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Anyone who still considers Stephen Sondheim's operatic musical
Sweeney Todd inseparable from the original Harold
Prince production needs only visit the Church of the Heavenly
Rest, where Susan H. Schulman has mounted an entirely viable,
intimate production that could not be more different -- it's
not only less grand, it's more guignol. From the first chorus,
James Morgan's environmental set establishes an atmosphere of
grubby desperation; the audience is literally surrounded by
curtains of drying laundry, and Sweeney brandishes his razor
only inches from your own scalp. Len Cariou and Angela
Lansbury loom large in Sweeney Todd history, yet Bob
Gunton and Beth Fowler transcend comparisons. At close range,
Fowler's haimische maternalism reveals through simple
means the several colors of that dreamy, deluded baker, Mrs.
Lovett. By contrast, Gunton's demon barber of Fleet Street is
oversize, yet he brings a Kabuki grimness to the role that is
riveting, chilling, and moving (despite some problems staying
on pitch). When those two are offstage, the feeling of being
in school gymnasium occasionally intrudes, especially
because Jim Walton and Gretchen Kingsley-Weihe are less than
compelling in the difficult, simpy ingenue roles; but Eddie
Korbich has a lovely singing voice as Tobias (who sings the
show's standard, "Not While I'm Around"), and David
Barron's self-flagellation scene makes it clear that Judge
Turpin is one mean fuck. The production's strengths
communicate the essence of Sondheim's bleak dissection of the
social contract; where Prince made you feel you were
scrutinizing it from the clinical perspective of a high-tech
operating theater, the York puts you on the patient's table.
7 Days, April 19, 1989
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