With a gun in nearly every scene and nine shots fired on stage, Torn Ticket II's "Assassins" certainly promises to be explosive.
Even though the one-act version of the play has been performed at Tufts once before in 2003, it's still a bold choice for the troupe's major fall production.
"It's definitely a brave, controversial work," director Logan Reed, a senior, said.
The musical, which won a whopping five Tony awards in 2004, follows the stories of seven of the men and three of the women who attempted — both successfully and unsuccessfully — to assassinate U.S. presidents. From John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln to John Hinckley's attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, the morbid revue spans over 120 years of U.S. history.
Seniors Samantha Kindler and Andres Steyerthal produced the show, working alongside Reed, stage manager and senior Molly Clarke and the cast and crew — many of whom are experienced and talented seniors — to create this moving and macabre history lesson.
The musical is not so much driven by the assassins' devious plots as it is by the unusual connections that they form with one another throughout the course of the play. In this eerie piece, infamous historical figures like Booth and Leon Czolgosz, who assassinated President William McKinley, respectively, cross time and space to reside in an unhappy limbo of anger, disappointment and disillusionment.
"All the assassins have an oppression in common — they are poor, desperate, mentally ill or coming from hard family situations. … Above all, they share the feeling that no one is listening to them," Reed said.
In a compassionate defense of its gun-wielding souls, this work sympathetically portrays the inner workings of the murderers' and attempted murderers' minds, in what senior Douglas Helman calls "an interesting reimagining" of history.
In the stunning climax of the musical, Helman's character, Lee Harvey Oswald, is convinced to murder John F. Kennedy by the first-hand accounts of the other assassins.
"What could have happened in Oswald's head [during the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln] is a mystery. No one knows," Helman said.
To the credit of its direction, the production expertly and interestingly employs the actors and the stage space. Many of the actors shift between roles, and because the cast is so small, the lines begin to blur between assassin and victim, citizen and president.
"It's not a bubblegum escapist musical," Kindler said.
She noted that the audience is left grappling with questions of right and wrong, fair and unfair, and the cost of the failed American dream.
Even the individuals motivated by radical political thought or distorted religious doctrine garner sympathy in the end due to the passion behind their beliefs. Audience members will be hard-pressed to deny emotional attachment to the characters, such as the sweet-voiced killer of President James Garfield, Charles Guiteau (senior Jon Sasenick), who plaintively sings, "I am going to the Lordy" on his way to the gallows.
Overall, the creative staging of the show brilliantly supports the character development of each assassin. The set, a well-crafted marquee, exhibits a careful mix of the eras represented in the play.
The music and lyrics, written by Stephen Sondheim, are playful and original in both style and form, contrasting with the tainted reputations of each character.
"[The score is a] hodgepodge of Americana," musical director Kyle Sircus, a senior, said.
From Civil War-era wandering troubadour tunes to 20th-century influences such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, the show feeds off America's rich musical heritage.
"Sondheim truly captures the people who were the voices of their time — we are honored to present his work to the Tufts community," Sircus said.
"Assassins" will be playing at 8 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Balch Arena Theater in Aidekman Arts Center. Although tickets are sold out, there will be available each night 50 standing room only tickets, which will be available at the Balch Arena Box Office the day of each respective show.
