Mark Leydorf

The other pieces of the puzzle don’t quite fit together. The play’s characters may offer different spins on theatrical archetypes—Sweeney is a meta musical, composed decades before that was a thing—but they still need to inhabit the same world. Mrs. Lovett is written as a broad music hall clown, landing each jaunty song with an emphatic button. But Annaleigh Ashford is a shameless laugh machine, and she’s so hilarious, it throws the show out of whack. It’s hard to blame her; she’s got to fill the awfully big shoes Angela Lansbury left behind 44 years ago. Lansbury was indeed a riot, but she was always in character, tirelessly trying to make Sweeney laugh. Ashford seems fixated only on making us laugh. She’s doing a marvelous show—the friendly preview audience I saw gobbled up every bit—but it isn’t Sweeney Todd.