Assassins (Classic Stage Company) NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsMember Reviews (176)
See it if The assainations and attempts of US presidents. Good singing with some good songs.
Don't see it if You want a constant show throughout. Gets boring... people sleeping and some walkouts
See it if nails the dark comedic possibilities of each scene/thin line between comedy and delusion; uniformly fine cast
Don't see it if stripped down production & several directorial decisions diminish show's power (see below) Read more
See it if you love everything Sondheim as I do; u want an intro into a dark piece of our country's history; great acting and singing; engaging.
Don't see it if may hit too close to home for the times we live in; sparse staging w/a good but small 3 piece band; disturbing personalities and topic. Read more
See it if You love Sondheim and don’t mind a musical glorifying sick people.
Don't see it if You want a feel good musical.
See it if you have even half a brain.This is a brilliant production of one of my favorite Sondheim shows.Performances are mind blowingly good.
Don't see it if your idea of a good musical is MJ or Sponge Bob.If you like Sondheim and appreciate creative theatre, see this.
See it if Small-scale intimate Sondheim musical. Great singing with a small band over the stage. I liked Ethan Slater as the Balladeer and Lee Oswald
Don't see it if you don't care for John Doyle's stripped-down staging of Sondheim. But it's totally appropriate for this cozy venue.
See it if well sung play with music. Story is relevant still today about disenfranchised people and their response.
Don't see it if want a big musical. this is small - more of a play with music. some scenes are long.
See it if a fan of anyone in the cast, Stephen Sondheim’s work, or unusual premises for musicals. This one is jarring: morbid contents, catchy music.
Don't see it if dark comedy is not your cup of tea; uncomfortable with “light”-sounding approaches to serious topics like assassination, suicide, violence. Read more
Critic Reviews (15)
"I can’t be the only Sondheim nerd sick of respectful, minimalist approaches. Give us full orchestras, monumental design, directors eager to wrestle with convention; scale up, you cowards. Don’t relegate the full sonic and dramatic force of the past century’s greatest musicals to the concert hall or opera house. Or if you’re going to do it in a small venue like CSC, freak the hell out of us. No, those who long for an Assassins to disrupt our peace will have to wait until the next civic atrocity. Take discomfort in the fact that this ominous triumph will always wait for us in the dark, finger on the trigger."
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While the actors give excellent performances, the revival lacks emotion and heart which is strange considering the number of characters who die or who are wounded in the course of the show. It is as though they (and we) are numbed by so much depiction of killing.
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"Assassins is a particular piece. There is only one prop common to all of the characters: a gun. It is their strength, their sword, their sword arm for that matter. Because they welcome it, and everything for which is stands, they can and will murder – or at least try. But murder, in this case is not a blip on the monitor."
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"The production lacks the power to unsettle despite a fine cast of killers and wannabes who changed, or at least made, history gunning for presidents."
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"Assassins remains fascinating...The most discomfiting thing about watching Assassins now is the extent to which the isolated mindsets whose dots the musical connects through 120 years of U.S. history have cohered into movements since the show was written. “The country is not what it was,” sings Booth somberly, and many people now would agree. The other national anthem, as the song predicts, is getting louder every year."
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"Director John Doyle’s electrifying staging of “Assassins,” Stephen Sondheim’s macabre masterpiece about our national infatuation with fame and our appetite for violence, is a revival to die for — figuratively, of course."
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"5 stars!...Rifles and revolvers get plenty of play. That said, missing this show would be a shame — if you can snag a ticket. Set to open 19 months ago but delayed by the pandemic, director and designer John Doyle’s take on this darkly humorous slice of history is tight, insightful, and impeccably performed. It aims, fires, and hits the mark."
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"Are the protesters who violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 the contemporary descendants of the men and women who assassinated and attempted to assassinate the Presidents of the United States?
This is the disturbing query posed at the end of Classic Stage Company’s eagerly-anticipated Off-Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s one-of-a-kind 1990 musical “Assassins,” a nonlinear, critical-minded, and darkly comic examination of American assassins and would-be assassins."
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