SWEENEY TODD


Julia Rodriguez-Elliot’s brilliantly innovative direction and Cassandra Marie Murphy’s spectacular star turn as Mrs. Lovett top the reasons not to miss Stephen Sondheim & Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at A Noise Within.

Few are those who haven’t at least once “attended the tale of” Benjamin Barker (Geoff Elliot), the London barber convicted of a crime he did not commit and shipped off to Australia by a lecherous judge with designs on Barker’s wife Lucy.

Now, fifteen years later, Lucy is out of the picture and evil Judge Turpin (Jeremy Rabb) has set his sights on Sweeney’s beauteous teenage daughter Johanna (Joanna A. Jones).

Meanwhile, there’s a new man in London town, one who bears a striking resemblance to Barker but goes by the name of Sweeney Todd.

When Sweeney stops in at the pie shop located downstairs from his onetime tonsorial parlor, the down-on-her-luck proprietress Mrs. Lovett isn’t fooled by the new name, recognizing at once returning ex-con, whose shaving instruments she has kept intact, polished, and sharpened to a killing edge.

His razors restored to him, Sweeney now begins a murder spree with Judge Turpin as his ultimate goal, and when confronted with the question of where to put the bodies, he and Mrs. Lovett come up with a tasty solution to both their problems.

Meanwhile, Sweeney and Anthony Hope (James Evert), the sailor he met on his ocean journey back from Australia, attempt to free the barber’s now grown daughter from the clutches (and matrimonial plans) of the evil Judge Turpin and accomplice-in-crime Beadle Bamford (Harrison White).

Also figuring in The Tale Of Sweeney Todd are Italian-accented con-artist Adolfo Pirelli (Kasey Mahaffy), whose “Miracle Elixir” promises astonishing hair growth and more; Tobias Ragg (Josey Montana McCoy), Pirelli’s sweet but simple-minded (and now unemployed) assistant; and a nameless, demented Beggar Woman (Amber Liekhus), in whom Sweeney’s face sparks some distant glimmer of recognition.

In the years since Sweeney Todd first took Broadway by storm in 1979, the musical has become as much a director’s show as it is a star vehicle, and Rodriguez-Elliot’s stamp is evident from the moment her cast assembles in two rows of theater chairs as if eagerly awaiting a show about to be staged in an abandoned London theater, you know you’re in for a Sweeney Tod uniquely A Noise Within.

 Seemingly discarded theatrical equipment, furniture, and props provide the basis of Francois-Pierre Couture’s imagination-blessed scenic design on which Rodriguez-Elliot’s cast, adorned in Angela Balogh Calin’s gloriously grungy costumes and Tony Valdes’s frightfully fanciful wigs and Grand Guignol makeup hold an audience spellbound throughout a production strikingly lit by Ken Booth.

I could easily wax poetic about virtually all of Rodriguez-Elliot’s ingeniously original directorial touches, including the production’s clever, eye-catching depiction of Sweeney’s throat-slashing/body disposal and the way in which she links Sweeney’s past and Toby’s future in a final fade to black that left me breathless.

Those finding fault with Broadway’s recent casting of younger matinee-idol tenors in the title role will celebrate Elliot’s creepy, craggy, boomingly basso Sweeney, a role he’s waited decades to play the living hell out of, but it’s Murphy’s gloriously sung, deliciously daffy Mrs. Lovett that steals every scene she’s in, a powerhouse performance the L.A. stage goddess can now add to what is already the most eclectic musical theater resumé in town.

Tenors don’t get any more gorgeous than Evert’s as the dreamiest of Anthonys, or sopranos any more glorious than Jones’s as the most exquisite of Johannas.

Rabb and White make for the most dastardly of partners in crime, and Liekhus is an absolute stunner as a Beggar Woman with a past.

Not only that, but by trimming Sweeney’s original Broadway cast of twenty-seven down to seventeen, Rodriguez-Elliot has everyone but her two leads doubling as ensemble players alongside young talents Grace Albano, Gabriella Anifantis, Samantha Atilano, Ella Blain, Ethan Clayton, Ariel Davis, Rachel K. Han, and Sebastian Rodriguez.

Sweeney’s orchestra too has been slashed down from the current Broadway revival’s twenty-six to music director Rod Bagheri and Christopher Smith on side-by-side pianos and Karen Hall on cello, a trio of virtuoso musicians who manage miraculously to make audiences forget there are only three of them on stage,

Along the way, sound designer Jeff Gardner’s pitch-perfect mix mean you never miss a lyric as he inserts dramatic effects throughout the show.

Doubling as choreographer, Rodriguez-Elliot gives Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett some charming waltz steps to accompany “A Litle Priest.”

Last but not least, those throat-slitting razors and Mrs. Lovett’s godawful meat pies are just a few of Stephen Taylor’s multitude of props.

Kyle Frattini, Sarah Randall Hunt, Wyn Moreno, Luke Matthew Simon, Michael Solomon, and Lauren Han Ward are understudies.

Vivi Le is assistant director. Cici Mao is assistant lighting designer. Andrea Odinov is dialect coach. Miranda Johnson-Haddad is dramaturg. Christopher Bosco is audio engineer.

Angela Sonner is stage manager and Mikayla Bettner is assistant stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

I’ve now seen fourteen different Sweeney Todds, each of them providing further proof that this is one of Sondheim’s most masterful creations. Julia Rodriguez-Elliot makes this latest Demon Barber Of Fleet Street as memorable as Sweeney Todds get.

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena.
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
February 17, 2024
Photos: Craig Schwartz

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