I am going to appear in a local production of this show. What a great show to work on ! The cast I work with generally agrees that the 1991 version is better. This version has more songs but the older version is better sung.

I'm surprised that I'm giving the Broadway Revival Cast's rendition of Assassins four stars, actually, because there's so much to dislike.

First off, the majority of the assassins are almost like cartoon characters. The obvious example of this is Denis O'Hare's Charles J. Guiteau, who is nothing like Jonathan Hadary's Guiteau. Where Hadary's Guiteau presents the image of being cultured and intelligent (Charles Guiteau, of course, was neither, but thought of himself in such a way), O'Hare's Guiteau is a flat-out maniac. Both renditions work impressively. Whilst O'Hare's voice doesn't come off as strong as Hadary's, in The Ballad of Guiteau O'Hare's "I am going to the Lordy"s are extremely powerful.

The same can't be said for some of the other cast members. Becky Ann Baker's turn as Sarah Moore just doesn't work, especially in Gun Song which she pretty much ruins by taking frantic, fast-paced lines and singing them without the energy they need. Meanwhile, James Barbour, Michael Cerveris, and Jeffery Kuhn seem to make their accents (as Leon Czolgosz, John Wilkes Booth, and Giuseppe Zangara respectively) thicker than they were in the original, sacrificing the subtlety and lesser aspects of the characters (especially Kuhn's Zangara, who lacks the menacing rage that Eddie Korbich gave the role).

There's the odd exception that proves the rule, though; Mary Catherine Garrison as Lynette Fromme, who takes Squeaky and... well, robs her of personality both in Unworthy of Your Love and Another National Anthem. She spends all of her time in the former singing a love song to Charlie Manson and inexplicably playing it COMPLETELY straight. There's no trace of madness in her voice, not even in the lines that are clearly completely mad. I mean, she sounds like an innocent maiden almost when she's playing a cult member.

Now, let's steer away from the bad and get to the good. First off, Neil Patrick Harris as the Balladeer is absolutely wonderful. His voice is strong and he has this general aura of innocence that is wonderful to hear. To be honest, Patrick Cassidy's Balladeer, whilst wonderful, comes off as a condescending jerk quite often, which, while it fits the considerably darker Off-Broadway Cast recording, doesn't really fit what the voice of the Balladeer seems like it was supposed to be. Harris' performances on all three Ballads and Another National Anthem are probably the strongest vocal performances of the whole production. Marc Kudisch as the Proprietor is fun in an over-the-top way, though I didn't care for him continually showing up everywhere (ESPECIALLY in Another National Anthem where he takes away lines from Sam Byck who doesn't even have a song in the first place and oomes off too puppetmaster-ish for his own good). James Barbour is perfectly fine as Czolgosz, and Mario Cantone's gravelly-voiced Samuel Byck is excellent. And, in one of the few times I think a Revival cast member truly outshined a Off-Broadway cast member, Alexander Gemignani is absolutely PERFECT as John Hinckley, sounding perfectly creepy and miserable.

Now, as for the actual differences in the music, the Revival production has far more in the way of musical depth. The music is so full and clear that it's frequently more fun to listen to the music than the singing. It's also very indicative of the tone of the production as opposed to its Off-Broadway predecessor. Where the Off-Broadway production's music always had that vaguely unsettling feeling to it, the Revival production takes away the creepiness and replaces it with bright, lively music that makes the songs fun, even if it changes how they come off entirely.

One thing that the Revival Cast CD has to be commended for is the inclusion of actual bits from the play. The original has the entire scene with Lee Harvey Oswald and the rest of the Assassins (which is unfortunately edited in this), but nothing else. It's almost unfair to compare casts if you haven't seen the original live (which I haven't), because you can't judge, say, how Lee Wilkof handled Sam Byck's monologues as compared to Mario Cantone (who shines on Have it Your Way, a brilliant four-minute rant and one of the highlights of the entire CD).

In the end, this is a fun CD worth picking up, but if you've never heard Assassins before, get the original first and then get this for comparison's sake and the lovely musical and strong performances by some of the cast.

Though the Revival cast is very talented, and was, in fact, how I was introduced to the show, the Original Cast Recording is stronger. I give it 4 stars simply because the music is incredible. Particularly "Unworthy of Your Love", one of Sondheim's most beautiful songs ever.