Why, why, why would someone do what Sweeney Todd did? I find the need to understand characters like the Phantom, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Sweeney Todd. The production could be wildly entertaining with superb costumes, sets, actors, and music but afterwards I feel like something is missing and the entertainment I just enjoyed seemed shallow. When the depths of character plus the story behind the person allows the audience to feel his emotions, his motivations, and to understand his impulsive behavior http://www.thefulton.org/sweeney/the production entertains the intellect, humanizes this extremely unique character, and fulfills the need for closure for the dastardly actions of the character. Even though the characters like the Phantom or Sweeney Todd are fictional, my mind will not be at ease until I understand this character’s powerful actions and motivations. The decision of the directors to engrain the reasoning of the violent actions of Sweeney Todd in the Fulton’s Theatre production was a great choice. Plus this rendition of Sweeney Todd makes the production more of a tragedy than a horror.
Due to a huge injustice Sweeney Todd returns to London to try to recapture his former life after 15 years. But Sweeney only hears of further injustices suffered by his family members due to the same judge and sidekick that permanently harmed Sweeney. Only when Sweeney reconnects with his beloved barber blades does he start to feel like his old self again. Sweeny lives, eats, and breathes revenge on the judge who dealt one injustice after another on his family. When he cannot reach his target the mounding surge of emotions and unreleased anger is too much for Sweeney and he releases his tensions by other means.
The directors of Sweeney Todd artfully presented this production more like a Dickens’ novel. I saw many parallels to numerous Dickens stories: Victorian London, the numerous injustices of the time period in London, the bullying, the persons in power who abuse their power to control others and their outcomes. Charles Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit two years before the String of Pearls story of Sweeney Todd appeared. Some people feel that the Dickens’s story was the precursor to the String of Pearls story with Sweeney Todd. This production also has a benefactor-another Dickens’s trait. The benefactor supplied the extra actors and orchestra thereby giving the production a deep and haunting resonance and fervor during the crescendo of choruses.
This Fulton Theatre’s production once again showed the talents of the well oiled machine on Prince Street in Lancaster. The scene, makeup, hair and costume designers transformed the audience to the dismal Victorian time period. The lighting and sound designers showed their trade mark perfect timing and effects. The casting of the actors was perfect – Signore Adolfo Pirelli, the sophisticated Italian Barber and street vendor, Sweeney himself who not only had a great singing voice but a marvelous speaking voice for the role, as well as the other 26 actors. The music direction of the orchestra and the enormous ensemble (each with stupendous individual singing ability) were magnificently coordinated in a reverberating sound that sounded like a 100 vocalists and a 50 piece orchestra.
Five times the large and powerful singing voices of the ensemble sang “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”. Five times the powerful voices resonated through your bones, shaking your core. This was the benefactor’s greatest gift-the experience of this mighty and powerful ensemble shaking you to your core as you “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd”. My recommendation-“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd”!
http://www.thefulton.org/sweeney/
