Some may see an element of class struggle in the thwarted Sweeney’s slashing swathe of revenge—which is a dish Mrs. Lovett serves best warm, in her dubious meat pies.
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET: Theater Review
A squeamish soul, I’ve avoided seeing any of the various stage or screen permutations of the London-set Sweeney Todd saga, which—according to A Noise Within’s playbill—stretches back to an 1846 penny dreadful during the Victorian era. I somehow even managed to miss Tim Burton’s 2007 movie adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 Broadway musical starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in this macabre story about a wrongfully convicted barber who wreaks havoc with his preternaturally sharp razor blade, providing an unusually tasty filling for his partner in crime’s “meat” pies.
Your scaredy cat reviewer summoned up the courage to set aside his reluctance when it was announced that A Noise Within, one of Los Angeles’ top of the line theater companies, was mounting the musical. I screwed up my courage to see this screwy show but through much of the first act I was baffled, pondering what this creepy, cannibalistic play was really all about. The jury was still out until the final song performed during Act I, “Try the Priest,” with Sweeney (ANW’s Producing Artistic Director and thespian extraordinaire Geoff Elliott) and his co-conspirator Mrs. Lovett (Cassandra Marie Murphy) merrily romping atop one of the production’s pianos as the gruesome twosome hatch their deadly scheme to simultaneously depopulate and feed London at the same time.
The sheer merriment they express as Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett cavort and conspire with chortling choreography devised by the show’s dazzling director, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, who is also an ANW Producing Artistic Director, finally won this queasy critic over. The skillfully executed—uh—executions in Sweeney’s barber chair are harrowingly conceived and conveyed, with searing lighting by Ken Booth and banshee-like, bone chilling screams terrifyingly rendered by audio engineer Lucio Maramba and sound technician Christopher Bosco, and likely explain my insomnia opening night. As does a scene of madmen and women confined at Bedlam, one of the theater’s most disturbing depictions of an insane asylum since Marat/Sade (and this one featured the Marquis de Sade!) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Freaky shrieky!
Sondheim composed the play’s music and penned the songs’ lyrics, with a book by Hugh Wheeler, that oozes with frenetic vengeance. After being exiled Down Under at Botany Bay (“put another prisoner on the barbie, mate!”) for decades, our man Sweeney makes good his escape and finds his way back to 19th century London, only to be told of his wife’s (Amber Liekhus) fate and his daughter Johanna’s (Joanna A. Jones) captivity by his nemesis, Judge Turpin (ANW stalwart Jeremy Rabb), who has his own lecherous designs on his beautiful “guardian.”
Some may see an element of class struggle in the thwarted Sweeney’s slashing swathe of revenge—which is a dish Mrs. Lovett serves best warm, in her dubious meat pies. In addition to the judge, the titular demon barber and his blade also pursues the government functionary Beadle Bamford (the preening Harrison White). In the course of their rampage, Mrs. Lovett’s simply scrumptious meat pies enrich the previously impoverished couple. But for those reading a class war motif into the show I’d also point out that Todd’s victims during his bloody spree on Fleet Street include down and out members of the underclass who, he reasons, nobody will miss once they disappear from the scene as they become grisly grist for Mrs. Lovett’s mill of murderous meat pies baked by the pastry makers from hell.
Having said that, it seemed that the direction of the episodic Sweeney Todd was Brechtian, highly stylized, with agile if sparse sets by scenic designer Francois-Pierre Couture and props (including a horrifying meat grinder) by Stephen Taylor. ANW’s imaginative rendition of Sweeney Todd verges on the experimental and avant garde. The only thing vaguely realistic in this nightmarish production are the period costumes by Angela Balogh Calin, which to this reviewer’s untutored eye seemed like reasonable facsimiles of duds worn by denizens of 19th century London. In the end this cowardly critic was glad he was able to overcome his fearfulness to partake of this brilliantly staged, acted, danced, and sung musical, with the cast of almost 20 accompanied by two pianos and a cello. Of course, this isn’t everybody’s cup of hemlock (it wasn’t mine - that is, not until I saw it!)—you’ve been forewarned, as this show isn’t for the tykes or those with (literally!) weak stomachs. Pass the ketchup and enjoy the show!
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is being performed Thursdays (dark Feb. 29) at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 p.m., through March 17 at A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. For tickets: (626)356-3100; www.anoisewithin.org.
