A 'Sweeney Todd' Review From a Gay with a BFA... Oh Great!
But did I Lovett?
There’s an ear-piercing whistle 34 seconds into the prelude of the 1979 original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It’s an unsettling screech I prepared myself for as the lights went down at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It never came.
I’ve been a revival junkie my whole life. While my brothers were playing hockey in the basement, I was listening to Kiss Me, Kate. I think there’s some particular wiring in the minds of theater people that makes us uniquely suited to detect vocal nuances across multiple interpretations of the same song. It’s why YouTube videos like Elphaba's Different Fiyero Riffs (C♯5 - G♯5) exist. There’s a line in 10 Things I Hate About You: “I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack.” I would amend it somewhat: “I like my Gypsy (2008 Broadway revival cast) recording, but I love my Gypsy (2003 Broadway revival cast) recording.” Same text, yet entirely different shows when interpreted through the faculties of Patti LuPone vs. Bernadette Peters.
I was a late bloomer when it came to discovering Stephen Sondheim. I grew up in an Andrew Lloyd Webber household (*shudders*) and didn’t develop my ear to appreciate the sophistications and intricacies of Sondheim’s work beyond Into the Woods until my 20s. *Very Meryl Streep at the end of Doubt voice* I have [regrets]... I have such [regrets]!
Sweeney Todd is the story of Benjamin Barker, a London barber who was falsely convicted and exiled to Australia 15 years earlier and returns home with a new alias, Sweeney Todd, and a goal of enacting revenge on the judge who wronged him — a judge who just so happens to have raped and left Todd’s wife for dead.
When I first heard about a 2023 Broadway revival of Sweeney, the third-ever Broadway revival of the show and the first since 2005, I was at once elated at the prospect of rediscovering this classic anew and twitchy at the prospect of trying to secure tickets — especially after learning that Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford would be headlining. To my bank account’s great chagrin, I eventually secured seats, and on Wednesday night, I joined the ~elite~ set of folks posting an Instagram story displaying their playbill with text over it that read: “Attending the tale…”
And then came Sweeney Todd (2023, dir. Thomas Kail). Let’s start with what the legit critics are saying. The New York Times called it “ravishingly sung, deeply emotional and strangely hilarious.” The Washington Post declared it a “funnier, sexier Sweeney Todd.” The Wrap offered it the title of “the best sung version… ever heard.” The Daily Beast categorized it as “an intricate, witty piece of storytelling… directed with imaginative brio,” and called Ashford’s “barnstorming” performance “seriously Tony-contending.” Deadline proclaimed it “a prodigious theatrical event that aims for greatness and achieves it,” labeling the cast “flawless.”
Bloomberg was one of the few reviews to admit flaw with its critique of the “overstuffed” production, noting that Groban is “lacking the intensity the character demands” and Ashford “seems fixated only on making us laugh.”
To begin: I am not a theater critic, nor am I even a critic by the conventional definition. I am instead a homosexual semi-reluctantly weaponizing his Tisch School of the Arts BFA to give my thoughts on the most recent revival. So, shall we?