Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 2004-08-03
Music Label: P.S. Classics
Soundtracks:
- Everybody's Got the Right
- Ballad of Booth
- Ladies and Gentlemen, A Toast!
- How I Saved Roosevelt
- What Does a Man Do...?
- Gun Song
- Ballad of Czolgosz
- Unworthy of Your Love
- I Am a Terrifying and Imposing Figure...!
- Ballad of Guiteau
- Have It Your Way
- Another National Anthem
- Take a Look Lee
- Something Just Broke
- Everybody's Got the Right
Music reviews of Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
Music Review: Terrifying & Imposing Musical
Rating: 5 Stars
Only a composer of Sondheim's genius would have the guts take on such controversial subject and pull it off with such skill and humanity. Assassins is a unique musical; both thought-provoking and catchy. Sondheim's songs are alternately haunting (The Ballad of Booth, Another National Anthem) and darkly humorous (How I Saved Roosevelt, Unworthy of Your Love, The Ballad of Guiteau). It's rare that every song in a musical is a home-run, but Assassins is start-to-finish full of brilliant, memorable songs.
So much for Assassins as a show, but why this recording, why not the original 1991 version? I liked the 1991 version alright, the singers do an adequate job, but the orchestration and casting of the revival bring the show to life in a way that the original never does. From the opening with Everybody's Got the Right the surreal, carnival world of Assassins unfolds as vividly as a soundtrack possibly can. The cast is superb; alternately frightening, pathetic, and contemptible. Michael Cerveris as Booth, Denis O'Hare as Guiteau, Jeffrey Kuhn as Zangara and the rest of the assassins sound truly insane at times. Neil Patrick Harris is pitch-perfect as the Greek Chorus onlooker who becomes the cornerstone of the Assassins' pantheon.
I've never seen Assassins performed, but it caught me from the first listen. In the list of Sondheim's inspired musicals, this one stands out; it's terrifying, imposing and unforgettable.
Description of Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
"Everybody's got a right/To their dream." So begins Stephen Sondheim's 1991 show Assassins--and in this case, said dreams involve killing an American president. The characters form a veritable rogues' gallery, including John Hinckley, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth of course, but also half-forgotten luminaries such as Leon Czolgosz (who killed McKinley) and "Squeaky" Fromme (who aimed for Gerald Ford with an unloaded gun). While Sondheim's lyrics are trenchant as ever, his music, which ranges from Sousa pomp to clever little waltzes, is technically brilliant but also oddly uninvolving. (Many fans prefer the recording of the 1991 Off-Broadway version, though "Something Just Broke," which was added to the 1992 London production, makes its recorded debut here.) Still, there are several high points. In "Unworthy of Your Love," for instance, Hinckley and Fromme wax poetic about their unrequited love for Jodie Foster and Charles Manson, respectively, in a Burt Bacharach-style ballad that's deliberately (I hope!) sappy. And of course as with most Sondheim shows, the cast of this revival--Michael Cerveris, Mario Cantone, Becky Ann Baker, Marc Kudisch, Denis O'Hare--is very good. --Elisabeth VincentelliGeneral CDs
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