Sweeney Todd opening night
David gave his opening night performance of Sweeney Todd at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on Tuesday, April 24. New photos have been added to the gallery and a new article and a number of glowing reviews have been added to the press section of the website.
Sweeney Todd – Sunday Business Post
Review by Sara Keating
There is an uneasy balance of humour and pathos in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd. Part pantomime, part Gothic thriller, it constructs a coherent story around the ambiguous mythic legend of the barber turned butcher; a story that is as ridiculous as it is tragic.
Sondheim’s version of the tale is set in the afterlife, as Benjamin Barker (aka Sweeney Todd) climbs out of his grave to relive the revenge tragedy of the last years of his life. With the ghostly pallor of an undead soul, Todd (played with intensity by David Shannon) attempts to reclaim the life denied to him by his rival-in-love, the puritanical Judge Turpin (a sonorous Barry McGovern).
But Todd’s attempts to seek justice soon turn murderous, and his tonsorial talent is transformed from artistry into felony as he begins to cut the throats of his customers along with their hair.
In the Victorian London setting, we witness the perversity of puritanism, the sexual release of self-flagellation, and the inequities wrought by burgeoning industry in a world where ‘‘man devours man’’. However, amidst the shadows of Rick Fisher’s lighting design and the shifting smoky streetscape of David Farley’s set, there are alleyways of gross absurdity.
In fact, Sondheim’s musical works best when it is funniest; when Todd is singing an ode to a razor blade in a shave-off with his rival and first victim, Pirelli, played with grotesque flamboyancy by Mark O’Regan; or when he is playing a game of puns for pies with his accomplice Mrs Lovett (a showstealing Anita Reeves) in the stand-out musical number, A Little Priest.
In contrast, the earnest romantic thread that runs through the sub-plot is difficult to swallow, particularly when couched amidst the inelegant arrangement of some of Sondheim’s composition.
Although the stage at the Gate is a little too small for the epic musical, director Selina Cartmell makes the most of the space by placing the action on three different levels. Her choreography of the execution scenes is superbly subtle, as she draws the line between life and death with the smallest detail of a puff of smoke.
With a plot given impetus by cranial chic, it makes sense to single out the wigs for special mention. But whether a blue-rinsed bouffant, a ginger toupee or a mass of flaxen curls, with the scissors in the hands of the demon barber of Fleet Street heads will surely roll . . .
Rating: ****
Seduced by the man with the knives – Sunday Independent
Review by Emer O’Kelly
WHETHER the protagonist of Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is more apocryphal than a figure from history is arguable. But certainly, his late-20th-Century incarnation in the play by Christopher Bond is very much of our time: a psychopathic mass murderer who must be understood, his status that of victim rather than perpetrator. Sweeney’s stage nemesis, the evil Judge Turpin, would have turned in his grave.
But be that as it may, the Stephen Sondheim musical/opera based on the Bond play has had a phenomenal success since it first hit the boards nearly 30 years ago. Usually presented with all the trappings of a large-scale Broadway musical, it’s been given its Irish premiere on the relatively tiny stage of the Gate in Dublin. And it works, largely due to the quirkily imaginative directorial vision of Selina Cartmell and an inventive set by David Farley.
The Demon Barber, returned from transportation, sets out to wreak vengeance on his tormentors and regain access to Johanna, his now-15-year-old daughter, who lives under the dastardly protection of Judge Turpin. He slits the throats of enemies and friends alike with abandon, disposing of the corpses in the pies made by his lover Mrs Lovett. Only sweet Johanna and her spotless suitor Anthony Hope emerge triumphant, everyone else lying in blood-spattered bits and pieces along the way.
It is extremely dark: the scene where Barry McGovern as the Judge flays himself while spying on Johanna’s toilette is flesh-crawling, and the innocent crippled apprentice Tobias emerges from imprisonment in the bakehouse overnight with his hair turned white from terror. The beggar woman who will play a closer role in all their lives than anyone realises (Camille O’Sullivan) carries a filthy doll in crazed remembrance of the child taken forcibly from her. This is no jolly romp.
David Shannon makes a marvellously brooding Sweeney, Anita Reeves a fluttering, calculating Mrs Lovett, while McGovern and O’Sullivan are spectacularly successful in their roles. As Johanna, Lisa Lambe’s ability to project innocence in a powerhouse voice needed no proof, and Simon Morgan’s background in conventional opera is evident in his heroic Anthony. Robert Bannon makes a good debut as young Tobias, with sterling work from Kenneth O’Regan as Beadle and Mark O’Regan as Pirelli.
Musical direction of the six-piece orchestra is in the hands of Cathal Synnott; Ella Clarke directs movement and choreography with fight sequences by Paul Burke. Sound is by Mick O’Gorman and Kevin McGing, and lighting design is by Rick Fisher.
Musical theatre in Dublin frequently verges on the tacky; Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is very definitely an exception, although you’d be glad there’s a Fleet Street in Dublin: there’s not a Cockney accent in sight.
