Theatre review: 'Assassins'

Through Nov. 11. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. $15-$30. Fabrefaction Theatre, 999 Brady Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-9468. fabrefaction.org.

Bottom line: Not precisely on target.

It’s far from his best work (“Into the Woods,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sunday in the Park with George”), but leave it to the brilliant composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim to create as audacious a musical as “Assassins.”

With a script by John Weidman, it’s stylized in the form of a freakish carnival side show, where the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Hinckley roam the grounds in a state of supernatural limbo – singing their own praises, as it were, and their “right” to be remembered as “forces” of history rather than “footnotes” to it.

Almost by the same token, while it’s easy to admire the fledgling Fabrefaction Theatre for giving “Assassins” a shot (the company scored a hit last season with Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”), the overall execution of director Justin Anderson’s staging is a slight misfire.

Some of the production’s glitches are more technical in nature. Music director Nick Silvestri leads a six-piece band, and there’s an occasionally flat quality to their sound that’s often compounded by the pitch problems of a few of the vocalists in the ensemble.

During the “How I Saved Roosevelt” number, a five-member chorus recounts the failed 1933 attempt on FDR’s life. But between the faulty body mics (some of which seem to function, others of which don’t), the rapid tempo of the song and its typically complex lyrics, the explanation of events is unintelligible, reduced to so much gobbledygook.

There’s also a tonal imbalance among the actors portraying the presidential assailants. In keeping with the darker inclinations of the piece, most of them approach it relatively straight. Ill-advisedly, however, Fabrefaction artistic director Christina Hoff and particularly Heidi Cline McKerley (as Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, respectively, both of whom tried to kill Gerald Ford) exploit their characters for cheap laughs instead.

Although Brian Clowdus cuts a dashing figure as the “pioneer” Booth (who “paved the way” for the rest of the group by assassinating Abraham Lincoln), the true standout in the cast is Steve Hudson, who’s especially effective walking that fine line in the show between the sinister and the absurd as the vainglorious Charles Guiteau (who shot James Garfield).

As conceived by Sondheim and Weidman, “Assassins” is thematically off-kilter, too. One of its dueling masters of ceremonies is a realistic Balladeer (solidly performed by Jeremy Wood), who strolls the stage strumming a guitar and bridging the various vignettes. The other is a symbolic Proprietor (Shane Desmond), done up as a circus ringleader in white-face, who observes the action from the sidelines.

Arming the actors with puny little cap guns doesn’t make a very dramatic impact or much of a lasting impression. On the other hand, in the show’s most arresting scene, Anderson projects images from the famous Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination against the T-shirt worn by Oswald (also played by Wood).

Interestingly, the subplots involving the lesser-known “footnotes” tend to be more illuminating than those about their better-known counterparts. When as many of them botched their efforts as achieved them, it’s somewhat ironic that the reach of Fabrefaction’s “Assassins” might exceed its grasp.