(in order of appearance)

other characters played by the company

Provocative Sondheim PATRICIA KELLY

A Little Night Murder SIMON CHAN

Assassins hits the mark and comes up a winner CARMEL AUDSLEY

Inside the quirky minds of killers PATRICIA KELLY

Provocative Sondheim

By PATRICIA KELLY

You can't help thinking that musicals such as Assassins have taken up from where opera has left off in the 20th century.

Where opera's relevance is often questioned and even rejected, Sondheim's musicals strike resonant chords. They are both loved and loathed but there is no arguing the ideas generated are topical, relevant, even thought-provoking.

The 1991 off-Broadway premiere of the musical with its theme of presidential assassination alienated the audience who disliked this attack on the office of head of state (and probably and coarse language, the kind you might hear in any city mall or high school playground) and the show promptly closed.

Andrew Miller directed this production on both its superficial level as a quirky, witty entertainment and its deeper, darker level of justifying assassination as necessary for the greater good and to change the world.

Assassins does not bog down in protracted moralising as does Into the Woods. No interval interrupts the show's momentum set by the young cast working as an energetic, disciplined team. No stars here.

They created credible characters who tap into and represent the collective mindset of a population spanning the years from the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy and attempts on the lives of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

Ideas flow thick and fast via slick dialogue and jaunty songs - ideas emanating from the fairground shooting gallery poster, "Hit the Prez and Win a Prize", that becomes a metaphor for the American dream that you can achieve anything you need or desire. All it takes is a little squeeze of a trigger finger.

Music director Kim Kirkman and his ensemble kept the beat bouncing as David Peachey, Anthony Ross, David Dellit, Robert Hickey, Bernie Forster, Ken Verrall, Julie Cotterell, Belinda Weir, Jason Halliday, Dion Molinas, Michael Leishman and Luke Mullins personified the assassins and their warped interpretation of the "you have a right to happiness" maximon which the musical pivots through its series of interweaving vignettes - Sondheim's distinctive format.

Shane Rodwell's marvellously created fairground illuminated by Derek Griffin in the CultureBank, a converted paint factor which gave the whole event an immediacy missing in bigger theatre, was both realistic (right down to hay scattered on the floor) and symbolic - and very hot on a summer night.

Ultimately, the end does not justify the means and those who sought the reward can only cry Where's My Prize?, voicing the emptiness of their expectations. Sondheim could not resist quoting from West Side Story, a verbal salvo at his unhappy youthful collaboration with Leonard Bernstein. He's a clever man as this show brimful of ideas demonstrates.

A Little Night Murder

By SIMON CHAN

It seems that the more dubious the subject matter, the more likely that a musical will wrought from it. The latest hit in the West End is Side Show, a jolly little affair about Siamese twin sisters who spend their lives being circus freaks: The hit song is apparently a duet between the siblings titled I Will Never Leave You. I say get Barbra and Celine onto that one straight away.

Equally bizarre but with perhaps a little more integrity is Stephen Sondheim's 1994 offering, Assassins, which has been staged once before in Australia by the MTC but is now being staged by local amateur group Ocean Theatre Company. The musical, which is really more of a revue, concerns anyone who's killed or try to kill the President of the United States. So obviously Lee Harvey Oswald makes an appearance, as does John Wilkes Booth (who dispatched Lincoln) and John Hinckley Jr. (who tried for Reagan and failed). Gunfire features heavily in this dark, savagely fully vision of thwarted ambition and political vengeance. "Everybody's got the right to be happy," the assassins chant in the kitschy-cute opening number, and the credo of these hellbound individuals is that even if you can't win, you can always blow the President's brains put. Sondheim uses a combination of anthem-like themes and Bacharach-style tunes to carve out a score dripping with ironic references. It's a shocking show, all the more shocking when seen live; the CD soundtrack gives no indication of what a savagely black joke the whole thing is.

The combination of black satire and Sondheim's typically demanding music is a tough call for any company to handle, especially an essentially amateur group like Ocean Theatre. So it's to their credit that they acquit themselves so admirably in this entertaining production despite a few poorly executed scenes and some off-key singing.

