Months ago when I became aware that Sweeney Todd would be coming to Portland as a part of the Broadway Across America series I promised Elizabeth that somehow or other I would try to secure seats for us. How could I not? She is such a Sondheim fan and knows this particular show with a degree of detail that is almost scary. Over the years, she has sung almost all of the score to me, played me the soundtrack from the Broadway production with Angela Lansbury and come with me to the recent movie version with Johnny Depp (I loved it!). So when a good friend made me the beneficiary of four excellent seats I extended an invitation to Elizabeth and Holly and to Evan, a friend of ours. Sunday would be a big day.
The tension. The edge-of-the-seat nervousness and damp palms wrought by nail-biting anxiety. The guilty thrill one experiences when watching someone else's doom. I refer of course to The Masters which over the last four days has been unfolding on the almost too-perfect back-drop of Augusta National Golf Course. When that finished having been won by a nice South African chap (as soon as I used that adjective you knew it wasn't Rory Sabbatini, right?) I sunk a swift Rogue Ale and met my guests at the Keller for the evening show - and the last performance of the current run here in Portland.
As we waited for the show to begin I chatted with an amiable gent who told me that this production had received poor reviews in the Portland press and that with it being a touring production and all the producer had tried to save money by having the cast play the band parts. I had deliberately avoided reading any review but knew well that the cast doubling-up as the pit band was actually a notable feature of this production which was the brainchild of John Doyle, a British director for whom the production in which actors and singers are also instrumentalists has become something of a trademark. While he has been largely known for musical theatre he designed and directed the recent Met production of Peter Grimes which was simulcast recently and about which I wrote here. So I came to the Keller expecting to be entertained, dazzled and placed in a moral quandry by the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who is driven to murder by a drive to revenge for not only himself but his daughter and wife all of whom have been undone at the behest of the evil Judge Turpin. Is Sweeney just a blood-thirsty cut-throat or is he the victim of circumstances and a psyche which crumbles before our very eyes? (Again the dilemma facing the audience watching Grimes. Mr Doyle seems to be attracted to this sense of ambivalence).
Let me get out of the way the things I didn't like about this show so I can get on with the many things I enjoyed about it. The faux cockney accents were - and there's no way to put this kindly - appalling! All of them, with the exception of Judy Kaye in the role of Mrs Lovett, Todd's partner in crime, spoke in a manner which was much too polished for the characters they represented as well as bearing no aural relationship to any Londoner I have ever heard. Every time they opened their mouths I was left feeling that the real cost-cutting exercise had nothing to do with actors playing instruments but in a failure to employ a language coach. The worst offender was Edmund Bagnell as Toby (Strange really, given that his name sounds so very English!). I think someone had told him that the best possible preparation for the role was to spend hours watching a video of Mary Poppins and copy Dick Van Dyke's accent. The problem with that approach is that Van Dyke should have been taken out and shot for what he did to the sound of the English language.
With the notable exception of Lauren Molina who brought a rather charming ditziness to the role of Johanna the show was hopelessly miscast. David Hess looked nothing like a barber, the afore-mentioned Mr Bagnell plays a young boy. Mr Bagnell will not, I think, see thirty-five again and there was nothing even faintly beadle-ish about Benjamin Eakley. Judy Kaye made a reasonable enough go of Mrs Lovett in her voice and manner. Unfortunately she was dressed like a too-mature French maid in a bad low-budget porno movie (see picture above). Don't ask me how I know this to be a close analogy, just trust me on this one. Actually I found all of the costuming rather disappointing. It's hard to speak convincingly of transportation to the colonies and beadles and such when your dressed in slacks a white shirt and a tie.
Okay. Whining over. There is much to enjoy in this show. The story is cogent and does not require the suspension of any more disbelief than your average opera. With one exception in Act One when Todd has the Judge in his chair and fails to convert him into pie material. What Todd actually does is spend an inordinate amount of time chatting with the kidnapper of his daughter allowing the arrival of a deus ex machina in the form of the daughter's boyfriend. Given that Todd's entire raison d'etre hinges on his wanting to separate the Judge's head from his shoulders this is an unconvincing moment in the dramatic narrative. Holly totally nailed it when she referred to it as a classic moment of the "Before-I-kill-you-Mister-Bond" genre.
The lyrics are, as one would expect from Sondheim, witty and brilliant with numerous rhyming and scansion delights and surprises. While Sondheim always insists that he sees himself first and foremost as a composer I cannot get over feeling that that his music is principally a vehicle for lyrics. It isn't that the music is at odds with the words he sets to it - quite the contrary, they belong together like traffic and weather (thank you for that, Fountains of Wayne). But I cannot see a solo piano CD of the score of Sweeney Todd selling more than about twenty-five copies.
The singing was adequate. The musicianship of the instrumental playing, however, was outstanding. There was a bit of nit-picking from Elizabeth which I think was completely undeserved. This is very tricky stuff to play and they did so with consummate professionalism from memory and without a conductor. And all while they were also singing, acting and shifting scenery (just how many unions do these folk belong to??). Frankly I thought that alone was worth the price of admission. Bravi tutti!
This production in both design and execution is marvellous. It isn't a concert performance but it somehow isn't what we have come to expect of a hit Broadway show either. And while that neither fish-nor-fowl approach could have been a disaster it works much better than you might suppose. I would like to have seen it in a smaller and cosier venue where I suspect it would have been a knock-out. John Doyle has given a similar treatment to another of Sondheim's works, Company, and on the strength of what he did with Sweeney Todd, I should like to see it.
So all in the space of a few months I have seen the Johnny Depp movie and the John Doyle production of Sweeney Todd and heard Sondheim being interviewed at the Schnitz and strangely I'm not suffering from Sondheim fatigue yet. Indeed when we came out of the Keller one of the first things I said was "That very much made me want to see a major opera company do Sweeney" to which Elizabeth enthusiastically replied "Yes. A great operatic cast that just sings the s*** out of it!" While that perhaps is not how I might have phrased it that does express my feelings to a tee.
Later in the week I have some fun stuff to share with you here. Have a productive week.
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