On Stage
KANFER, ETHAN
On Stage Creepy Friends By Ethan Kanfer IN search of public domain material for his regional theater company, British actor Christopher Bond stumbled upon Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber...
...Thunder obscures their voices just as they reveal Anne's whereabouts, and Marian has to get back inside before she is caught...
...No sooner has Sweeney opened up shop than a rival barber attempts to muscle in...
...The first act closes with "A Little Priest," a fiendishly clever patter song in which the coconspirators speculate about how people of different professions might taste...
...Sarah Travis' spare arrangements serve the score well, bringing out angles a more lush orchestration might miss...
...The prettier half sister, Laura Fairlie (Jill Paice), bears a chilling resemblance to the woman in white, but Walter tries to keep his mind on tutoring the two young ladies...
...As the sky subtly darkens, their talk deteriorates into an argument...
...Pirelli (Donna Lynne Champlin) declares he wants half of Todd's earnings...
...Woman follows the exploits of Walter Hartright (Adam Brazier), a young drawing instructor on his way to the privileged Limmeridge House...
...Prone to sleepwalking, Laura has plummeted to her death...
...A watercolor portrait of Laura is all he will have to remember her by...
...Anne Catherick holds a secret that could be their undoing, and she must remain out of sight...
...The excess of dizzying imagery comes across as a desperate attempt to add novelty to a production that is simply not all that different from what Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Trevor Nunn were doing 20 years ago...
...Suddenly, over the dunes come a magnificent human-sized lizard and lizardess...
...Walter apprehends Sir Percival as he attempts to abscond with the Fairlie fortune...
...When Sweeney, then known as Benjamin Barker, was framed for a crime and sent off to Botany Bay prison colony, his wife Lucy attempted to intervene...
...Sternhagen and Grizzard are entirely believable as a couple married some 50 years...
...Sarah heaves with grief...
...The musical opened on Broadway in 1979 and garnered nine Tony awards...
...What an ordinary woman would take for granted is a faraway dream for her...
...With her big heart and searching mind she longs to be more than what she is, but remains quite literally trapped within her limitations...
...Thanks to a fine ensemble, this strange quartet is one to remember...
...They both reflect back on a positive past...
...Only in death can he truly see her face...
...Laura and Walter walk away together...
...One hopes these two gifted performers will find something to do on Broadway after The Woman in White has vanished...
...Although Seascape feels less like a full drama than a glorified one-acter, it still packs remarkable resonance and takes a playful stab at Shavian dialectics...
...The decapitation is blood-curdling yet tastefully nonliteral...
...Thanks to Glyde's generosity, she is receiving the best care imaginable...
...Drunk with bloodlust, he takes her life...
...The product of a tryst between Laura's father and a scullery maid, Anne was hidden away and had no way to fend off Glyde's abuses...
...Macho Leslie is reluctant to drop his menacing posturing, but Sarah's curiosity gets the better of her...
...Hauntingly hoarse and full of longing, his powerful tremolo captures the human side of this sympathetic villain...
...Sweeney thinks of his wife and daughter as he studies the neck of the man who took them away...
...Worse, Charlie deeply hurts Sarah in an effort to explain human attitudes toward mortality...
...Sweeney seethes.but Mrs...
...He attempts to explain art, tools, and the theory of evolution (not an easy lesson to teach a subhuman...
...For Charlie it's a well-earned rest...
...Nancy jokes that if Charlie became gravely ill, she would poison herself—and he would quickly recover just to spite her...
...The mood brightens as Marian Halcombe (Maria Friedman) welcomes Walter to the family estate...
...Given to violent outbursts, she had to be committed to a mental hospital...
...Leslie (Frederick Weiler) and Sarah (Elizabeth Marvel) have tails, scales, spines, and claws, but are in some ways quite similar to their human counterparts...
...This is repeated throughout the show, until a hideous chorus of corpses fills the stage...
