BWW Interviews: Mike McShane On ASSASSINS!

Hello Mike, and welcome to BWW:UK - thanks so much for speaking to us. You've finished previews and just opened - how is everything going?

Without becoming hyperbolic about it - and staying quite British - it's going quite well!

The audience response sounds like it's been excellent.

It has. Mr Sondheim came to see us at a matinee, and he didn't throw things at us, so so far so good. His pitching might not be as good as it used to be, but still, he's formidable. When he left the room, we all jumped around and squealed like schoolchildren. It's the closest I'll get to seeing Shakespeare in my life.

Did you know he was coming in? Did you get prior warning?

Not of the day. About ten minutes before, there was just a vibe between the producers. They were rushing in and out the doors more than they usually do, but I figured it would be him. It was great.

Sondheim always takes a rich subject matter, stuff that could be considered lacking in taste or questionable in its approach, particularly when talking about assassins, and put this libretto and music together. We spent as much time on the text as we did on the music - often in a musical, the text is a paper plate you put the cheeseburger on, but in this case it's not at all. It was all there - maybe because Jamie [Lloyd] is such a good director. I saw the production at the Donmar [in 1992, and enjoyed it, but I didn't get the overall theme, which we're all getting - the outsiders coming to the inside, each of these people read the brochure on the American Dream and found it wanting, and are lost. We feed off each other, build our momentum; when we arrive at the song 'Another National Anthem', it's a frightening sort of unity.

To top it off, the performances are amazing and I get to sit and watch it every night - Catherine Tate, Aaron Tveit, all the cast, they're just great, so it's a unique and rich opportunity to be in the show.

You mentioned in passing the question around the taste of a show like this. It's a difficult subject. How do you feel about it?

I'm naturally perverse! I was raised Catholic, I went to a prep school, I got booted out. I'm a Vietnam-era veteran. I was raised in the mid-West, the gun culture in America as promoted by the NRA and politicians who push through those things. I read the paper over Thanksgiving about Ferguson - it makes you angry. If there's a piece of theatre, a play or musical, where someone can come up to the bar and we can match it in performance, then I believe it's useful. I mean, my character was going to fly an airplane into the White House in 1974. Cut to 2001.

I don't agree with the actions of the individual agents, but I understand why they would, each of them - immigrants coming from war-torn Europe; being accused of taking jobs away from us - I mean, that hasn't happened again...

Do you think an American audience would be ready to see this production bearing in mind Ferguson and the gun culture still being debated?

Honestly, I'd like to, but I have my doubts. It would get Fox News talking about "this America-hating musical". When I was a kid I was a punk. I stole cars, I robbed houses, I was a fat, angry kid. I knew where my dad's guns were, I knew where the bullets were. I never, ever considered that. So what's changed? My generation wasn't any better. What's changed America's point of view that that becomes a purposeful action to take?

Mike McShane stars in Assassins, running at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

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