Sweeney Todd - Review

Barrow Street Theatre, New York


****


Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Adaptation by Christopher Bond
Directed by Bill Buckhurst

Sally Ann Triplett and Thom Sesma

Visiting New York offers a chance to catch up with the trans-Atlantic transfer of Bill Buckhurst’s ingenious take on Sweeney Todd, sited in a replica of Harrington’s eponymous Tooting pie shop.

In the current iteration Thom Sesma plays the barbarous barber, while Sally-Ann Triplett picks up the rolling pin as Mrs Lovett. There’s a callow, haunted presence to Sesma whose Todd evidently serves “a dark and vengeful god”. One senses Sweeney’s murderous power and potential from the outset, Sesma’s opening exchanges with Anthony (Billy Harrigan Tighe) heavy with understated menace. The production however has its actors un-amplified, and annoyingly there are moments when lyrics are lost.

Triplett is, as the role demands, far more floury than flowery. Indeed, while recent years have seen numerous talented women play Mrs Lovett, Triplett unlocks something special in the deep love that she’s evidently borne for Sweeney for many years. As she gives him back his knives, tools that she has evidently treasured, on his return to Fleet Street there is a moment of passion and pathos in her action that is a rare treat.

There’s only one Brit in the cast (Triplett) and credit to all the American players for their English accents. There’s not a weak link amongst them either, with classy vocals and acting coming from Delaney Westfall and Stacie Bono as Joanna and the Beggar Woman respectively. Michael James Leslie captures the plummy patrician in Judge Turpin, though perhaps a little more could be made of his contribution to the show’s sexualised horror in his own reprise of Johanna. And moving from horror to comedy, the first half’s closing number of A Little Priest needs its vocals honed and timed just a little tighter to enable Sondheim’s razor-sharp wit to be fully savoured.

With just a three piece band, musical director Adrian Ries makes fine work of Sondheim's complex melodies.

As Sara Bareilles’ Waitress plays on Broadway and this show runs in Greenwich Village, the power of the pie to pack in New York audiences has never been stronger. Of course, the pie-shop Sweeney famously goes one step further, allowing folk to pre-order a meat filled delicacy (veggie option available too) that arrives swimming in liquor (or, as the Harrington’s sign states, a little lasciviously, “Licker”). On the night of this review, the Beef Wellington pie was delicious, even if the portion of mash could have been a tad more generous.

Harrington’s at the Barrow Street Theatre was packed. It’s clear that this Sweeney Todd remains fine off-Broadway fare!

Now booking until September 2018

Sweeney Todd - Review

Twickenham Theatre, London

****

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Hugh Wheeler

Adaptation by Christopher Bond

Directed by Derek Anderson

David Bedella and Sarah Ingram

Twickenham is the newest of fringe theatres to open in the capital. Perched above a pub, little more than a stone’s throw from the train station it’s a pleasantly accessible suburban venue and with Derek Anderson’s entertaining production of Sondheim’s bloodiest work, Twickenham has laid down its marker for quality.

There’s a steampunk feel to the piece. Amidst dripping pipes and a smoke filled gloom creating the infernal grime of Mrs Lovett’s bakehouse, David Bedella and Sarah Ingram breathe life into the doomed couple. Bedella’s Todd is callow, drawn and hungry for vengeance. Controlled understatement defines his crafted performance though vocally, on press night at least, it felt that he could be giving more. In two of Sweeney’s biggest numbers, My Friends and Epiphany, Bedella is magnificent, though he and the cast are not helped by clumsy sound design throwing voices in and out of amplification depending upon proximity to static mikes.

The treat of the show however is Ingram whose buxomly decolletaged Mrs Lovett is at once a fusion of Carry On’s Hattie Jaques, Oliver’s Nancy and Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. Ingram nuances the menace of her character perfectly, The Worst Pies In London being a comic treat whilst By The Sea blends her romantic desperation with Sondheim’s remarkable understanding of English banter. Ingram could slow down just a tad in A Little Priest, some of the gags are garbled.

Elsewhere there is excellence from Genevieve Kingsford making her debut in the desperately challenging soprano role of Johanna. She sings exquisitely in Kiss Me and Green Finch And Linnet Bird. Mikaela Newton’s Tobias is touchningly convincing whilst Mark McKerracher is appropriately old enough to make his misogynistic lust for his young ward as disgusting as it should be, though his moment of self-flagellation is distractingly feeble.

The staging is simple with Rachel Stone’s design generally working well. Sweeney’s chair is an ingeniously low-budget affair but it serves its purpose, shuttling the slaughtered carcasses off the stage. The fake blood flows in torrents, turning most of the show’s murders into moments of comedy-horror, though too often the blood squirting nozzle is visible on the “victim”. If the mechanics behind an effect are visible, it is no longer “special” and an audience’s suspended disbelief can lurch dangerously south.

Benjamin Holder’s four piece band tackle Sondheim with aplomb. The two keyboards in particular maintain an almost orchestral backing to the show and are a constant reminder of the outstanding performance values to be found in London’s Off West End. I won’t be the only critic to say this, but make the trip to Twickenham’s Sweeney Todd. It’s a bloody good musical.


