Assassins
Louise had a featured role comically portraying Sara
Jane More, one of Gerald Ford's would-be assassins, at Donmar
Warehouse from 29 October 1992. It should be noted that nearly all the major
characters in this Sondheim musical are loosely based on historical people.
Cast
The
Proprietor - Paul Bentley
Leon Czolgosz - Jack Ellis
John
Hinckley - Michael Cantwell
Charles Guiteau - Henry Goodman
Giuseppe Zangara - Paul Harrhy
Samuel Byck - Ciaran Hinds
Lynette
(Squeaky) Frome - Catheryn Bradshaw
Sara Jane
More - Louise Gold
John Wilkes
Booth - David Firth
The
Balladeer - Anthony Barclay
David Herold - Kevin Walton
Bystanders -
Paul Bentley, Michelle Fine, Sue Kelvin, Gareth Snook
and Kevin Walton
Emma Goldman
- Sue Kelvin
President
James Garfield - Kevin Walton
James Blaine
- Gareth Snook
President
Gerald Ford - Paul Bentley
Lee Harvey
Oswald - Gareth Snook
Production Team
Music and
Lyrics - Stephen Sondheim
Book -
John Weidman
Original
Production – 27 January 1991, Playwrights Horizons, Off-Broadway, with Debra
Monk as Sarah Jane Moore.
Director - Sam
Mendes
Set and
Costume Designer - Anthony Ward
Lighting
Designer - Paul Pyant
Musical
Director -
Performance
MD - Mark W Dorrell
Rehearsal pianist – Kate Young
Sound
Designer - John A Leonard
Costume
Supervisor - Christine Rowland
While this American musical has played
The Donmar Warehouse
Theatre takes it’s name from a combination of Donald Albery and Margot Fonteyn.
Ordinarily Mark
Dorrell was rehersal
pianist as well as performance MD, but for a rehearsal where he was unavailable
as rehersal-pianist Kate Young had to deputise.
Michael Cantwell, Louise Gold, Gareth
Snook and Michelle Fine had appeared together earlier in year in
another Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along (Stage Production)
and on that cast’s Merrily
We Roll Along (Recording).
John Weidman had previously contributed
to the revised book of Anything Goes,
that Louise Gold appeared in, in 1990, and which Louise Gold,
starred in a studio cast recording of .
Louise Gold and David Firth
had previously appeared together in The
Metropolitan Mikado, and it’s highlight’s concert Ratepayers' Iolanthe & Metropolitan Mikado. They went on to
appear together in Man Of
La Mancha.
Louise Gold, David Firth and Gareth
Snook went on the appear on the JAY/TER recording of Anything Goes (recording) - Website
Recommended Album
Louise Gold and Mitchelle
Fine were reunited on the JAY/TER recording of Stop The World I
Want To Get Off.
Louise Gold and Gareth Snook
later appeared on the JAY/TER recording of On The
Town
Louise Gold, Gareth Snook,
and, Michael Cantwell on the JAY/TER recording of Cabaret
Louise Gold and Kevin Walton
had previously appeared in The Lost Musicals production of By Jupiter and were reunited in the film Topsy Turvy . They can be
heard on the Topsy Turvy (Soundtrack album)
Michael Cantwell and Louise Gold
were reunited several years later in One Touch Of
Venus, and later as members of The
Company Of Mary Poppins in a late night FUNdrasing special.
Henry Goodman and Louise Gold
have been reunited a couple of times since, in a radio production of Let ‘Em Eat Cake, and The
Lost Musicals production of that show’s predecessor Of Thee
I Sing.
Ten years later, Louise Gold, Henry Goodman,
and Paul Bentley were reunited in the Sondheim musical Follies which also had a book by John Weidman.
Louise Gold and Paul Bentley
went on to appear together in Kiss Me Kate and
on the radio on Ned Sherrin’s
Review Of Revue
Paul Bentley appeared in Regents Park 70th Anniversary Gala
Louise Gold
has gone on to star in the inaugural production of The Water Babies and appear
Noises Off
both in directed by
Louise Gold also went on to appear in the
stage production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
which
Louise
Gold spoke about her work on this show on Tim McArthur Interviews, and, Dead By 12.
