Late 18th-century London is a living nightmare in Chance Theater’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and while the scaled-down revival’s pitch-black tone and bare-minimum number of players do not make it the best introduction to this Stephen Sondheim classic, there’s still a lot for Sondheim aficionados to applaud.

Sweeney Todd tells the tale of Benjamin Barker, a 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 (Justin Ryan) has set his sights on Barker’s nubile teenage daughter Johanna (Naya Ramsey-Clark).

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 (Winston Peacock).

When Sweeney stops in at the pie shop located downstairs from his onetime tonsorial parlor, the down-on-her-luck proprietress Mrs. Lovett (Jocelyn A. Brown) isn’t fooled by the new name, recognizing at once returning ex-con, for whom she has kept his shaving instruments 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 (Dylan August), 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 his accomplice in crime Beadle Bamford (Abel Miramontes).

Also figuring in The Tale Of Sweeney Todd are Italian-accented con-artist Adolfo Pirelli (Emmanuel Madera), whose “Miracle Elixir” promises astonishing hair growth and more; Tobias Ragg (Adam Leiva), Pirelli’s pure-hearted assistant; and a nameless, demented Beggar Woman (Laura M. Hathaway), in whom Sweeney’s face sparks some distant glimmer of recognition.

Two things distinguish Chance Theater’s Sweeney Todd from Sweeneys that have come before.

The first is the overwhelming darkness of director James Michael McHale’s vision for the tale we’re attending. The second is the production’s radically reduced cast size—a mere nine actors in all, or at least a half-dozen less than the number of players needed to do justice to Sondheim’s songs and Hugh Wheeler’s book.

The first one works as far as drama and atmosphere are concerned, though it makes the show a lot less entertaining than recent productions at A Noise Within and South Coast Repertory.

The second is more significant, but more about that later.

From the moment cast members emerge from the burlap sheets that have enveloped them at lights up, their faces made up to look like those of the living dead, we are in nightmare mode, though just whose nightmare we’re observing doesn’t become clear until the production’s final, devastating fade to black.

It’s a vision enhanced by scenic designers Fred Kinney and Mio Okada’s steampunk set adorned with gearwheels of varying sizes not unlike those Mrs. Lovett uses to grind the meat used to make “the worst pies in London,” the characters’ ghoulish makeup, and most particularly by Nick Santiago’s blood-dripping and blood-soaked widescreen projections.

As to what’s lost in chopping the cast down to about half its ideal size, it isn’t just the full impact of Sondheim’s vocal harmonies, though nine powerful singers joining voices expertly amped by sound designer Lia Weed and sound engineer James Markoski and underscored by music director Lex Leigh’s prerecorded tracks go a long way towards making this less of an issue.

More significantly, having everyone but Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett play not only major characters but ensemble tracks as well can lead to considerable confusion, especially since not enough is done in terms of costuming and hair design to let us know if it’s a major character we’re seeing, or a cameo role that would customarily be played by someone else. (Was that Toby’s throat that Sweeney just split open?!)

Peacock’s dynamic, demonic Sweeney, August’s sweet-faced, angel-voiced Anthony, Ramsey-Clarke’s exquisitely pop-soprano-tinged Johanna, and Leiva’s heartbreakingly sweet and vulnerable Tobias are all four mesmerizing.

Madera steals every scene he’s in as comic-relief barber Pirelli (doubling as the creepy-crawly Mr. Fogg), Ryan gives the nefarious Judge Turpan the most gorgeous of operatic baritones, Miramontes is terrific as the dastardly Beadle Banford, and Hathaway gets to play compellingly against type as the crazed Beggar Woman.

Still, if this Sweeney Todd can be said to belong to any one performer, it’s to Chance Theater treasure Brown, whose Mrs. Lovett is delectably dotty, quintessentially quirky, and downright delish.

Gwen Sloan’s costumes would be more effective if they distinguished more clearly between main characters and ensemble cameos, but Jacqueline Malenke’s lighting design is appropriately dramatic and Bebe Herrera’s plethora of props range from razors to meat pie plates (though what are all those buckets supposed to signify?).

Last but not least, choreographer Mo Goodfellow inserts occasional storytelling dance sequences along the way.

Hannah Creighton is assistant costume designer. Sophie Hall Cripe is dramaturg. Glenda Morgan Brown is dialect coach. Martin Noyes is fight director.

Cynthia C. Espinoza is stage manager and Loren Morris and Bryanna Zapatka are assistant stage managers.

It’s been a dozen years since Chance Theater last did Stephen Sondheim, making it high time for another Sondheim show. Their Sweeney Todd may be too scaled down in cast size and insufficiently clear in its storytelling to fully do this masterwork justice, but even so, this Demon Barber of Fleet Street packs one powerful punch.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
July 20, 2024
Photos: Doug Catiller

Tags: Chance Theater, Hugh Wheeler, Orange County Theater Review, Stephen Sondheim