“Sweeney Todd” scores at Barrington Stage

David Begelman 

Theater Critic

begelman33@gmail.com

 

In director Julianne Boyd’s visually and vocally arresting staging of the Stephen

Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler musical thriller, “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” human passions are depicted as though they were stretched to a breaking point. The eponymous hero (Jeff McCarthy) is a hapless victim of the lecherous and corrupt official, Judge Turpin (Ed Dixon) and his obsequious sidekick, Beadle Branford (Timothy Shew). The judge, a caricature of civic probity, has traduced Sweeney’s wife, Lucy (Christianne Tisdale) and his daughter, Johanna (Sarah Stevens). Both have survived, but only under unfortunate circumstances.

“Sweeney Todd,” while a musical, is also a revenge drama in the tradition of “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Comeuppance for the dastardly deeds of villains, however, exceeds what was envisioned in the fertile imagination of Alexander Dumas. It takes the form of cannibalism run amok, as though slashing throats and converting people to meat pies went considerably beyond the retribution Sweeney should have contrived as the lot of those responsible for his lowly plight. Many turn up as dishes relished by a growing coterie of customers flocking to sample the new treat in town. Ugh.

Sweeney’s rage converts to unbridled misanthropy. In his barber shop above a restaurant on Fleet Street, even innocent folk are dispatched with a razor, and their lifeless bodies dumped from a collapsible chair into a chamber below. The fortunate few who elude his capers include his accomplice in culinary homicide, Mrs. Lovett (Harriet Harris), the soulful Anthony Hope, (Shonn Wiley) a lad who has fallen in love with Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna, and the simple Tobias Ragg (Zachary Clause), a hanger-on who eventually comes to play an important role in Sweeney’s fate.

Barrington Stage’s current production of the popular Sondheim vehicle is enhanced by Boyd’s imaginative, and often stirring, direction of her cast, and the latter’s consistently accomplished vocal renditions of group and individual numbers. As in all Sondheim works, melodic numbers of great beauty alternate with those in which the composer’s preference for vocal polyphonies and intricate harmonies has affinities with more classical musical forms. Examples of the former are the exquisite love song, “Johanna,” (sung beautifully by Wiley), “Not While I’m Around” (managed soulfully by Clause and Harris), and “Pretty Women” (delivered skillfully by McCarthy and Dixon).

Kudos go to Harriet Harris’s bravura performance as Mrs. Lovett, while Jeff McCarthy’s Sweeney Todd provides a sturdy backbone characterization for the entire production.

Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting design was a thing of beauty, while Wilson Chin’s set design underscored the ominous ambience of a London beset with dark premonitions.  The acoustic properties of miked musical numbers tended to obscure the words in several songs.

In this reviewer’s opinion, a key to staging “Sweeney Todd” is striking a proper balance between an upbeat emotional tone and the murkier Tim Burton-type of treatment that bedeviled the film adaptation of the show. The darker side of things is underscored only when thrown into relief against something else. Happily, the Barrington stage production went some distance in achieving this.

‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ runs through July 17 at the Barrington Stage Company’s Mainstage Theater, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield, MA. Performances are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Friday matinees at 2 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 5 p.m. there is an additional matinee performance on Wednesday, June 30 at 2 p.m. tickets are $15-$58. Seniors, $35 all matinees. Tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at 413-236-8888, or online at www.barringtonstageco.org.