...18 to 20 years of age...
...She searches the underside of London, but is unable to locate Walter Hartright until an item in a pawn shop catches her eye...
...The Play About the Baby features an Adam and Eve-like Boy and Girl frolicking in their Eden until an older couple bedevils their minds with questions...
...Most moving of all is Marvel, whose sensitive portrayal of Sarah encapsulates the play's core conflict...
...Although he agrees to shake feet with Charlie, he wants no part of his world...
...Sweeney (Michael Cerveris) is discovered at sea, claiming to be shipwrecked...
...On Stage Creepy Friends By Ethan Kanfer IN search of public domain material for his regional theater company, British actor Christopher Bond stumbled upon Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the stage equivalent of a Victorian "penny dreadful...
...He is "shaved," as is the Judge shortly thereafter...
...Puzzled by her resistance, Turpin hopes to improve his chances with a visit to the barbershop...
...Shattered, Marian seeks the one kindred spirit who can console her...
...Had he allowed himself to explore these unusual motifs, he might have created a better musical...
...The less attractive of two half sisters, she more than makes up for her plainness with gregarious energy and self-deprecating wit...
...In her showpiece, the startlingly lyrical "By the Sea," she envisions a mundane bourgeois holiday with Sweeney by her side...
...It is the portrait of Laura, hocked by Walter to support his worsening drinking habit...
...Marian uses her ingenuity to try to undo Sir Percival's scheme...
...My arm is complete again," he declares as he flaunts his straight razor...
...The guys have a tougher time getting along, but at last Charlie is coaxed out of his shell...
...Lovettputs her mind to practical matters...
...Anthony kills a stubborn administrator (John Arbo) while freeing Johanna from the insane asylum...
...Nancy has but three, and has nurtured them until they were (gasp...
...Into this black and white world comes a jarring shaft of red light, and as the victim is dispatched he dons a blood-spattered smock...
...Glyde recalls the girl as the troubled daughter of one of the servants...
...The liquor is laced with a soporific...
...What if Sarah knew she would never, ever see him again...
...Retribution comes full circle when Tobias discovers human remains among the discarded entrails...
...His voice, too, is unusual for Broadway...
...The two villains agree...
...As the mustache-twirling Count Fosco, Ball blends Continental charm with lethal avarice...
...As the creatures slither back into the sea, all parties have had their worldviews shaken...
...Nancy and Charlie, for all their civilization, are pacing out a predestined life cycle, as instinctive as the spawning of animals...
...Business picks up at the pie shop, but the disappearance of multiple customers arouses the suspicions of the Beadle (Alexander Gerrugnani...
...he pits the embittered George and Martha against the bright and promising Nick and Honey...
...There are, however, ample opportunities for the two leads to exhibit their talents...
...He is thwarted by Judge Turpin, who keeps the young woman under lock and key...
...Anxious questions arise...
...With a book by Hugh Wheeler and Harold Prince as director, Sondheim wrote one of the strongest scores of his career...
...This is not the most cathartic of Albee's plays, yet it is far more fanciful than his domestic slugfests...
...In the title role, Cerveris fills the stage with an iconic presence...
...Sweeney offers Pirelli a free shave while he considers this proposition...
...Everything else is improvised as needed...
...In fact, the Judge means to marry her himself...
...Walter disrupts the soiree, demanding to know the truth about Anne Catherick...
...Lovett as an earthy seducer, fiercely devoted to the mad belief that she can somehow domesticate the monster she loves...
...Lloyd Webber and lyricist David Zippel deliver a decent, professional score...
...How will they cope when one of them is ready to pass on...
...They move as if repeating a familiar dance, but with a creeping knowledge that the music has changed and the steps don't come as easily as they used to...
...What if, he proposes, Leslie went far, far away...
...Leslie snaps, putting a choke hold on Charlie...
...As the frightened bipeds take a "submissive" pose, the two reptiles bicker (in unexplained English) over how to handle the situation...
