Assassins

[featherynscale]

Friday night, the intrepid Trinity household braved the darkest depths of Olathe to go see malvito in Assassins. I'm not much of a fan of the musical as a genre, but I do tend to like musicals with subject matter that is blatantly unsuitable to musicals, so I figured this would be an enjoyable experience. We met up with chaosdruid, zylch, and zylch's Not A Boy at the theater... they were in the front row, which we figured couldn't be good for malvito's chances of making it through the show without breaking character. Ground rules were set: "Okay. No making the dancing Anubis. No flashing malvito during his monologues." And so on and so forth. Doom was in the air.

The show itself is pretty good, a bouncy, dancy, funny little number about what makes people want to kill presidents. (Conversation in the car on the way home: What makes people *not* want to kill presidents? Vice presidents like Dick Cheney. The vice presidency may be the president's most potent weapon against assassination.) malvito was terribly horribly noble and tragic as Leon Czologosz (or some such thing), the anarchist sympathizer who shot William McKinley. We cried. Seriously. He was that tragic. Also of note, the fellow who plays Sam Byck (tried to kill Nixon) is fantastic. Not just a little crazy, full-on batshit crazy. He totally steals the show. And then, Hinckley (shot Reagan). He's a hottie. You don't get the opportunity to say things like "Hinckley's a hottie" very often, so I'm taking every chance I get.

The audience, largely made up of older ladies who I am willing to bet are OCTA season ticket holders, didn't get a lot of it. Notably, when John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln, crying "Sic semper tyranis" over and over, the ladies behind us went "Six what? Six what?". Afterwards, they were heard to say, "Well, that was weird. I didn't see the point of all that." Which just goes to show that, if there's anywhere on earth that Sondheim will be too edgy for, it's Olathe.

Anyway, I think they run one more week. If you're local, you might nip down to Olathe and take a look. We had a great time.

Comments

in which I studiously avoid discussing the lights or "Something Just Broke"

[zylch.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that the older ladies didn't really get the show. But I was terribly surprised when they didn't catch "Sic semper tyrannis!" I mean, they seemed old enough to have been educated back when history books still covered that sort of thing, and when Latin was still regularly taught in school.

Re: in which I studiously avoid discussing the lights or "Something Just Broke"

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yep. You'd think they'd teach Latin in Kansas, helping to read the writings of the medieval Church, since that seems to be what determines their public education policies these days.

Re: in which I studiously avoid discussing the lights or "Something Just Broke"

[malvito.livejournal.com]

Ulimately, the Old Lady factor was what raised some resistance to the show from OCTA's board (one of the no-votes was the lady who played Emma Goldman). Fortunately, the no-votes were out-voted, and our attendance seems to have made the point in favor of edgier material. Hope OCTA does more like this in the future.

Re: The Old Lady Factor

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

We're always happier to see any show which has had the Old Lady Factor raised against it. In fact, I'm now considering adding that to my criteria for visiting shows: "Would old ladies in Olathe be confused by it?"

Re: The Old Lady Factor

[malvito.livejournal.com]

Definitely one of my favorite criterium.

[zerself.livejournal.com]

Really? I was going to go yesterday and then got side tracked into other necessary things. I hope they're still playing, I've been trying to see this show for a long damn time. Seeing malvito in it would be a really awesome bonus.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

One more weekend, says malvito. It's quite good, and you should go!

[malvito.livejournal.com]

Was glad to see you all, and that you all enjoyed the show; you got there on a good night. (See my latest update.) Put your rose in a glass that I got from a cast member from Company, another great Sondheim musical, with Brita-ed water, and it is in full bloom.

Assassins!

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Definitely one of my favorite musicals. I saw it in 1993 with my then-girlfriend, who's a descendant of John Wilkes Booth's brother or something.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

What is the "dancing Anubis," or should I not ask?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Dancing Anubis is your own personal death god. You make the sign of the Dancing Anubis by holding up your hand and touching your middle and ring fingers to your thumb, with your index and little fingers upright like ears.
You can then make Dancing Anubis do a number of obnoxious things.
This figure is also known in some circles as "The Llama" or as "Mr. PotFace".

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank Eru. I was afraid it involved penis puppetry.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Silly creature. I can't make penis puppetry without special equipment.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

But you said you went with others, some of whom could provide the necessary special equipment (I hope). And I didn't imagine that the Ground Rules applied only to you.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Ah. You are correct on both counts.

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

it's sad i live just outside of olathe and i just can't find the time to shoot out there for a show. sad but true...