'Assassins' challenges American ideals

'Assassins' is a musical that explores the dark side of the American dream through music and the plans of nine presidential assassins. The production, presented by the University Players at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, sold out its Saturday night performance, which featured a montage of American folk music, 19th-century ballads, mid-'70s pop music and comedic sarcasm.\n"Everyone has the right to be happy" is a tag line of the characters throughout the show. But their idea of being happy was to kill the president. The nine characters represent the actual assassins who have killed or have attempted to kill American presidents. Through music and historical accounts, the show identifies and explores the motives that drove these people to extreme acts.\nOne of the show's major hurdles is maintaining continuity in a play with no continuous plot. It was a challenge to keep the characters straight without a solid sense of the history behind the assassination attempts. This problem could have been solved in part by listing the characters' full names on the program and perhaps the name of the president they attempted to kill.\nIn general, the characterizations of Gerald Ford's would-be assassins, played by Rachel Sickmeier and Angie Perez, were particularly impressive. \nMusically, the vocal talents of Peter Stoffan stuck out. Stoffan played the dual role of Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald. The cast somewhat successfully tapped into the dark humor of the production, though there were times when the audience did not have enough time to reflect and absorb the humor. Although the tunes were well-executed, more diction could have improved a few particular numbers. Some of the audience members might have been lost when the rhythm became quick and words became slurred.\nThe lighting of the production was very creative, as back lights completely washed out the stage and left Oswald's (Stoffan's) silhouette a perfect illustration of the scene. The cast and crew of "Assassins" did extremely well with their resources, capturing the humanity of the characters, which was the play's intent.