There had never seemed a right time to produce Assassins. The initial production of the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical opened off-Broadway in 1991, in the midst of the First Gulf War �" you remember: the good one, the one to liberate Kuwait, the one that brought back patriotic yellow ribbons, the one that we actually won �" and a song-and-dance show about real-life folks who have tried and sometimes succeeded to snuff out POTUS was out of sort with the times and didn't run long.
But 10 years later, it felt right to give Assassins another try, this time on Broadway, and rehearsals were set to begin on Sept. 17, 2001. Since one of the would-be assassins in the musical planned to highjack a 747 and crash it into the White House while Richard Nixon was at home, the timing was, to say the least, awkward, and the production was postponed. It finally got its shot at Broadway in 2004 �" in the midst of the Second Gulf War, but "Mission Accomplished" had already been declared �" and critics and audiences were able to appreciate its artistry.
But let's face it. Assassins is always going to have a queasy edge, even in these sweetly copacetic times, but maybe enough years have passed since the last would-be assassin took shot in 1981 in a love letter to Jodie Foster that more distancing appreciation is possible. This is the kind of musical that needs a preface, and with that out of the way, we can move on to Bay Area Musicals' current staging of Assassins at the Alcazar Theatre, and the news is extraordinarily good. Director Daren A.C. Carollo and his company hit all the right notes in a musical of multi-levels of moral ambiguity and unexpected humor, providing context for the culprits' motives while never exculpating their actions.
Carollo's set nicely fills the wide Alcazar stage, alternately suggesting a carnival and a grim frame of industrial girders. Sondheim's songs often suggest the eras in which the crimes are taking place, from American folk to gospel to vaudeville to Top 40s pop. A kind of ringmaster, known as the Proprietor and played in creepy, mime-faced fashion by Eric Neiman, introduces us to the gallery of scoundrels before they play out their deeds in songs that, in their minds, rationally explain their motives.
Some of these figures have faded into the murk of history, such as depressed and unemployed Samuel Byck (convincingly played as a crusty misanthrope by John Brown) who was going to aim a 747 at the White House, or lawyer Charles Guiteau (a stately Peter Budinger), who murdered James Garfield when he didn't get appointed ambassador to France. His ascent up the stairs to the gallows becomes a strutting cakewalk number.
And then, of course, there are the Big Two: John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. As Booth, a charismatic Derrick Silva sings in defense of his assassination of Lincoln in patriotic terms while a balladeer offers less savory explanations. Silva, as Booth, then appears nearly a century later at the Texas School Book Depository to help goad Lee Harvey Oswald into assassinating John F. Kennedy. "People will hate me," Oswald demurs. "But they'll hate you with a passion," is Booth's convincing reply.
Along the way we also meet anarchist Leon Czolgosz (played with frazzled intensity by DC Scarpelli), who takes out William McKinley; dyspeptic Giuseppe Zangara (the always-moaning Terrence McLaughlin), who fires at FDR; John Hinckley (a convincingly shlubby Zac Schuman), who sings a Carpenters-like ballad to his beloved Jodie Foster in a duet with Kelli Schultz as bewitched hippie Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, whose own ardor is for Charles Manson.
The musical also turns Schultz's Fromme and Jessica Fisher's ditsy housewife Sara Moore into a kind of comic duo since they both took aim at Gerald Ford just 17 days apart. The ingratiating and most chilling performance is provided by Sage Georgevitch-Castellanos as an innocent, Huck Finn-type balladeer through most of the show before transforming into the dead-eyed Lee Harvey Oswald near the end.
This masterful production benefits from Matthew McCoy's appropriately roughhewn choreography, Brooke Jennings' costumes that draw on decades of fashions, Ryan Weible's evocative lighting, and a sharp eight-piece orchestra led by Jon Gallo. After a somewhat rocky start last season, Bay Area Musicals has shown a steady improvement, culminating with a first-rate production of Assassins. And in other good news, the musical hasn't had to add any new characters since its debut in 1991.
Assassins will run through March 19 at the Alcazar Theatre. Tickets are $35-$65. Call (415) 340-2207 or go to bamsf.org.