Call is strange, but the first thing my companion and I wanted to do after seeing Sweeney Todd was run to the nearest pub for a… meat pie.
The macabre, entertaining account of the ‘Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, with music by Steven Sondheim, isn’t meant to create a hunger for anything, especially the pies for which Todd and his partner Mrs. Lovett are known.
I have to admit, iwent into Sweeney Todd not knowing what to think, and certainly not having any expectations.
The last Sondheim production I saw, Into the Woods, was a clever mix of myth and fairytale, a musical for grownups but with childhood figures. Sweeney Todd has no such comforting figures; it’s a world haunted by the lame, the destitute, the desperate and the mad. Like much of the Sondheim canon, it is a deeply cerebral work, and its shows its Brechtian roots.
John Doyle’s production, currently playing at the Princess of Wales theatre, takes the Brechtian influence one step further, forsaking a traditional orchestra in favour of the actors playing instruments onstage. Those instruments become, in some sense, extensions of character, while at the same time serving as a meta-dramatical vehicle that prevents the characters from ever getting too close with one another, or, in turn the audience. This pseudo-cabaret styling therefore becomes a fascinating reinterpretation, while at the same time preventing any real chemistry from occuring. Each man and woman is in a world unto themselves, utterly bereft, and entirely alone.
Scenes between Judy Kaye, as the dangerously needy Mrs. Lovett, and Alexander Gimignani, as the murderously angry Todd, are fascinating, and both are strong singers, actors, and musicians. Theirs is the sole sense of shared onstage chemistry in this production. But Doyle's vision of Sweeney Todd isn’t about connection, really. I couldn’t help but think it’s the spectacle of the musical itself that is being pointed up.
Symbols are laden throughout the work – a wooden casket, for instance, is used by turns, as a dinner table, a closet, and a wall, while musical instruments are used as character extensions, as outward expressions of inner turmoil. Lauren Molina, as Johanna, uses her cello (which she plays very well indeed) as a buffer against the braggadocio male energy that swirls around her. Richard G. Jones's lighting, while inventive, grew redundant at points, and I wondered if there was any other way to convey the heinousness of Todd’s deeds than the blood-red floodlight that glowed with every close shave. There was no sense of growing horror or mounting tension as the pies piled up.
Still, I wondered, what keeps this musical so popular? The mix of macabre and memorable is indeed a heady one; as the barber and his pie-maker trade lines in God, That's Good! about the… um, various flavours that go into making good pies, they angle and slither around the casket, as fellow cast members play, ghost-faced and pale. Lyrically, and musically, this is one of Sondheim’s darkest pieces.
It's also hilarious, and the audience ate it up.
I couldn’t help but wonder if our definitions of entertainment had widened so considerably that we no longer need a fluffy romance or a happy ending to come away from the theatre feeling satisfied.
Then again, Dirty Dancing is only playing down the street.
I wonder if there are any Baby pies around town.
Sweeney Todd runs at the Princess of Wales Theatre until December 9th.
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