REVIEW: Sweeney Todd (Signature Theatre)
Preview: Closing out Sig’s “Season of Sondheim” is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the composer’s 1979 horror musical about the titular barber’s violent quest for revenge in 1840s London. The hype for this production was huge when casting announced, as it contains a number of DC theatre favorites for a show widely considered his masterpiece. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to catch this when it opened, as I was off galivanting around Mexico City for my birthday, but I’m back now and this was one show I was particularly interested in seeing, especially so once I caught wind of the prior reviews.
Acting: Lots of hearts were riding on this cast being as good as it sounded on paper. Bryhona Marie and Nathaniel Stampley are terrific as Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd, with particular praise being singled out to the former for her Harley Quinn-like take on the role. She was a hoot the whole time, and was clearly having fun with it. Stampley, while of course much less jubliant as Todd, was still dominant onstage with his scowled persona and booming voice. Paul Scanlan impresses as Anthony, but the rest of the cast does unfortunately dwell into forgettability as it goes on, between Johanna (Katie Mariko Murray)’s drab acting performance and flat stage presence of both Judge Turpin (John Leslie Wolfe) and the Beadle (Christopher Michael Richardson). 5/10
Production: There’s no blood. That’s right! No! Blood! That alone is sacrelige to any production of Sweeney, and I beg director Sarna Lapine to explain this baffling choice. In lieu of blood we get silk streams and crimson ribbons that expand from the victim’s necks as they’re killed. Laughable. Literally. in fact, because I heard audience members giggle during it. I wish that was the only disappointing element to report on, because the sole technical choice that was beyond mediocre were the well-worn costumes by Robert Perdziola. The lighting potential of Jesse Belsky is woefully suppressed and the choreography by Alison Solomon leaves much to be desired. The elementary set design twinkles with inspiration rarely, and never at the moments it needs to. Where’s the teeth, where’s the bite? 1/10
Book/Music: As this is an established show I won’t dwell too much here. I’d consider Sweeney a decent show of Sondheim’s, but well behind the likes of Into the Woods and Company. The plot can be a little boring and predictable, but the characters and their motivations are varied and can be entertaining. Mrs. Lovett, for example, is at worst comic relief and at best monstrously compelling, depending on the actress. Some of my favorite songs of his show up here too, such as “Johanna (reprise)” and “Worst Pies in London” (“what a cause/ enterprise/ poppin’ pussies into pies”? come on man, who else would think of that??). Ultimately though, I think the score is a bit too complex for what it’s working with, which is why it doesn’t take the top spots. 7/10
VisDev: Sigh. I get the appeal of Arial as a font, you know? It’s clean, a blank canvas, and blocky. Easy to read. Very versatile. There’s a reason it’s used for everything from transit systems to theatre blogs like this one. However, when you’re a poppy, creative theatre like Signature, I expect more. Thus we arrive at the program art, which is the Arial logo and the title of the show in red. Behind the wordmarks, is a Victorian-era looking headless gentleman seated and holding a plate of with his own smirking head. Not only does it not match the casting at all, but it’s reminiscent of cheesy 2010s Steampunk photoshop jobs. As the youngins say these days: cringe. I don’t think it would be too hard to use a promo picture of the actual Sweeney to replace the longstanding promo art from the season announcement once you’ve casted the thing. It paints a very amateur picture of what to expect of this show, and I know I’m not the only one because I heard in the lobby at halftime people wondering why they chose that picture. Moving on to opening staging, it’s merely a sole street light and some grates that intermittently - yet very noticeably - hiss out fog. It could be construed as steam from an engine below, but it doesn’t sound like that, just a regular fog machine. Was there even an attempt to mask the sounds of the machinery with thematic noise? Honestly, the entire set preshow could have been anything. It was not particularly spooky or Londonesque, just dark and inexpensive. 1/10