Louise Gold, and, Mark Dorrall
went on to contribute to the Side By Side By
Sondheim 30th Anniversary Gala, in which Stephen Sondheim himself put in an appearance.
Henry Goodman went on to
appear in A Love Letter To
Dan.
Michelle Fine may have gone
on to appear in Dear Ralph.
Rehearsal pianist Kate
Young went on to MD the first Landor Theatre
production of Assassins.
Paul
Bentley, Michael
Cantwell, and Louise Gold have
gone on to appear together in Mary Poppins.
Kate Young had previously
been a dep pianist on The Pirates Of Penzance (Stage prodcution), she went on to be a dep
pianist on Anything Goes (stage show).
Critics Comments
“Their [The female contenders] discussions
provide the most entertaining dialog, though it is hard to believe that Ms
Moore ,... was quite as pathetic as Louise Gold’s comic portrayal” Penny
Appleton, WORDS AND MUSIC, Issue 14, Janaury 1993
“And, although it’s a no-star ensemble piece,
one cannot but single out Henry Goodman’s fizzingly
energetic Guiteau, Ciaran Hinds’s morosely self-important Samuel Byck,
David Firth’s posterity-concious Booth and the weird
double-act of Cathryn Bradshaw and Louise Gold as Gerald Ford’s purative killers.” Michael Billington,
THE GUARDIAN, 31 October 1992
“In a way it is a shame to single out
performers because they work so well as a team, but I did find the solo turns
of Louise Gold, Paul Harrhy, David Firth, Henry
Goodman (both hilarious and chilling at the same time) and Ciaran
Hinds quite outstanding.” Peter Gannaway,
WORDS AND MUSIC, Issue 14, January 1993
"Of
many achingly funny portraits are those of
"There's
a clutch of excellent performances from Kathryn Bradshaw and Louise Gold as
Lynette Frome and Sarah Jane Moore (who planned to eliminate Gerald Ford)"
Clive Hirschhorn, SUNDAY EXPRESS, 1 November
1992
"Henry Goodman and Louise Gold are
especially memorable" Nigel Howard, PLAYS AND PLAYERS, December
1992
"The two women who try to shoot
a president are a wonderful double act. Cathryn Bradshaw's Lynette
"Squeaky" Fromme - meets irresistibly loopy
Sara Jane Moore (Louise Gold)." Kate Kellaway
THE OBSERVER, 1 November 1992
“The
cast of killers and carers is admirably integrated, so that as a rule it is
very difficult to work out which are genuine Americans and which good mimics.
The physical casting is very good: Paul Bentley as the devilishly amiable
proprietor of the booth, Michael Cantwell as the weedy John Hinckley (who tried
to assassinate Reagan for love of Jodie Foster), Henry Goodman was the
ebullient Charles Guiteau (who obliterated Garfield
and skipped to the scaffold) and Louise Gold as the animated Barby doll Sarah Jane Moore are all at once their
characters to life. All the cast can sing too: if not quite with the same
unselfconscious athomeness with Sondheim’s style as
the American cast, at least close enough to silence all doubts.” John Russell Taylor,
PLAYS INTERNATIONAL, Vol 8, No 5, December 1992.
"Among the individually
and collectively remarkable cast - Louise Gold in a gem of a minor part as the
chronically chaotic Sarah Jane Moore". Ian Shuttleworth, CITY LIMITS, 5 November 1992
Links about
Assassins
Theatre Radio’s
interview with Louise Gold http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/display?contentId=88986
TheatreNow.Com interview: Gold On Stage: Louise Gold In Follies: http://www.theatrenow.com/asp/link.htm?news.asp?art=3430&cat=1 This is an interview carried out by Theatre.Com’s Paul Webb, one hot summer’s day, while Louise
was appearing in Follies at The Royal Festival Hall. Although the interview is
ostensibly about her role in Follies she also talks about her other Sondheim
performances (including Assassins), along with:
City Limits review by Ian Shuttleworth: http://www.cix.co.uk/~shutters/reviews/92126.htm
Somdheim.com page about the show: http://www.sondheim.com/shows/assassins/
Jorge’s page about the show (includes a
couple of photographs): http://www.jorgeplace.com/shows_Assassins.htm