Runs until 4th October 2014

Sweeney Todd - Review

Adelphi Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Hugh Wheeler

Adaptation by Christopher Bond

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball

Sweeney Todd at the Adelphi Theatre is a rare production these days. Having received critical acclaim in Chichester in 2011, the producers brought it to the West End for 6 months only, and when its residence on The Strand ends this week, that’s it. The show’s over.  No formulaic production here, complete with instantly recognisable logo or slogan, that can be replicated around the world, and re-cast every 12 months as necessary. Neither are there any gimmicks apart from a rather gruesome barber’s chair and pints of stage blood. This Sweeney is most definitely cast-specific, and it shows.

Jonathan Kent has set Sondheim’s work in an unspecified era with Anthony Ward’s design being darkly evocative, bleak and stark. This deliberate blurring of the time boundaries  (The Judge and Beadle predate Robert Peel’s police force,  yet Pirelli drives a petrol powered trike) adding to the production's sensation of disquiet and enhancing the slightly supernatural aspect of Todd’s persona. The feel of the production is almost as cold as steel itself. It is harsh, industrial, and gritty. A steam sirens blasts, heavy doors clang shut and even the massive set piece that bears Todd’s barber shop, is stored behind a noisy steel roller shutter door when not in use. The one item striking item of garish colour on the set is the neon sign ( again, a time-warping design feature ) promoting Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop. The neon is of course ghoulishly ironic, beckoning customers to enter and unwittingly feast on their fellow man.

Michael Ball plays the barber with calculating vengefulness. His smiles are always insincere, his purpose always focussed as he uses any means he can to avenge his wife’s supposed death, his daughter’s abduction and his false imprisonment. Rarely is a murderer so convincingly sympathetic and Ball explores the full depths and complexities of the troubled man as we follow his journey. Sondheim’s lyrics and melodies are not easy, nor is the show easy-listening. The words are fast and harsh, and the harmonics frequently in complex minor keys, yet 6 months into the show’s London residency, Ball remains both fresh and comfortable in the role, without in any way slipping into lazy over-confidence. His comic moments are few, often being a straight man to Mrs Lovett’s effusiveness, yet they shine. In A Little Priest, his understated irony is perfect, whilst his armchair sardonic attitude towards the clearly besotted Mrs Lovett, in a parlour scene leading up to By The Sea, has distinct echoes of Michael Robbins’ Arthur, from 1970s TV’s On The Buses.

Without question, Michael Ball is one of the country’s musical theatre stars. Since creating the role of Marius in Les Miserables, his performances have nearly all involved lyrics as well as prose. By contrast, Imelda Staunton who plays Mrs Lovett, herself one of the country’s top actresses, does not have such a popularly recognised reputation in musical theatre. Yet, when the Chichester casting was announced in 2011, the decision to pair Staunton with Ball, was deservedly greeted with universal acclaim. Lovett is a down trodden, poor, woman of the people, as well as being arguably the (second) most evil character in the show and Staunton plays her definitively. Her character is complex: cunning, compassionate, caring, comic but above all, lonely. Staunton’s performance portrays all these aspects and then some more and does so with a breathtaking clarity of speech and melody of voice.  Maybe one day Sondheim will write the story of what happened to Mr Lovett. As and when he does Imelda Staunton should reprise her remarkable creation. Both Staunton and Ball are professionals who are at the pinnacle of their careers and whose ability to act through song cannot be surpassed. They quite simply provide a masterclass in musical theatre. 

Adding a further comment with regard to Staunton, this reviewer witnessed her as a Hot Box Girl in Richard Eyre’s Guys and Dolls some 30 years ago and devotedly followed her progress within that show over time, until she was rewarded with the lead role of Miss Adelaide. It is interesting to note that with both Miss Adelaide, and now Mrs Lovett, Staunton has taken iconic women from two seminally New York and London inspired shows, both of whom, coincidentally, had been memorably and famously performed by Julia McKenzie, and given each her own unique and powerful interpretation.

The supporting cast are typically outstanding to a man. John Bowe is a nauseatingly perverted Judge, whose lust, first for Todd’s wife and then for the barber's young daughter is flesh-creeping. And it speaks volumes for the pedigree of this show that an actor of the calibre of Peter Polycarpou was lured to take the modest role of Beadle Bamford. As the young lovers, Lucy May Barker and Luke Brady play their parts in the story with passion and conviction.

All these outstanding performances however are hung on the framework of creative excellence that is Sondheim's talent with words and music. A New Yorker, his eye for the pulse of a city is cleverly worked into his rhythm and words and coming from across the pond, his is a rare talent that can compose lyrics and dialogue that have an authentic London feel. His cockney writing has more to do with Lionel Bart's Oliver, than Disney's "Mockney" that the Sherman brothers foisted on Mary Poppins' Dick van Dyke.

It is both sad but also absolutely correct , that Sweeney Todd should bring the curtain down this weekend. The inspired brilliance of the pairing of Ball and Staunton is not likely to be replicated soon on a London stage, and it would be a travesty to deliberately re-cast this union with fresh actors. If you have not seen the show yet, you have five more days and seven more performances to catch it. Not to be missed!

Runs until September 22 2012