Director Andrew Miller has elicited some fine performances from his cast, but outstanding are Belinda Weir and RObert Hickey, whose kooky renditions of Sara Jane Moore and Charles Guiteau are a delight to watch. These two get it just right, their veneer of nerdish buffoonery barely masking the petty viciousness of these creatures. Julie Cotterell is also fine as CHarles Manson's lover Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme whose minuscule mind is dominated by the thought that she's been fucking the Son of God. The scene where Weir and Cotterell botch the shooting of Gerald Ford is a hoot and well worth the price of admission.

The use of real guns filled with blanks is an exciting production highlight, perhaps a little too exciting for those who anxiously remember what happened to Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow. Assassins also features some terrific playing by the company's band, led by musical director Kim Kirkman, with the small keyboard ensemble perfectly suited to the presentation of the intimate chamber piece. With some tightening of scene changes and some more confidence on the part of the cast (this will come with more performance), Assassins should prove to be a summer highlight for Brisbane theatre goers.

Assassins hits the mark and comes up a winner

By CARMEL AUDSLEY

Perform Magazine, March/April 1998

One wonders if a play will ever be written about the current presidential shenanigans in the United States - it's certainly grist for the mill.

Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics brought to life John Weidman's book about the assassination of American presidents from Abraham Lincoln to John F Kennedy, and the less-chronicled attempts on the lives of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, in this high-quality production of Assassins.

Ocean Theatre Company's productions seem to get better and better and director Andrew Miller is to be congratulated for piecing together and pulling off this intriguing musical.

Set in a fairground shooting gallery complete with "Hit the Prez and Win a Prize" posters, set design by Shane Rodwell was suited to the old paint factory now known as CultureBank complete with hay on the floor.

Assassins explores the characters behind the assassinations in a realistic and provocative look at the search for attention, for fame, for the meaning of life. History can be changed and created with a single gun shot.

On the theatre program, innovatively set in the style of a newspaper, cast members were asked what they would do if they were president.

Director Miller said "give more money to theatre companies".

Many organisation deserve funding. Pro-am companies, like Ocean Theatre Company, that continue to produce a high standard, deserve recognition and continued support.

Inside the quirky minds of killers

By PATRICIA KELLY

The Courier-Mail Wednesday, January 14 1998

Ocean Theatre Company has applied its own R-rating – restricting audiences to 18 years and over – for its Queensland premiere production of the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical Assassins being presented in Brisbane from tomorrow night.

Producer Andrew Miller – whose ensemble staged Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at the Tivoli Theatre a year ago – says the musical is not as gruesome as Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, but its theme of assassination and use of strong language made it unsuitable for children. “The topic is controversial and this is not one of those nice happy show. It is quite funny but it is a very adult-oriented musical,” Miller said.

The ironic setting of assassins, which premiered off-Broadway in 1991, is a carnival shooting gallery where the targets are images of United States presidents. In a series of comical and dramatic scenes the musical explores nine of the 13 people who have tried – four of them successfully – to kill American presidents from Abraham Lincoln in 1865 to modern attempts on the lives of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, re-creating historic records of each assassin.

“Sondheim’s musicals are all a little different from normal musical comedies but this one takes tit even a step further. Who would have thought of doing a musical based around nine notorious figures in history?” Miller said. “It is described as a non-linear piece. We have nine different time period in the show with lost of flashbacks. In some scenes the assassins are drawn together in time even though they never met in history.”

Sondheim’s characters try to make the audience understand why they did what they did. Although no judgments are made, the show “is not about moralising or justifying what the assassins did,” Miller said. “It is about the American dream and the assassins’ versions of it; how they are taught they can get whatever they want if they just go and do it. “They take that idea to its extreme. The opening number is about their conviction that to get that dream they have to go and kill someone. Ultimately they all find out they’ve done what they thought was the right thing to do and they’ve failed.”

It is being presented in the CultureBank at 10 Donkin St, West End, a former paint factory which Miller said offers great production possibilities. “Outside it is a tin shed but inside it gives you scope to do whatever you like,” Miller said. “There are no restrictions about space, there is no barrier between the audience and the players. “The front row is basically on the stage and it is quite amazing what our set designer Shane Rodwell has in mind for this. It relies on lighting, which is where Derek Griffin’s expertise comes in.”

Eleven authentic weapons from each period represented will be used in the show but Miller insists no guns will be pointed at the audience. The guns have been strictly controlled by armourer Steven Steenstrup, who has trained the cast in their safe handling.