...Especially in the Rossini-like minuet "You Can Get Away with Anything," he makes ample use of his versatile voice and expert comic timing...
...The primordial innocents have pursued their curiosity, only to learn that more highly evolved beings fear death and use language to make one another cry...
...Marian soldiers on...
...William Dudley has done a remarkable job designing these moving locales, but his talents are misused here...
...Phantom of the Opera worked because the villain and the love interest were one and the same...
...Marian, torn between her affection for Walter and her protective duty to Laura, is forced to make a bitter proclamation: Laura is engaged to be married, and Walter must leave before her fiancé arrives...
...Charlie (George Grizzard) reclines with his crossword puzzle, while his wife Nancy (Frances Sternhagen) paints a seascape...
...Whereas the Prince version looked like a George Cruikshank engraving broughtto life, director/designer John Doyle's minimal staging evokes the feeling of a 1930s movie...
...A revival, now playing at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, offers a daring new interpretation...
...That evening, Laura's uncle Mr...
...His stocky frame, shaved head and black leather coat make him an amalgam of 20thcentury archetypes—gangster, fascist, antisocial outsider...
...In Act II even the gentlest of souls turn bad...
...On a rainy night, she sneaks onto the roof and eavesdrops on Glyde and Fosco...
...Marian traces him to a garret, where they conspire to bring Percival Glyde to justice...
...In the morning, Fosco informs her of an unfortunate occurrence...
...These choices of activity typify their personalities...
...The evening begins with "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," a macabre chant that recalls a gory sea chanty or a children's rhyme gone bad: Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd His skin was pale and his eye was odd He shaved the faces of gentlemen Who never thereafter were heard of again He trod a path that few have trod Did Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street...
...LuPone portrays Mrs...
...The difficulty lies in their choice of source material...
...Michael Yeargan's set makes use of the inherent abstractness of sand dunes, providing plenty of space for the actors...
...In Seascape, now revived at the Booth Theater, Albee raises the confrontation between past and future to the level of hyperbole...
...Lovett...
...They tussle, and a locomotive comes barreling out of a tunnel just in time to kill the villain...
...Friedman is a force of nature, equally at home rocking the rafters with a challenging ballad or trading tragicomic intimacies with her costars...
...Retirement, for Nancy, means doing things they never had a chance to do before...
...For Nancy, though, devotion to the self-absorbed Charlie has not always been easy...
...After several recent Sondheim revivals have proven disappointing, it is heartening to see one of his most indelible creations back on Broadway—with a vengeance...
...Walter wants to help her, but she scurries off...
...Feigning sympathy, Fosco scolds Miss Holcombe for going out in such dismal weather...
...As he waits at a misty train station, Anne Catherick (Angela Christian) appears out of nowhere...
...He insists she take a brandy and go lie down...
...The story's loose ends are tied up in classic melodramatic style, as Laura is found to be alive after all and Anne is revealed to be an illegitimate half sister...
...Sweeney learns the fate of his loved ones from Mrs...
...Laura and Sir Percival Glyde are wed, and Anne's grim predictions prove true...
...Forgetting himself, Charlie talks of his superiority over "the brute beast," and Leslie's hackles are visibly raised...
...Here Phantom's fear factor is absent...
...Outraged by Mrs...
...Lovett (Patti LuPone), self-confessed maker of "The Worst Pies in London...
...Donning a daring scarlet dress, Marian pays a risky seductive visit to Count Fosco in an effort to learn Anne's whereabouts...
...Anew musical now at the Marquis Theater, The Woman in White, has several features in common with Sweeney Todd...
...In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf...
...Dressed in ghostly white, she professes to be in grave danger...
...They must dispose of Pirelli's body, and then there is the problem of the high cost of meat versus the flagging sales of her tough, tasteless pies...
...Lovett has kept Benjamin's barbering tools locked away all these years...
