Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens Thursday night at the Laboratory Theater of Florida. Many believe that it’s Stephen Sondheim’s greatest work, which is saying a lot, given that his catalogue includes such masterpieces as West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, and Into the Woods.
“It is the crowning achievement of his career,” said Director Paul Graffy. “It was the fourth musical to win the Best Musical Tony Award in the ‘70s, which is also unheard of, to be able to write at that rate. And each one broke ground.”
It may seem somewhat surprising that Sweeney is not produced as often as Sondheim’s other iconic musicals. But there’s good reason for that. It’s grisly and gothic. It’s dark and depraved. With a running time of some 2½ hours, and lighting cues galore, it’s physically and emotionally draining on both cast and crew. But even given all that, it’s the music that prevents theater companies from producing Sweeney Todd more often.
“It’s not done very often because it is very difficult,” Graffy said. “The score is just incredibly difficult and you really need people who are dedicated to being able to learn it because it’s very dissonant. But if you listen to the way the music is written, and you hear that it’s going into a minor key or you have a discordant chord, Sondheim is telling you everything you need to know.”
Whether by design or luck, Graffy and Artistic Director Annette Trossbach have assembled just such a dedicated all-star cast headlined by Dave Rode in the role of Sweeney and MaryAnne McKerrow as his confederate, Mrs. Lovett.
Rode is a consummate musician. He has been acting and singing for more than 25 years. Most recently, he played the part of struggling musician Roger in Rent. But Sweeney Todd puts Dave in a completely different light.
“I can’t imagine two roles that are more contrasting—rock tenor and Sondheim baritone,” Rode laughs. “It’s like the exact antithesis. Modern musical. Victorian gothic. The sets are complete opposites. The singing ranges are complete opposites. The mood is complete opposite. It couldn’t be two more different musicals.”
At its heart, Sweeney Todd is a classic tale of revenge.
Downtrodden, underdog antiheroes have long held a special place in the hearts of American audiences. Think Charles Bronson in Death Wish, Steven Seagal in Hard to Kill, or Keanu Reeves as John Wick. But what differentiates Sweeney from these modern variations on the theme is his embrace of the evil and depravity that resides within him.
“[Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett] don’t shy away from being bad, bad people,” Graffy said. “In fact, they go for the superlative. They’re the worst people, and that’s really the fun of it. It’s sort of like the Halloween of musicals.”
Where John Wick’s weapon of choice is the Benelli M4, Sweeney Todd wreaks havoc with a simple straight razor. And immediately after Sweeney dispatches his first victim, his downstairs neighbor, Nellie Lovett, proposes a novel way to dispose of the body.
Unlike John Wick or the Bronson and Seagal characters, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett have a sense of humor, as dark and peculiar as that may be, and they spend the next several moments speculating on the flavors Sweeney’s different shavers might provide—for example, while priest pie might be heavenly, actor is compacter but always arrives overdone.
Lovett’s sense of humor is shared by her alter ego, MaryAnne McKerrow, who confesses to baking meat pies of her own, particularly during the rehearsal process. She calls hers "smoosh."
“Which is ground meat … it’s horrifying to think about right now … it’s ground turkey, ground beef, spaghetti squash and red peppers, green peppers and onions and cheese and hot sauce and you bake it and eat it all week when you’re at rehearsal and you have no time to cook. We go home and we have smoosh.”
In the final analysis, Sweeney Todd is a fun night out complimented by a truly great Sondheim score and lyrics that employ words in a way that Paul Graffy ranks second only to William Shakespeare.
Sweeney Todd runs through March 11th at the Laboratory Theater of Florida in the downtown Fort Myers River District.
FUN FACTS:
- The story of Sweeney Todd traces its lineage to a penny dreadful tale titled The String of Pearls which may, in turn, trace its origins to Charles Dickens. In one story, Dickens makes reference to the quality of meat being served in the local shops in London. While he concedes that it may be cat, he raises the possibility of being served human meat. It’s probably no coincidence that The String of Pearls came out just a couple of months later.
- Penny dreadfuls were pamphlets printed on low-quality paper that were sold in London drugstores and other locations throughout England during the Victorian era. They usually recounted grisly tales of murder and intrigue. London gentry widely looked down their noses at the penny dreadfuls, but many people read them whether they’d admit it or not.
- A number of people contend that Sweeney Todd and The String of Pearls are based on true facts. There doesn’t seem to be a shred of evidence supporting this contention, but the source of this claim is no doubt an adaptation of The String of Pearls in 1847, which said in its advertising that the production was based on a true story. The claim stuck.
- In the Tim Burton film, there’s a suggestion that the young boy in Sweeney Todd, Tobias, went on to become Jack the Ripper. The great-great grandson of America’s first documented serial killer, Jeff Mudgett, disagrees. He’ll be putting on a two-performance multi-media Gold Theatricals show at Fort Myers Theatre on March 3 and 4 in which he will adduce evidence that his great-great grandfather, H.H. Holmes, the Beast of Chicago, was in London in 1888 and committed the five slayings attributed to Jack the Ripper.
- Playing up the macabre humor in the show, Lab Theater is offering theater-goers a Bloody Valentine Cocktail Reception prior to the performance on February 18, a class in props and blood on February 25th and a ghost hunt immediately following the March 4th performance. Contact the theater for details and reservations.
To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.
Spotlight on the Arts for WGCU is funded in part by Naomi Bloom, Jay & Toshiko Tompkins, and Julie & Phil Wade.