"Assassins" and "The Frogs" in New York, 2004

In 2004, before I knew what a blog was, I wrote as a de facto foreign correspondent for London's Stephen Sondheim Society. "Just returning from a Sondheim-focused trip to NYC," I wrote on their discussion board, "I can second others' accolades for Assassins at Studio 54, and praise The Frogs at Lincoln Center."

By now, things that were new in that Assassins have become standard, and Sondheim in his memoir has downplayed The Frogs as a misbegotten effort to expand a piece from 30 years earlier that Sondheim would rather have left alone.

Still, since I ran across a hard copy of my dual review, I'm posting portions that highlight under-appreciated parts of those shows. This will just about complete my list of reflections on shows at my Sondheim Page. I reviewed productions of Assassins in Atlanta (06/2012).

Assassins (2004)
book by John Weidman
directed by Joe Mantello I commented on the creepy carnival stage set, with a dark roller-coaster that disappeared in darkness above the proscenium arch. Guiteau climbs up its slope to his hanging; but the rest of the play happened in a small area, where the cast of assassins was ever-present, watching if not participating in the action. I wrote:

Unlike others in this forum, I feel that the song "Something Just Broke" works for the show on different levels. It is a needed relief after a series of furious scenes, an emotional release that, in any production I've seen, never fails to evoke those moments of singular national trauma that we've all lived through.

The song is an example of Sondheim's generosity to actors. These singers have been second-string all night, and now each one gets enough in a lyric to build an individual character, and also gets enough musical emphasis to make a strong impression.

Finally, there's the effect of balance. By this point in the show, we've learned to see things the assassins' way, and we've come to enjoy their quirks. Then the non-assassins, dressed to suggest different eras of history, gather in a small pool of light against the background of menacing shadowy scaffolding and lurking assassins, and they sing over the ostinato lament that makes a haunting background. They sing of work they were doing when they heard the news, we imagine their loves and cares (one woman sings that she remembers "folding the sheets... Lizzie's sheet" and folds the cloth in her hand), and they seem sympathetic, honest, kind, and vulnerable. The contrast to the assassins is as stark as can be, emphasized in this production by clothing the citizens all in fabrics of creamy white. The song restores our full perspective, and with a shock we realize how seductive the assassins' twisted sense of justice has been.

The Frogs
a comedy written in 405 BC by Aristophanes
freely adapted by Burt Shevelove
even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane
directed by Susan Stroman Sondheim in his memoir expresses contempt (which was mutual) for Robert Brustein, professor at Yale Repertory Theatre who knew the "page but not the stage." Brustein invited Sondheim's friend Burt Shevelove to adapt the play by Aristophanes, and Shevelove invited Sondheim, with whom he had collaborated on Forum (blog 06/2010), to write songs.

The original production, performed in Yale's swimming pool, included swimming actors Meryl Streep, Christopher Durang, and Sigourney Weaver.

After the success of a studio recording of the 1974 songs, Nathan Lane convinced Sondheim to expand the show. At a time when the USA was fighting two wars, Lane found resonance in the story of Dionysus, god of drama, bringing back from the dead a playwright who could speak truth to power and change minds. They added dialogue and seven songs. I saw a preview and wrote:

At the conclusion of Act One, the audience was loud, cheering, laughing, worn out. We were fond of characters Dionysus (Nathan Lane) and Xanthias (Chris Katton [later replaced]), and we were delighted by one surprise after another in the Frogs' chorus/dance number that ends the act.

Act Two could hardly not be a let down after Dionysus and Xanthias arrive at Hades. Their journey over, all obstacles overcome, there's not much left to do in the play except to meet new characters: the Graces, Pluto, Shaw, and Shakespeare all make impressive entrances, sing appropriate numbers, and get laughs. Those last three named have moments of pathos, too. It's just that the forward momentum is gone -- and I have no way in mind to fix that. During the contest of speeches by Shaw and Shakespeare -- for which the entire play is prologue -- the audience grew restless. I love those speeches myself, but I too was wondering when we could get back to something more like that frogs' chorus number.

The finale reprises the opening "Instructions to the Audience" quietly, almost as a benediction from the "gods of the theatre." The Frogs as I saw it was much less the esoteric experience I'd anticipated, mostly funny, spectacular, and, most surprising, warm -- thanks especially to the presence of Lane, Katton, Shakespeare, and the Sondheim music.