Sweeney Todd Forum

STF's Peter Auker reviews the Festival Players' production of Sweeney, and concludes that it doesn't quite convince

Sweeney Todd In Cambridge
Festival Players
ADC Theatre, June 2009

Risk-taking in the theatre almost always leads to an interesting result, and any society willing to take the risk of staging Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, one of the most demanding musicals in the repertoire, has to be commended. The Festival Players from Cambridge brought their interpretation to the ADC Theatre during the first week of June, and, despite the flaws, certainly provided an interesting evening of murderous entertainment.

First impressions were promising – a fairly bare set, with two stairways on either side leading to a kind of upper gallery, and an archway beneath, painted to look like bare brick beneath crumbling plaster. Before the show started, I had this down as a modern expressionistic interpretation. However, as the chorus entered in the opening prologue, I quickly realised that they were setting the drama in Victorian times after all, although this was something not always obvious from the characters’ appearance and costumes.

I confess I was rather surprised that the Prologue had had all the solo lines removed – these were allocated to the ensemble who sang them in unison – and also surprised that Sweeney did not appear in the Prologue at all – definitely a break with tradition here! To be honest, I’m not too sure it worked, but maybe that’s the purist in me speaking.

The surprises continued throughout the evening, which certainly kept me guessing and alert. Sadly, many of these surprises I felt detracted from the drama as a whole – the decision to cut the Judge’s Johanna, the cutting of The Letter and severe surgery on Parlour Songs were especial disappointments. Also, why on earth treat City On Fire as a sort of rap and strip away all the melody completely? I found that most odd.

The pace of the music was on the slow side – especially in Act One. A lot of the tempi were far slower than I believe Sondheim would recommend. The problem with this is that, being largely through-composed, the dramatic pace is reliant on the musical pace being set at the correct tempo, and so the choice here of slow tempi led to interruptions to the dramatic flow of the work.

Lest this review appear to be taking a depressingly negative turn, I would like to commend some really strong performances.

I liked Sweeney’s (Warren Clark) singing voice – he had obviously learned the part thoroughly and all the notes, rhythms and words were correct. It would have been nice to hear a bit more of the brooding anger of Sweeney in the songs – Epiphany was best in this respect, but the emotion of Sweeney discovering the true fate of Lucy at the end of the show was not apparent enough. On the whole though, a nice performance – perhaps a bit on the “safe” side for my taste. Also, I think Warren could have done with a rougher look – his appearance was a bit too smart and corporate, almost as if he was the Demon Stockbroker of Fleet Street.

Another strong performance was Cat Nicol as Mrs Lovett. She brought a sly seductiveness to the role which I felt worked very well, and, together with Warren, brought off the absolute highlight of the show, A Little Priest, which was excellent and certainly ensured the audience came back to see the second act!

I enjoyed Rachel Jarmy’s Johanna – she played her as quite a feisty little miss with a slight hint of “rock chick”, which I rather liked. Johanna is not an easy role to fill – there are lots of different ways she can be interpreted, and I felt Rachel’s was successful. Green Finch and Linnet Bird in the wrong hands can come over as rather bland but this was certainly not the case here, which is all to the good.

A definite highlight was Gavin Jarvis as Pirelli. Again, he suffered from the imposition of an excessively slow tempo (especially in the opening of his song) but his voice was perfect for the part, and he brought a superb comic element to the show. The wonderful moment when he swaps his Italian accent for the Irish was carried off with brilliance, and he milked the “hand out of the box” comedy for all it was worth.

The chorus were at their strongest in the Act Two opener, God That’s Good. Despite a few musical mishaps (mostly in the middle of the texture, and therefore not particularly noticeable), the overall effect was really good, and they ceased to be an amorphous blob and became what they should be: a collection of individual characters each with their own little story to tell. I loved some of the interplay between ensemble members here, and felt that this was one of the best successes of the show.

Another strength was the orchestral sound which was generally well balanced. I was sitting in the second row, and only occasionally did the orchestra drown out the singers. The playing was mostly tight and secure, with only the occasional mishap which probably wouldn’t be noticeable to most listeners, although I regretted the omission of a few pieces of underscore from time to time.

To sum up, the entire show did not, for me, quite hang together as a dramatic whole. The paradox was that there was clearly a connection with the audience (judging from their reaction, which included lots of laughter in places which do not normally elicit mirth), so this is obviously my personal view. However, to balance this, there were some fine performances and evidence of hard work. The evening was never dull, and I am definitely glad I came to see it.