Sweeney Todd (Opera North)

It is a regrettable irony that some of Stephen Sondheim‘s most brilliant work is
amongst his least performed in this country. He contributed superb
‘additional lyrics’ to Bernstein’s underplayed Candide whilst his own
masterwork Sweeney Todd notched up only 157 performances on its first outing
at Drury Lane in 1980 and has been little seen since.

Before Opera North’s 1998 production of Sweeney, here joyously revived, a
splendid production in Plymouth’s Drum incorporated the distribution of hot
meat pies to audience members – simultaneously testing the depth of their
suspension of disbelief and underscoring the fine balance of horror and
comedy which characterises a show with more bloody corpses than The Duchess
of Malfi yet some of the wittiest lyrics ever to grace the stage.

The meat pies – for those not familiar with the plot – are the
fortuitous product of the symbiotic accommodation made by Sweeney Todd,
returning to London after 15 years’ wrongful imprisonment in Botany Bay and
bent on revenge for the death of his wife and the injustice done to him, and
Mrs Lovett, hitherto purveyor of “The Worst Pies in London” who rents her
upper room to Sweeney for purposes of barbering. When Sweeney is obliged to bump off
the blackmailing Pirelli, it’s Mrs Lovett who marries off the joint
imperatives of (a) disposing of the corpse and (b) adding taste-value to her
meat pies. Thus begins an orgy of Grand Guignol, as Sweeney – distracted by
thoughts of his beautiful daughter, currently incarcerated by the
corrupt judge who sentenced him – slits throat after throat and sends regular
meaty supplies down the chute in his floor to the bakery below.

Sondheim frames the story in the structure of a ballad which constantly
returns as leitmotiv, sung by a chorus of street Londoners who are deployed
evocatively by director David McVicar both as mass commentators at defining
moments and, individually or in clusters, as half-lit silent witnesses
dressing the set throughout. The set, by Michael Vale, is a versatile
double-decker box, trucked forward and back before a massive, slowly-turning
wheel, the whole magnificently lit by Paule Constable with an array of
discrete spots to create the menacing stygian shadow-world of Victorian
London.

The Opera North cast is never less than excellent, with a clarity of
diction to die for. In particular, Beverley Klein‘s Mrs Lovett is a truly
great comic creation, whilst clearly driven by the profoundly held, if
skewed, morality of Mother Courage; and Steven Page‘s powerful Sweeney
Todd holds within him all the tragic vulnerability of the victim while
indulging in wholesale manic slaughter – though one does hope his wig,
belonging to the Barbara Windsor EastEnders repertoire of crash-landed
seagulls, was a first night aberration.

All that said, however handsomely produced – and Opera North serves them superbly – it is Sondheim’s richly textured score and incomparably witty lyrics that ultimately make Sweeney Todd such a rewarding evening of theatre. Under no circumstances should you miss it.

– Ian Watson (reviewed at Leeds’ Grand Theatre)