THE THEATER MIRROR, New England's LIVE Theater Guide

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Hey, pal, feelin' glum? Why not shoot a president!
Every-body's got the right to be Happy!
WHERE'S MY PRIZE?
Every-body has the right to be Free!
THERE's a-NOTher NATional ANthem, and it....
And it will not leave my mind! This low-key, introspective production of a Sondheim classic is less about the act, and more about the motivations. From the patriot hoping to snatch his beloved Confederacy from defeat to the nerd determined to show his beloved Jodie Foster that he's worth her notice, each is a product of the time --- just as the songs for them mirror the music of their days. This is late Sondheim, when ever newer challenges kept his edge sharp.

But this is also John Weidman's show, and the Book provides two non-musical sequences that solidify the theme. First there are two rambling manic-depressive monologues that Samuel Byck records as letters, first to "Lenny" Bernstein and the second to Dick Nixon accusing them of ignoring their fan Sammy. Chris Moleske, driving in a dishevelled Santa-suit to find a 747 to crash into the White House, clearly articulates the "Where's my prize!" cry.

The other scene is the climax of the play, wherein the ghost of John Wilkes Booth appears to Lee Harvey Oswald as he is about to blow his own brains out, and offers Lee an alternative target. After an eloquent argument ("Not 'murder' --- assassination!"), Booth is joined by all the others, asking Lee to make them Famous once again, and at one point an admiring Hinckley blurts "Can I have your autograph!"

This new Metro Stage Company has only one more week-end in the Family YMCA Theatre in Central Square Cambridge to show their carefully crafted production. The cast is superb, singing complicated music but (my supreme compliment) acting while they do it. The shoestring-sets have John MacKenzie's brooding, eloquent lighting, and Julie Silverman's choreography is pointedly minimal. My only complaint is that Michael Kreutz, who gets stunning performances of the score out of only six musicians, sometimes lets their excellent music interfere with muted singing of the words. Words, after all, are Sondheim's forte.

It would be like simply calling the role to cite everyone's performances, especially since Director Janet Neely has made every performer Become an often un-flamboyant character. But there is startlingly flaky bombast in Erin Tchoukaloff's "Squeaky" Fromme, wacky egocentrism in Bob DeVivo's Charles Guiteau, youthfull indecision in David Janett's Oswald, misguided yearning in Jaclyn Campbell's and John Dupuis' ballad "I Am Unworthy of Your Love" (sung to Jody and to Charles Manson), pathos in James Tallach's Leon Czolgoz, and passion in Robert Case's Booth --- and, in a meditation on everyone's memories of the Kennedy assasination ("Something Just Broke") The Ensemble gets center-stage. The entire cast is an Ensemble, and the run of this production is far, far too short --- but I would finally like to thank Co-Producers Bob Case and Christopher Teague for seeing it through to success.

Love,
===Anon.