Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Directed by Richard Block. Musical direction by Leonard Weiss. Choreography by Caitlin Schilg. Dramatic Productions. Gungahlin College. October 7 – 21, 2017. Bookings: 62531454
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
It takes a bold director and an
even bolder musical director to take on a Sondheim musical. And if that musical
is the dark and sinister Sweeney Todd, it’s a Matterhorn of musical theatre to
climb. Dramatic Productions, under the direction of Richard Block and musical
direction of Leonard Weiss and with the choreography of Caitlin Schilg have
scaled the summit with this carefully staged production. Attempts have been made within a spare budget
to capture the atmosphere of Victorian England in Thompson Quan Wing’s set
design with its various levels that serve to separate Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop
from Judge Turpin’s house, Sweeney’s upstairs barber shop and the Insane
Asylum. The bone grinding flesh mincing bakehouse reaps the desired effect of
conjuring grand guinol horror and Block directs the staging with clarity and
fluidity. Schilg’s choreography lends particular flair to the inmates of the
asylum.
I have attended a mid week
performance of Sweeny Todd – The Demon
Barber of Fleet Street. It is an understudy night with Kate O’Sullivan
playing a very lively and convincing Mrs. Lovitt and Emily Mullamphy as the
young ward of the malicious, corrupt and lascivious judge (Max Gambale).
Mullamphy is well matched with the young love interst, Anthony (Lachlan Agett),
although many of her spoken lines and sung lyrics were lost. An Understudy’s
lot is not always a happy one.
From Sondheim’s opening ballad,
the scene is set with fine singing from the company. We learn of the sorry and unjust fate of
Benjamin Barker, separated from his wife and young daughter by the evil Judge
and doomed to live out fifteen miserable years in far flung Australia. In No Place Like London, he return to a
city, infested with vermin, human and otherwise with one purpose to wreak
revenge upon the judge and his snivelling, slimy Beadle (Joseph MGrail-Bateup)
With the help of Mrs. Lovitt, he returns to his trade and rids the town of
Londoners by despatching them to a fate of pie-fillings. This is classic, Gothic
horror with a splash of grim irony. Victorian melodrama splattered with dollops
of melodic dissonance, grates and rasps with the slash of Sweeney’s razor of
revenge. No good can come of self administered justice and though evil will out
and the villains rightly damned, the price is retribution and a Shakespearian assembly
of bodies brings this terrible tale to its inevitable conclusion. Love may
triumph but that’s small comfort for a happy ending.
The ultimate success of a Sondheim
musical must rest with the casting and the orchestration. Dramatic Productions
triumphs. Performances of the principals are uniformly strong and the Ensemble
master the difficult dissonance of Sondheim’s composition and the tricky unity
of lyrics and operatic score. As Sweeney, David Pearson creates a tormented,
demonized victim of injustice , transformed into a psychopathic murderer,
indiscriminate in his serial murders and riven by one solitary resolve, the
death of the judge. Possessed and obsessed, Todd is dehumanized, animal in his
lustful ambition, and Pearson towers as the demon of Fleet Street. His rich
baritone echoes with pain and singleminded purpose. His character is operatic,
and one might say wooden, but Frankenstein’s monster dwells within a
performance that is both chilling and maniacal. He is well supported by Gambale’s
evil judge, and Bateup’s slimy Beadle. Their swift and bloody despatch leaves
no tear to mourn. There is excellent work also from Liam Jackson’s unfortunate
urchin, Tobias Ragg, whose Not While I’m
Around echoed with the pathos of his ironic fate. Block ‘s direction
captures the essence of story’s Victorian origins and dark misfortune of the age. The result is an
absorbing, at times gripping and entertaining production of Sondheim’s morality
musical .
A song list reveals numbers that
I had forgotten. Johanna and Not
While I’m Around are quickly recalled but I was particularly impressed by
Pearson’s rendition of Epiphany, Gambale
and Pearson’s duet, Pretty Women and
O’Sullivan and Pearson’s By The Sea, staged with colourful flair
and joyful choreography.
If you are a south-sider or an
inner Norther, then it is well worth making the trip to the Gungahlin College
Theatre to see such an “enjoyable”,
entertaining and somewhat terrifying production of a classic Sondheim
musical, rarely performed in Canberra.