Review: SMT's SWEENEY TODD Has the Voices but not the Character

Probably one of the most difficult shows in American musical theater to pull off right is Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". It's got incredibly complex music with layers upon layers of intertwining vocals, a bevy of rich, complex characters and a dark and foreboding tone that when done wrong can just come across as comical. Unfortunately the current production from Seattle Musical Theatre misses the mark on each of these qualities. Not completely mind you as there were some notable exceptions but never the complete package to make this production shine.

It's definitely one of your more gruesome musicals as it explores revenge sought out by Sweeney Todd (Oren Mauldin), formerly known as Benjamin Barker, a barber in London. Barker's pretty wife caught the eye of the local Judge, Turpin (Eric Hartley), who imprisonEd Barker to get to his wife. Now several years later Todd has come back with the aid of young sailor Anthony (Matt Lang) to find that his wife has died and his daughter Johanna (Daina Goldenberg) has been raised by Judge Turpin and now Turpin intends to marry her. Todd returns to his old home to find Mrs. Lovett (Rachel Wilkie), a struggling pie maker, who has kept Todd's silver razors safe for him. But things become complicated when Anthony falls for Johanna and certain people recognize Todd as the escapEd Barker and threaten to expose him. And so, of course, he kills those people and he and Mrs. Lovett use their corpses to furnish the meat for her meat pies.

Director Chris Mayse has attempted to instill a creepy tone into the piece but it never quite goes far enough to work. Plus he keeps introducing gimmicks to convey certain story points but they're not quite fleshed out enough to be clear. Per the press release he wanted the story to be from the point of view of the young shop assistant Tobias (played on different nights by Oliver Girouard and Caden Tate) but other than him being front and center at the beginning and end of the show we never really get a sense of that. Another moment was when Sweeney would kill someone and Mayse would indicate the gore by having two of the chorus people pour blood from one bucket to another but it just came across as silly and was never quite lit well enough to actually see what they were doing. And to top it all off the pace of the piece was slow and uneven with pauses in scenes that you could drive trucks through.

The ensemble manages much of the vocals well although any time the lyrics became layered and overlapped the lyrics would become quite muddled to the point of unintelligible. The leads all have fine voices but with a few notable exceptions lack the depth of character to engage. Wilkie and Hartley are two of those exceptions who both manage quite engaging and fully realized and varied characters. But the majority of their scenes are with Mauldin as Sweeney who has a powerful voice but was the least menacing, and least British (with not even an attempt at an English accent even though everyone else in the show had one) Sweeney I've seen and never quite connected with anyone else in any scene he was in. I know Sweeney is supposed to be detached, cold, and broken but there's detached and then there's not listening and in your own play.

All told the show has some stirring moments. But a few gorgeous vocals aside the show never quite goes far enough with its intentional moments or isn't lit well enough to see what's happening making the whole thing feel quite cheesy and amateurish. Which is why with my three letter rating system I give Seattle Musical Theatre's production of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" an only slightly engaged MEH. Shows like "Sweeney Todd" are by no means bullet proof and should never be done half way. And this one was definitely only half way there.

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" performs at Seattle Musical Theatre through November 20th. For tickets or information visit them online at www.seattlemusicaltheatre.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.