Kate’s Score: 4 meat pies
We begin with a séance. And it is a brilliant, clever concept from director Theresa Borg. The Victorians of Britain had an almost unhealthy obsession of death and all its associated accoutrements. Playing into this Spiritualist obsession to tell the story of Sweeney Todd serves not only the darkness and mood of the musical, but provides a thematic means to handle transitions and murders. Attendees follow the black gowned Medium around, effecting scene changes and enhancing the mood. Through the means of this ongoing séance, we experience the story ofSweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Summoned by the Medium to tell his story is Sweeney Todd – the mesmerising Anthony Warlow. What can be said of Warlow’s consummate artistry and stage presence that has not been said before? From his earliest days as a teenager in the Arcadians Theatre group in Wollongong, it was obvious that here was one of the brightest stars destined for Broadway. Warlow drives Todd with a vengeful ferocity tempered with the pain of grief. He does full justice to the musical richness of the role, completing the performance with intuitive physical characterisation. It is flawless. A wise and intelligent choice is setting Gina Riley against him as Mrs Lovatt. Riley has that deftness of touch with comedy which is needed, else the musical becomes completely dire. Her portrayal enhances the darkness of Warlow’s Todd. This is a ying/yang of casting; It is easy (and common) to cast Mrs Lovatt as dark and menacing as Sweeny Todd – but in this pairing, they set each other off beautifully.
Other casting is equally immaculate. Genieve’s Kingford’s Joanna is cleverly superficially doll-like; and there is good support from Debra Byrne as the mad Beggar Woman and Todd’s lost love, Daniel Sumegi as a rapacious Judge Turpin, Anton Berezin as a bent beadle and Michael Falzon as the flim-flam showman Pirelli. Jonathan Hickey (Tobias) and Owen McCredie (Anthony) deliver. The ensemble move smoothly as one.
This is a semi-staged concert version. The orchestra live in pits on the right of the stage, forming a sort of marshy land along the paths of which characters must navigate access to and from the action. The string section – a harp in particular, is closest to the action. Visible and audible, the harp feeds the imagery of macabre Victorianism. The Musical Director Vanessa Scammel – attired in widow’s weeds of draped black lace – holds a most professional orchestra together.
Lighting (Tom Willis) is precise and designed to enhance Borg’s vision. The murdered go to the light. Characters move in and out of threatening shadows created by the harmony of good lighting on an effective, multi-purpose set (Charlotte Lane) .
There is no colour, except blood red on the set. Costumes (Kim Bishop) are everything of mourning; white for purity through the greys of the spiritual world to the blacks of men with evil intent. And it is this particular theme Borg had chosen to underscore. Stephen Sonheim’s musical offers a variety of social issues to pursue, but Borg’s choice of women abused is so very relevant in this era of #metoo. Todd yearns for a wife who was “beautiful”. The men pine for “Pretty Women”. They express no interest in them as people. They are to be treated as paintings on a wall, things to satisfy a carnal lust, then tricked and discarded. The issue of lack of consent and punishment for women who refuse to fit the picture is brought to the fore.
This is a delicious production which understands it is playing to an audience of 2019. Sondheim always classifies the work as a “musical thriller”. It is that but, as this production (whose main creatives are all women) reminds us, it is also a social piece about the price to be paid when women are treated as objects and not people.
Kate Stratford – Theatre Now Sydney
Photography Credit: Ben Fon
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
13 – 16 June 2019
Thursday 13 June, 7.30pm
Friday 14 June, 7.30pm
Saturday 15 June, 2.00pm and 7.30pm
Sunday 16 June, 1.00pm and 5.30pm
Venue: ICC Sydney: Darling Harbour Theatre
Theatre Company: TEG Life Like Company
Duration: N /A
The pre-eminent leading man of Australian musical theatre, Anthony Warlow, will be joined by one of Australia’s best-known stage and screen performers, the incomparable Gina Riley, when the pair join forces in this spectacular re-imagined concert version of the musical thriller SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Warlow – Australia’s original Phantom – is set to play the powerhouse ‘demon barber’ Sweeney Todd, while Gina Riley plays landlady and pie-shop owner Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1979 musical masterpiece. Together they bring high-wattage star power to this unique new concert production playing Sydney and Melbourne in June for six performances only per city.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s ground-breaking work, the production transports audiences into the atmospheric underbelly of 19th century London as the exiled barber Sweeney Todd enacts revenge on those who have wronged him.
Ticket Prices
From $99 excluding booking fees
