Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Andrew AB, Shane Bear, Franki Burke, Rachel Davies, Izzi Feld, Trev Fleming, Shaun Holdom-Eyles, Thomas Hurst, Megan Key, Thomas Loughlin, Lily Maketansky, Lizzy Paes, Asher Pollock, Blair Smith, Chris Walsh, Andy Walker, Thomas Wiggins, Charlotte Wilson.
Musicians: Josie Conti, Mark Newberry, Caitlin Marley, Megan Rowlands, Adam Handford, Grace Loxley, Emily Magee, Jonny Knight, Chris Dickinson.
The great measure of history, the seal in which is promised that any person born in their country can become President of the United States of America and therefore, by elimination, can grow up to be the person to who might just also be the assassin, the one to pull the trigger, the one to whom history can be changed in a heartbeat, it takes just seconds to alter the course of the future.
Assassins is a production that perhaps fits the age in many ways, one on which the mind-set of the perpetrator and their reasoning, fallible or with reason, is explored through drama and music and one that really only Liverpool’s What We Did Next can, its great cast and director Zoe Thirsk could conceive of bringing to the Unity Theatre stage.
It is with great admiration and regard to see long-term What We Did Next actor Andrew AB come to the foreground in this production, a talent that has perhaps been out of view, that came rushing to the foreground as he took on the sensitive role of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin to others in the last century are tried and convicted against, it is the name that perhaps most of us know, even in some small regard, we measure the insanity of political murder in this one name in the same tone of breath as Brutus, the slayer of Caesar.
To capture even the essence of the man as he sat in the Texas School Book Depository Building and contemplated upon his life and urged in by the ghosts of the past, and those to come, to commit the heinous act, takes courage and a complexity that others might miss out on. A few have tried, notably Gary Oldman arguably giving the finest of all representations, and yet Andrew AB comes chillingly close.
You would not expect anything other than a sense of beauty when watching What We Did Next, yet to take on a Stephen Sondheim musical that deals with the art, the frustrations, the perceived evil and quite often the sheer insanity of the reflex that comes with the freedom of the gun laws in American society, is to allow the audience to be drawn in further than they might have expected, more than they might have understood about the complexity of the issues at hand.
For that, once again, is in the domain of What We Did Next and from the incredible music performed and through to the nuances of each would be assassin, it is this company’s enjoyment and search for a truth of Assassins that shines brightly.
Ian D. Hall