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Musical Sunday!
Aug. 1st, 2010 01:20 pmWell, today I thought I'd talk about my latest soundtrack purchase (not least of which because it's stuck in my head) - Assassins.
I've never seen the show, but I've gathered that it's a revue-style musical chronicling all the people who tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) to assassinate U.S. Presidents. Given the dark yet quirky premise, it's probably no surprise that it's a Stephen Sondheim show. I would imagine it's probably somewhat controversial, as it is intended to get people to consider the motivations of these assassins, but doesn't really draw conclusions about their rightness or wrongness.
The Broadway cast includes Marc Kudisch, whom I saw in Thoroughly Modern Millie and in the movie remake of Bye Bye Birdie (which - ooh - I should talk about Bye Bye Birdie one of these weeks. It was the highlight of my theatrical career, lol), Michael Cerveris, who was in the Broadway cast of Titanic and is now on Fringe, and everyone's favorite musical guy, Neil Patrick Harris.
There's a really interesting interview with Neil and Marc about their respective roles and the show's place in the context of political culture and social commentary.
Thus far, my favorite song is "The Ballad of Czolgosz" (probably less controversial, since no one cares about President McKinley), which is naturally NPH's song. I have no explanation for the video, lol. It's the only one I could find with the full version sung by NPH.
ETA: Thinking more about it, I think Stephen Sondheim is the Joss Whedon of musical theater. (Or maybe it's the other way around, since Sondheim's music at least is an obvious influence on Joss.) He brings up things that make you uncomfortable, but ultimately leaves it up to you to draw your own conclusions. And for anyone who says they don't like musicals, all I can say is Into the Woods. For reals, I could write pages of meta about that show. I suspect there's a lot to glean from Assassins as well.
I've never seen the show, but I've gathered that it's a revue-style musical chronicling all the people who tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) to assassinate U.S. Presidents. Given the dark yet quirky premise, it's probably no surprise that it's a Stephen Sondheim show. I would imagine it's probably somewhat controversial, as it is intended to get people to consider the motivations of these assassins, but doesn't really draw conclusions about their rightness or wrongness.
The Broadway cast includes Marc Kudisch, whom I saw in Thoroughly Modern Millie and in the movie remake of Bye Bye Birdie (which - ooh - I should talk about Bye Bye Birdie one of these weeks. It was the highlight of my theatrical career, lol), Michael Cerveris, who was in the Broadway cast of Titanic and is now on Fringe, and everyone's favorite musical guy, Neil Patrick Harris.
There's a really interesting interview with Neil and Marc about their respective roles and the show's place in the context of political culture and social commentary.
Thus far, my favorite song is "The Ballad of Czolgosz" (probably less controversial, since no one cares about President McKinley), which is naturally NPH's song. I have no explanation for the video, lol. It's the only one I could find with the full version sung by NPH.
ETA: Thinking more about it, I think Stephen Sondheim is the Joss Whedon of musical theater. (Or maybe it's the other way around, since Sondheim's music at least is an obvious influence on Joss.) He brings up things that make you uncomfortable, but ultimately leaves it up to you to draw your own conclusions. And for anyone who says they don't like musicals, all I can say is Into the Woods. For reals, I could write pages of meta about that show. I suspect there's a lot to glean from Assassins as well.
