BWW Reviews: York's SWEENEY TODD a Vocal Treat for Audiences

Stephen Sondheim's 1979 hit SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET is the most recent, and now most famous, of a long string of tales of a murderous London barber. First found in early Victorian penny dreadfuls, Todd and his pie-baking companion Mrs. Lovett first took to the boards around 1847, and have remained there in one fashion or another for a century and a half. For nearly 40 years, that's been through Sondheim's rumbling, grumbling Todd and a rollicking Cockney Lovett, with the addition of juvenile leads and a blackmailing competitor.

The just-concluded production of SWEENEY TODD, directed by artistic director Rene Staub, at York Little Theatre was notable for a truly rumbling Sweeney, opera baritone Michael C. Anderson. An area choral and oratorio performer with a list of serious bel canto vocal competition credits, this appears to be his first venture onto the less serious musical stage, but one hopes it will not be his last - not only does one immediately attend to his tale of Sweeney Todd, but one suspects an equally notable Javert lurking within him.

However, the star of this sterling example of musical black comedy-cum-horror show is nothing without his companion, Mrs. Lovett, the inventor of the meat-free meat pie (or, as she says, at least she's not using cats, mostly because they're too quick to catch). Here, local Broadway World award winner Emily Falvey does her best to stand up to Anderson's extraordinarily powerful vocals and for the most part succeeds. Falvey is one of the best female community theatre performers in the area, with a beautifully nuanced soprano, and that she's able to keep those nuances while voicing a screeching Cockney accent is a mark of her ability. The main drawback to her Lovett is only in costuming - perhaps because of the familiarity, she's been made a visual clone of Helena Bonham Carter from the mostly passable (though nearly music-free) film version of the musical, and Bonham Carter is always a distraction. Falvey's performance itself is as fine as ever, especially in her duet with Todd, "A Little Priest," and in Lovett's major solo number, "By the Sea."

The performer best equipped to keep up with Anderson is YLT veteran and fellow operatic/oratorio vocalist Christopher Quigley as the phony Italian royal barber, Adolfo Pirelli, and keep up he did. Pirelli's appearance (sometimes performed by women in musical theatre's version of opera trouser roles) is invariably a high point of the show, but the addition of Quigley's spectacularly flamboyant barbering uniform and Quigley's equally flamboyant barbering technique rendered the shaving duel of the first act a real comic highlight of this production.

Joel Persing played Todd's arch-enemy, Judge Turpin, with a Snidely Whiplash moustache-twirling evilness, and with real thespian spirit - Persing came back to the stage, in fact, immediately after surgery during this run, a degree of "show must go on" not always seen in community theatre. His companion in crime, the estimable Beadle Bamford, was an equally devoted-to-evilness Joe Reed, whose slimy unctuousness could be felt by the audience.

A special nod must be given to the orphan Tobias, here played by 13-year-old Stosh Beeler. This was his first major part in a musical, and he acquitted himself well as pitchman first for Pirelli and then for Lovett's pies. One hopes he will continue on the YLT stage.

Staging for the show was inventive and included Staub's usual creative use of projections, although on at least one occasion the thick fog of the London docks did become an interactive moment with the audience - still, no harm was done, and such things do make a performance memorable.

The YLT season continues with a very different production, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. Visit www.ylt.org for tickets and information.

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