Review: SWEENEY TODD Slays Ensemble Audiences

Ensemble opens their 2015-2016 season with Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's popular musical about a murderous barber seeking vengeance. Sondheim's musical is an undoubtedly complicated piece, with a dense and forceful musical score; certainly an ambitious piece for any theatre company. Ensemble's production of Sweeney Todd, directed by Jonathan Fox, captures the satisfying and the grotesque, and features talented performers and impressive staging.

For anyone unaware of the show's premise, Sweeney Todd (David Studwell) is a man transported from London by the corrupt Judge Turpin (Norman Large), who lusts after Todd's wife, Lucy (Karole Foreman). Todd returns to London after fifteen years of exile to find that both his wife and daughter have long since vacated their apartment on Fleet Street. He learns of their tragic fate from the landlady, the jovial mistress of twisted entrepreneurship, Mrs. Lovett (Heather Ayers), who still lives in the meat pie shop below Todd's abode.

Todd, a barber by trade, opens for business above Mrs. Lovett's meat pie emporium. He shaves the men of London, slitting their throats with his silver razors in preparation for the day when he can take his bloody revenge on Judge Turpin and take back his daughter, Johanna, whom Turpin adopted after Lucy, alone and distraught, poisoned herself. To dispose of the corpses from Todd's murderous rampage, Mrs. Lovett uses the victims' bodies as ingredients in her meat pies. Her pies, with that unique je ne sais quoi, become a popular delicacy known all over London.

Ensemble's production features a capable cast eager to flaunt the perverse absurdity of Sondheim's characters. David Studwell, as Sweeney Todd, is surly and secretive, but intermittently delighted by his ruthless intentions and destroyed by reminders of his troubled past. Others, such as Justin Cowden as the fantastically flamboyant Pirelli and Chris Kauffman as the eager, oblivious Tobias, provide comic relief in a dark and Dickensian style--Pirelli is the over-the-top foreigner who's not what he seems, and Tobias is the abused street urchin-turned-indentured servant.

Set in the filthy streets of pre-sanitation London, Sweeney Todd's stomping grounds are the dark and putrid cobblestoned alleys surrounding Fleet Street. Scenic/lighting designer Brian Sidney Bembridge created a dual-tiered set that allowed Todd's barbershop to exist directly above the pie shop, and complete with a chute for Todd's victims to slide from barbershop to the meat grinder in the basement. The stage lighting was exceptionally attractive, with splashes of deep, ominous reds that signified the mounting death toll, and terrifying up-lighting, creating the chilling impression of a ghoulish chorus.

A popular musical by one of America's master composer/lyricists, Sweeny Todd is a well-known show, which can be both a benefit and a risk for any producing company. Doubtlessly the show will generate automatic interest on name-recognition, alone; yet the better the audience knows the musical, the more critical they tend to be of anything they feel is inconsistent with their expectations. However, even with a complicated and demanding show like Sweeney Todd, Ensemble's production offered engrossing and considered performances. Despite some technical gaffes with microphones and instances of untidiness in the music, the vocal performances were impressive and appropriately vigorous. Ensemble's production of Sweeney Todd captures the dark romance and humor of this twisted tale of love and vengeance.

Ensemble Theatre Presents:
Sweeney Todd
by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
Directed by Jonathan Fox

October 8-25 at The New Vic Theater

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