SWEENEY TODD till 27 March
Tour
SWEENEY TODD
THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Watermill West Berkshire Playhouse: Tkts 01635 46044
Running time 2 hours 20 minutes, one interval
To 27th March then tour to 29 May 2004
Review: Stewart McGill, 16 February 2004
I can't praise this enough: I instantly re-booked!
This is the most magnificent achievement I have encountered by John Doyle's music theatre ensemble at the Watermill. Not only is it a spectacular success for the company but also the most rewarding account I have seen of Sondheim's most challenging work. The show demands a reassessing of Sondheim as, perhaps, at his most effective in a chamber setting rather than an Opera House or large West End theatre. With Pacific Overtures at the Donmar last summer and now this at Watermill the rediscovery of intimate Sondheim is a joy.
Doyle has designed as well as directed his company of nine actor-musicians. The chilling atmosphere is created from arrival in the foyer and entry into a space that is suggestive of an asylum or slaughterhouse limbo. I was reminded throughout of a Kray's world of torture in counterpoint with some of Sondheim's most sublime music. Heart-stopping is Pretty Women as Paul Hegarty's Sweeney duets with Colin Wakefield's judge in a moment of unity before bloody slaughter. Brave, soaring and thrilling theatre.
John Doyle was clearly a fan of Peter Brook's original staging of Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade as here he employs the technique of buckets of blood to symbolise the multiple killings by Sweeney in his upper room barbers shop. How this works! The sound of the flow of blood remains in the head long after curtain call!
This show is experimental in its realisation and is a perfect example of how the instruments are used as extensions of an actor's persona and emotion, at one moment a razor seems to duet with Rebecca Jenkins cello playing in the tortured agony of the soul.
Every member of the ensemble excels and it is wonderful to see Karen Mann as Mrs Lovett, a long overdue role for this superb actress. Rebecca Jackson's Beggar Woman, a study of prolonged torment, gazing into a world she clearly sees but it is beyond our comprehension, her life virtually over and reduced to trance like animation.
A huge bouquet of praise must go to Musical Director Sarah Travis who here touches gold in a total unity of musician with actor. Genius.
Luckily for audiences the show tours beyond home base reaching larger theatres later this spring. As with Edward Hall's Propeller work at the Watermill, the music theatre ensemble have a distinct and challenging mandate fully realised in Sweeney Todd. Forget the debates on music theatre, opera or musical, this is a powerful, compelling, shocking and moving theatre at its very best. If it is not sold out I cannot recommend the show highly enough and I predict the quiet reaches of Bagnor will be chock-a-block with traffic until Saturday 27th March. I instantly re-booked such greed!
Director/Designer: John Doyle
Music Director: Sarah Travis
Lighting Design: Richard G. Jones
Cast
Paul Hegarty: Sweeney Todd
Karen Mann: Mrs Lovett
Rebecca Jenkins: Johanna
Rebecca Jackson: Beggar Woman
Michael Howcroft: Beadle
Stephanie Jacob: Pirelli
Sam Kenyan: Tobias
David Ricardo-Pearce: Anthony
Colin Wakefield: Judge
2004-02-18 13:55:38