"Sweeney Odd", Is More Like It

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Directed by: John Doyle
Lyrics by: Stephen Sondheim
Music by: Stephen Sondheim
Book by: Hugh Wheeler

I like a good musical now and again. Perhaps I am downplaying this a bit. My Aunt started me off at age five with a two-album set of Gilbert & Sulivan’s “The Mikado”, I inherited my Mother’s original cast recordings of “Superman: The Musical”, “Jamaica” and “Carnival”. By the time I was eight, my idea of going to church was locking myself in my room on a Sunday afternoon and acting out all the parts to "Godspell". You can imagine what happened when "Annie" hit Broadway.

I was never one of those Sondheim fanatics (you know the ones) but "Sweeney Todd" has been my very favorite show since I was a kid. I loved it for how dark and shrewdly comic it was, I loved it for the not-so-thinly-veiled social commentary (it's a man-eat-man world, out there!), and I loved it for it's wild orchestration, intricate lyrics and memorable melodies. Yesterday I jumped at the chance for a preview ticket, and was so excited to expose my best friend to a richer, deeper, creepier kind of musical, as she is more of an "Oklahoma" type. Additionally, I had never seen Patti Lupone live, so I was beside myself. I had heard about this supposed dramatic new staging and innovative production and was very curious: the set was such an integral part of the show...how would it be changed, and more importantly, why?

Oh, God, I was so disappointed. Not in the actors, they were all fine. Good, even. Although I missed a booming orchestra, I thought having the actors play the instruments throughout the production was a nice trick, but eventually found it to be a major distraction. Ms. Lupone, who has played the charmingly amoral Mrs. Lovett before seemed...not quite right this time around, sometimes singing in a Cockney accent, and sometimes not. She plays a mean triangle, though, and is okay at the xylophone and tuba, as well. Michael Cerveris' played the demon barber (and the guitar) as dark and brooding, not quite as menacing or demented as I would have liked. I like my murderers as whacko as possible.

Acoustically, the sound was way off: the lyrics frequently muddy and lost, which was surprising because there were so few instruments, and dismaying because the multilayered lyrics are one of the qualities that sets "Sweeny Todd" apart. And then there was the "dramatic new staging". In the first act I was put off when the staging left the actors addressing the void instead of each other--who wants to pay $100 to see actors NOT interact? This seemed to resolve itself, but then they inexplicably started doing it again in the second act. The set design was intentionally cramped and spare, with chairs, ladders and linens utilized as any number of props at any given moment, and the actors themselved doubled as stagehands (as if it wasn't already enough that they were the cast AND the orchestra? I wonder if this qualifies them to join the Teamsters.)

I'm not against progress or change. I'm willing to accept a pared-down set, I'm even willing to have all the actors onstage at all times shuttling chairs and ladders around, but I cannot and will not forgive director/designer John Doyle for the over-the-top artsy-fartsy, pseudo-symbolic, concept-art goofiness of Sweeney carrying around a miniature coffin that symbolizes both his lost infant daughter AND a barber chair! Without the scenes of Sweeney offing his customers nonchalantly while singing a ballad, a great source of the show's humor is lost. There seemed to be an assumption by Mr. Doyle that the whole world must already be intimately familiar with the show, otherwise how would one know that a two-foot white coffin (that no one ever sat on, by the way) was supposed to be a chair. A chair!

All that rampant symbolism left my friend, who had never seen the show, completely confused. "Why is he calling a box a chair? Why is he carrying it aroundlike a baby? Knock three times for what? Why do they keep dragging sheets across the floor? Were there female barbers in Victorian England [there was some non-traditional casting. I'm guessing they couldn't find a male actor who could also play both the accordian and flute]? If they're dead, why are they still singing?" Only two things were recognizable from previous productions: the blood-curdling steam whistle (still one of the scariest sounds I can think of), and the final show-ending door slam, and both effects left me feeling like I was being thrown scraps. The audience gave a standing ovation, but I think they were just being polite. Perhaps they've grown so tired of five seasons of jukebox musicals that they're willing to accept anything. Personally, I exited the theater feeling like I had eatens a bad meat pie.


I'll give it one dot.