effects, and it's awful. Apologies to people who don't enjoy live gunshots on stage but it's a show about people who shoot people. All gravity of that is lost with these pre-recordings. Even better, when Squeaky and Sarah Jane give up on trying to shoot Garfield and start throwing bullets at him instead, there aren't any bullets. They're throwing imaginary bullets. Someone who doesn't know the show would have no idea what's happening.

Someone will undoubtedly get very excited thinking up an attack to what I'm about to write, but I don't like virtue signaling. In "The Ballad of Booth," Booth does sing THE WORD. I'm impressed they didn't change it. What Doyle has done instead is pull two black members from the ensemble onto the stage, who have no functional reason to be on stage, so they will be present when THE WORD is sung. It's very much like: "Yes, he sang the word, but here are two black castmembers on stage when it happens, which means they totally approve, so please don't get mad at me." That's all it feels like.

Gets more interesting during "Another National Anthem." As Byck is singing, "Listen," a member from the ensemble enters, goes to Byck, they have some sort of meaningful conversation with their eyes, and then the man from the ensemble sings the "There's another national anthem and it's not the one you hear at the ballpark" verse and takes the lead in the song. The man is black. Doyle is clearly manipulating the intention of the lyrics to address racism. The lyrics can be interpreted that way easily when absent of the show, but this is happening within the show and I have no idea what it means. The assassins are carrying on with the song as they normally would so, to them, this guy doesn't matter. Okay.... and the guy is kinda just singing the song but he's literally a non-character and he's been given nothing throughout the evening that might weave its way into this choice making some kind of sense. It just happens. I know what the production was doing. It was so on the nose, everyone in that room surely knew what it was doing. Anybody got a clue about what it means? I saw cheap virtue signaling sloppily cobbled into the eleven o'clock number utilizing a character who doesn't exist. Does the production think black people and people who kill presidents have a deep seeded understanding of each other? Should the black community want to kill the president? Would it be understandable if a black person kills a president? Except those aren't questions being asked. The only thing that's happening is something completely detached from the show has been tacked onto the show because they must address racism at all times? These white people have got to pull it together. They are trying too hard and they're making a lot of terrible decisons because they aren't thinking anything through.

It's a problem because it's about the optics of the moment and only that and connects to NOTHING else that has been done within the show.

I'm seeing it two more times over the next month. A later preview and then a regular performance. I would love to fall in love with this production. I was 100% on its side going in. It didn't feel like they'd been given enough rehearsal time before putting it in front of an audience. It had a lot of what felt like "let's try this" moments, things that were undecided. Maybe there should be less previews for a show that has been written for thirty years and more rehearsals without having to worry about experimenting in front of audiences.

Updated On: 11/11/21 at 03:36 AM

JasonC3 said: "Why doe he keep getting hired to direct?

Doyle has had acclaimed productions of Passion, Pacific Overtures, A Color Purple, and Sweeney Todd (which extended multiple times).

He is not for everyone's taste, nor does he get it right every time, but let's not pretend the guy has never directed a well-received show."

He's been not for everyone's taste from the beginning. He's a one trick pony. I never said anything about how he has been received. You must do an awful lot of skimming if THAT was your takeaway.

BJR said: "Sorry, but all I got from that review was, "My production was better."

And:

-I feel like Doyle shows always get the same response around here. For the record, I and many others have loved the same productions that others decried as him doing "nothing." I see this next month, but I can tell you already, he's not doing nothing.

-"Something Just Broke" is always in it and has been since Donmar. Every time this show is done we have this debate, but the creators want it there, so it's there.

-We're reviewing mood in the house before the show now?"

You're a ridiculous person. I wrote I felt the set in the production I was in worked better than others I've seen but also pointed out there were aspects of it that didn't work. I mentioned nothing else about the production other than I was dressed for Vaudville at the end of Guiteau. What is wrong with you?

"Something Just Broke" was optional when I did it and the authors were two of my mentors when I was a kid. What is wrong with you?

When the mood in the house is like being in a graveyard, yeah, I REVIEW it. As actors tend to do as well when they know they're about to enter a silent house. Again, what is wrong with you?

Updated On: 11/9/21 at 07:56 AM

I will echo the sentiment that audiences, in general, have been weird and subdued both at the theater (Assassins on Saturday night) and at concerts I’ve been to in the last few weeks. Even the Halloween parade. Perhaps everyone is still a little nervous? Learning how to be social again? Quieter?





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