Assassins Review

     After a sunset drive through Boston with one of my new friends that I had made through school, we

were able to find street parking about a 5-minute walk away from the theater. As the sun was setting and

the street lights were just starting to turn on, we began heading towards Lyrics Stage Boston in   

anticipation of a play neither of us had seen before, Assassins, directed by Courtney O’Connor.

Upon arrival, we were met with friendly greetings and a paper program for the show. It was in a nice venue filled with people dressed to the occasion, bright lights, and beautiful greenery, where we had to walk up to the second floor to enter the theater. When walking into a crowd of maybe a hundred people, I was surprised to see how small the venue was; but then again, I had no expectations. I remember thinking to myself, “I wonder if these are the friends and family of the cast because if I had friends or family performing, I would most definitely come to support them.” We then were shown to our seats which were in the last row on the right of the stage. I liked being in the back, it gave us access to see the entire theater.

    When the play began, I was excited to see what the vibes were. It started with a small introduction by some of the people working behind the scenes at Lyric Stage. Shortly after, the narrator came on to set the scene before some of the characters came out. The characters come out dressed in their costumes all to different themes. I liked how random they were in the sense that they looked like they came from all different places, which they did. I also liked how they had Lincoln's assassin played by the same actor who played Lincoln. I thought that was really creative and so smooth that I didn’t even notice at first.

They went into a lot of different scenes where they used a lot of lighting in different colors and sound effects which was also cool to see and experience. I specifically liked the scene where they were catching John Wilkes Booth in the barn and they started burning it to the ground. I think that was executed great. They had loud sounds of fire, the sounds of police officers in the distance, and the stage was lit up with orange red, and yellow shades to make it come to life.

As far as the actors went, I thought that they were phenomenal. Growing up, I had always wanted to get into drama and live performances and even gave it a try my senior year of high school only to find out that it wasn’t for me. I had always highly admired those who pursued acting but after trying it and seeing how hard it is, it made me have even more respect for them. I think each actor, even those playing multiple, really studied and embodied their roles. More specifically, Lisa Kate Joyce playing Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. I couldn’t stop watching her throughout all of her stage time. The way she used her facial expressions, the way she talked, and the way she memorized long and fast monologues like it was first nature to her, really drew me to her. Another actor and character I liked was Samuel Byck played by Phil Tayler. He was dressed in an old Santa Claus costume and was portrayed as a homeless man from Boston. He made his role come to life in the sense that we could feel his anger. He had a strong Boston accent which didn’t even make me question whether it was real or not. Though I thought all of the actors did great, those two caught my eye.

When it came to the end of the play, that’s when the pieces started to come together and they had tied all of the characters and their backstories together which was impressive seeing as how different they all were. But this is also when everything started to take a turn for me. I thought it was different to make a musical about infamous assassins in history. Something I would have never thought to do. They were singing songs about murdering people which is something I have never seen before and thought it was creative. I thought it was so interesting how the writer incorporated all of these infamous stories from history and not only tied them all together but in a sense, tried to get you to side with and see things from the villain's perspective. The finale song, “Everybody’s Got the Right,” didn’t sit “right” with me. I think it was a good way to tie all of the different scenes together but a certain part was unsettling for me. All of the main characters (with their gun props) proceeded to sing and walk around the theater pointing them at people as if they were gonna shoot. This was very in character for all of them which I understood, but in this day and age, actually scared the shit out of me. Now, obviously, I knew that the odds of them killing the whole audience were very low but still, there was that fear in the back of my mind. My peer and I glanced at each other multiple times during this scene in concern for not only the scene but how well the actors were making it feel real. They could have had me fooled. 

In conclusion, I probably would recommend this play to anyone who is into the theater scene, or even into history and getting different perspectives. Anyone can recognize the talent through the special effects the cast and everyone who helped put it together just by simply watching it. The only part that I found super off-putting was how they walked around the theater with guns pointing at the audience, which might be triggering for certain audiences. Overall I would say I enjoyed the night and was glad I got to get out into Boston to see the play.

140 Clarendon St, Boston, MA 02116

https://www.lyricstage.com/show-item/Assassins