Sweeney Todd is the Everest of musicals – it exists to be assaulted and many who make the trek return, if they return at all, bloodied, bruised and changed forever. Still, others face the challenge head-on and reach the summit with pride and health intact. It is this latter category that fairly represents the current Barrington Stage Company’s success with their own Sweeney. Directed by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd and starring Jeff McCarthy and Harriet Harris, as the barber and his would-be wife, the feisty BSC manages a powerful handling of this tale of murder, revenge and bloodlust. The ensemble and the fine musical direction (Darren Cohen) contribute as much to the evening.
Since 1979, when Stephen Sondheim first penned his majestic score (aided in large part by Hugh Wheeler’s literate book), theatre companies and some opera companies have added S.T. to their repertoire – regional theatres, too, have gambled on the musical drama – and audiences haven’t always upheld their part of the equation by electing to resist purchasing tickets. The thing is, and it has often been the curse of Sondheim material, the musicals are rarely warm and easy and, more often than not, they seem to contradict popular thinking by demanding something of audiences more than humming along to familiar tunes and special effects.
But Sweeney Todd is different. There is humanity in this sad tale of lost love and emotional betrayal. There is also wit of an accessible kind for audiences to savor. And at the performance that I attended included a very large group of summer campers – what I thought might be terribly annoying became something quite extraordinary: there wasn’t an inappropriate sound during the almost three hours of the play’s running time. At intermission, the campers were boisterous, of course, but totally within the context of the theatre – the noise was all about what they had seen during the first act. As lights lowered for the second act, silence again informed an entire audience.
The BSC production is strong on audience connection and the theatre’s intimacy serves the director’s staging very well. The music is well played and mostly very well sung. We know that Sondheim is the master and we also know that singers are tested with every song they are required to sing. McCarthy’s Todd is rich-voiced and sustained through a long evening of powerhouse vocal demands. His acting is less assured and he favours one facial expression from start to finish. There is pathos in his singing but little in his acting and even less in he chemistry between him and Harriet Harris. Ms. Harris is at her best in the second act as she tries to win over Tobias and, eventually, accepts that she must add him to the growing list of pie people. Not While I’m Around, the score’s highlight, is beautifully served by Harris and Zachary Clause. And it is really in this scene that the layers of dark comedy and drama overlap. By contrast, the finale of act one, A Little Priest, is more raucous and freewheeling than it should be, since the duet, as played and staged, releases all tensions and also fails to pave the way for both Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett’s devilish compact.
The production’s second act is not as powerful as the first, perhaps hobbled by the first act finale. By the time that Judge Turpin arrives for his final shave, the lack of passionate chemistry between the leading players and the lack of the story’s dreadful inevitability of Todd’s discovery rob us of a catharsis that moves any production of Sweeney Todd from very good (as is the BSC production) to exhilarating.
Yet, in spite of these reservations, BSC has scaled the heights of Sondheim and has returned in mighty good shape. Few theatre companies can boast as much.