...Glyde, actually a cad overcome with massive gambling debts, mercilessly beats Laura and bullies her into signing over her share of the estate...
...A handful of the songs feature bursts of atonality or frenzied Celtic drumming, showing that the composer has more strings in his bow than he lets on...
...Who are they now as a couple...
...In the tense, ironic duet "Pretty Women," Turpin dreams of a picturesque rendezvous...
...no infidelities, no serious trouble with the children...
...The only survivors, Johanna and Anthony, disappear into the night...
...Fairlie (Walter Charles) throws a party for Sir Percival and his foppish traveling companion Count Fosco (Michael Ball...
...Director Mark Lamos blends realism and fantasy with sure-handed grace...
...Edward Albee is fond of foursomes...
...Lovett's lies, Todd murders her too...
...Another visitation from the woman in white warns Walter that the intended groom, Sir Percival Glyde (Ron Böhmer), is an evil man, and harm will come to Laura if she weds him...
...The Beggar Woman returns and provokes Sweeney with obscure hints of her true identity...
...Childlike Tobias, singing "Not While I'm Around," vows to destroy anyone who would harm his new benefactor Mrs...
...The actors play their own musical instruments, and a curvaceous tuba here or a chaste cello there are used to emphasize the characters' traits...
...She accepts Nancy's invitation to shake hands ("feet" to Sarah...
...In a flash of brilliance, she sees a solution to both problems, and also a way into Sweeney's heart...
...Finding plenty of gore but little story, Bond fleshed out the characters and filled their mouths with a poeticized version of working-class speech...
...According to Mrs...
...Kindhearted sailor Anthony (Benjamin Magnuson), asking no questions, grants the stranger safe passage back to London...
...Egg-laying Sarah has hundreds of children...
...Outraged at his ward's insouciance, the Judge has her committed to Bedlam mental hospital...
...Unfortunately, minimalism is not one of them...
...The athletic Weiler hilariously creates a body language that is both human and reptilian...
...Inevitably, by summer's end Walter and Laura fall in love...
...Adapted from Wilkie Collins' novel, this flashy extravaganza sports a rotating stage, a fog machine, live animals, and an impressive but distracting technical innovation: Computer generated animation sequences are projected onto curved screens, creating backgrounds that swell, spin, shimmer, and transmogrify as if shot by a mobile movie camera...
...The women manage to restore peace, but this last encounter is too much for Leslie...
...She is his beloved Lucy, hardened by years of madness and vagrancy...
...Strange people haunt the streets Sweeney once knew, like the half-witted urchin Tobias (Manoel Felciano) and the old Beggar Woman (Diana DiMarzio) who spouts obscenities and prophesies doom...
...Lovett, the resulting trauma drove Lucy to take her own life, and their daughter Johanna (Lauren Molina) grew to womanhood in Judge Turpin's custody...
...She pleaded with Judge Turpin (Mark Jacoby) to lessen the sentence, but was instead gang raped by the Judge and his cronies...
...The props and costumes are black and white, and the only fixed set is an abstract wooden backdrop, cluttered with a collage of found objects...
...The cast, most of them drenched in blood, join together in a pounding reprise of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd...
...The stage is never as luminous as when Ball and Friedman are together, which alas happens all too rarely...
...Walter suspects there's more to the story, but is again admonished to leave at once...
...His worst fears confirmed, he overtakes the demon barber while reciting a nursery rhyme...
...Standouts in the supporting cast include Felciano as a very complex simpleton, and Molina, whose supple voice and cello virtuosity turn Johanna into much more than an ingénue...
...The would-be execution is disrupted by news of Johanna's attempted escape...
...A romantic subplot has Anthony falling in love with Johanna...
...Soon the two moms are comparing notes...
...The result was a surprise hit, and a London production caught the attention of composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim...
...In return, he won't let on that the new barber in town is actually an escaped convict...
Vol. 88 • November 2005 • No. 6
