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Sweeney
Todd (Trafalgar Studios at the Whitehall Theatre)
This
year alone I've already seen Sondheim and Wheeler's macabre 1979
musical version of the Sweeney Todd legend in two orchestrally
lush stagings at London's Royal Opera House and at New York City
Opera (with Elaine Paige
starring in the latter).
| "This
version of the musical short-changes its audience on just about
everything..." |
Now,
for its latest West End incarnation, the show has been shrink-wrapped,
with a cast of just nine and no orchestra at all, since the actors
play all the instruments themselves.
But
instead of intensifying this claustrophobic, macabre tale of murder
and cannibalism - as the demon barber turns his customers into a
meat source for the pie bakery of his accomplice Mrs Lovett - it
has been comprehensively diminished.
Mrs
Lovett with a trumpet - or Pirelli (Todd's former employee and first
victim) with an accordian - may be an intriguing novelty at first,
but it soon wears off and you're left with a magnificent score being
scratchily compromised with every note that is inadequately played
or sung.
butchered
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Novelty:
Todd's first victim Pirelli with Tobias (seated)
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The
story, too, lacks its own usually overpowering dramatic momentum.
There are insufficient cast members to provide not only the proper
sense of scale but the right number of people to be murdered, so
several of the casual killings are simply cut.
But
if some bodies are spared, the text has been butchered instead,
leaving little sense of time or place.
This
version of the musical short-changes its audience on just about
everything, including the inflated price you have to pay to see
it.
At £36 for the best seats, you get less of Sweeney Todd
than you've ever seen or heard before.
Agree
or disagree with our review? Add your comments below...
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