By Carol Rocamora . . .
It’s back—in all its gory, Grand Guignol glory!
Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 operatic masterpiece, returns to Broadway with such ferocious force and magnitude that the grand Lunt-Fontanne Theatre walls can barely contain it. It’s quite a shock, since audiences have become used to the reductive revivals of the past four decades. The 1989 production at Circle in the Square featured a small ensemble and three synthesizers; John Doyle’s 2005 Broadway version radically reduced the company to ten, with actors playing instruments on stage (including a tuba-toting Patti LuPone). In 2017 at the tiny Barrow Street Theatre, cast members from the Tooting Arts Club roamed around an audience seated at narrow tables, backed by a trio of musicians.
But now, voila! A magnificent Sweeney Todd has been reborn in the glorious scale of Sondheim’s original vision, with a cast of twenty-five actors and a twenty-six-member orchestra playing its soaring score with Jonathan Tunick’s gorgeous orchestrations. It’s as if Thomas Kail, fearless director of Hamilton (currently playing just across 46th Street), had crossed over to the Lunt-Fontanne to infuse Sweeney Todd with the grand Gothic energy and vast scale the show was born with.
Sondheim seized upon the idea of his revenge tragedy from a 1973 play by Christopher Bond. The story (a retelling of one popular in the Victorian era) concerned an innocent barber named Benjamin Barker condemned to prison by a ruthless Judge Turpin (who subsequently raped Barker’s wife and held his daughter in captivity). Obsessed with revenge, Barker—now renamed Sweeney Todd (the marvelous Josh Groban)—returns to London and teams up with Mrs. Lovett (the irresistible Annaleigh Ashford), a pie shop proprietress with a reputation for selling “the worst pies in London.” Spontaneously, they come up with the idea of improving the pie’s contents by substituting in human meat (well, after all, it’s a Gothic horror tale). Their collaboration would give Sweeney the opportunity to kill his victims in his barber chair, then slide them down a chute to the shop’s basement, where they would be ground up, baked, and assembled into tastier pies. The ultimate victim, of course, would be Judge Turpin, who now (horror of horrors) plans to marry Barker/Sweeney’s daughter Johanna (the lovely Maria Bilbao).
As this is a morality tale, the plan goes horribly wrong; and, in the end, Sweeney Todd is the victim of his own terrible revenge. But that doesn’t stop Sondheim from infusing his Gothic horror story with comedic highlights—such as the hilarious duet between Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, “A Little Priest,” in which they develop their dreadful plan with irrepressible glee (a sensational closing to Act I).
As he did so brilliantly in Hamilton, Thomas Kail directs an amazing cast, helmed by Josh Groban as a marvelous Sweeney. With his commanding stage presence and rich baritone voice (deep lower tones, mellifluous high tones), Groban embraces the role’s complexities, delivering a brilliant, inspired portrayal of an anti-hero for whom we feel a mixture of fear and unexpected pity. As Mrs. Lovett, the ebullient Annaleigh Ashford gives a wickedly playful performance, infused with music hall-style energy, of a wily operator determined to survive. Together, they generate wonderful stage chemistry that borders on affection (surprising, given past interpretations, as well as the circumstances under which they are operating). Gaten Matarazzo offers a lovable portrayal as Mrs. Lovett’s eager assistant Tobias. As Johanna, Maria Bilbao’s sparkling coloratura voice soars to celestial heights, and Jordan Fisher’s Anthony is moving as her noble young suitor. Jamie Jackson is appropriately villainous as the Judge, and Ruthie Ann Miles offers the tortured soul of the Beggar Woman (whose identity is later revealed). Nicholas Christopher provides welcome comic relief as Pirelli (Sweeney’s first victim in the barber chair). So does John Rapson in the role of the harmonium-playing Beadle Bamford.
Director Kail is a master at coalescing all the production elements into a glorious, harmonious whole. Mimi Lien’s overpowering set towers to the top of the Lunt-Fontanne. Featuring a huge crane above its multiple levels and iron staircases, it evokes what Sondheim calls “the great black pit” of London’s 19th-century industrial revolution. Natasha Katz lights the roaring oven below that bakes Sweeney’s victims with a terrifying red glow, and the dripping slit throats of his victims (special effects by Jeremy Chernick) add another dreadful element of red. As they slide down the barber’s chair into Mrs. Lovett’s basement, you can hear gasps from an audience in a mixture of horror and admiration for the production’s collaborative stagecraft.
What I found especially stunning is the way in which Kail—in collaboration with choreographer Steven Hoggett—directs the ensemble. Like a large phalanx of the 19th-century London underclass, the company moves across the stage together, filling it with teeming, pulsating life. Their arms outstretched frantically, they writhe and sway as one, as history accelerates and sweeps them along. Those arresting images of humanity on the brink of a new, unimaginable, fearful era will remain with you long after the curtain call.
How many times do you enter a Broadway theater and hear wild cheers and thunderous applause from the moment the production begins and constantly throughout? The atmosphere on the night I attended was electrifying. The marvel of Sondheim’s creation, the magnificence of the score and Tunick’s orchestrations, the superb performances, and the cumulative power of Kail’s production all combine to make this Sweeney Todd what promises to be the most memorable production of the 2023 theater season . . . and beyond.
Next stop: Metropolitan Opera House. Please.
Sweeney Todd. Open run at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (205 W 46th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue). www.sweeneytoddbroadway.com
Photos: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
