If you ask me…
Two major Broadway musicals have been scaled back and produced on smaller stages this summer. This can often spell disaster with smallish companies biting off more than they can chew, but both the Ivoryton Playhouse and Legacy Theatre have proven with their current offerings that they are up to the challenge. And the two musicals couldn’t be more different. At Ivoryton, Lerner and Loewe’s classic, My Fair Lady is on the boards, and at Legacy, it’s Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award winning masterpiece, Sweeney Todd.
With music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is based on Christopher Bond’s 1870 melodrama. Todd (Karl Gasteyer) fell victim to the ruthless Judge Turpin (Eric Santagata), who exiled him to Australia and raped his young wife, Lucy. At the start of the show, Todd has returned to London when he meets Mrs. Lovett (Stephanie Stiefel Williams), the owner of a failing meat pie shop. The shop has an upstairs room where Todd formerly plied his trade as a barber. Lovett recalls Todd, and informs him that his wife poisoned herself and that their then-infant daughter, Johanna, has become Judge Turpin’s ward. With that grim news and bent on revenge, Todd reconnects with his silver razors. The blood then starts to flow and doesn’t stop.
Sweeney Todd is not your average musical, given its gruesome and often mordantly funny subject matter. It has one of Sondheim’s most brilliant scores and director Colin Sheehan has done a fine job of assembling a small but strong ensemble of singer/actors. Chief among these are Williams, Legacy’s co-founder, who proves a funny and sly Mrs. Lovett, Santagata as the merciless tyrant Judge Turpin, Charles Romano as the romantic sailor, Anthony Hope, who falls for Johanna (he sells the familiar ballad, “Johanna” beautifully), and Brayden Esler as Tobias, the sweet street urchin taken in by Lovett. Their duet of “Not While I’m Around” is a show highlight.
The key title role falters a little in Gasteyer’s playing, however, which is far too mannered and over-the-top to register as a truly effective Sweeney. His vocals are good but I worry that his voice will hold out for the entire run. The Legacy ensemble, though, is a force to be reckoned with, superb right from the top with “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.” Jamie Burnett’s lighting is rather hit or miss here, but, as usual, his superior set design is a small stage miracle. Jimmy Johansmeyer’s excellent costuming also doesn’t disappoint. This is clearly one of Legacy’s better efforts.
My Fair Lady continues to be one of the most beloved musicals of all time. At Ivoryton, the plucky company under Brian Feehan’s solid direction, has produced a very pleasing rendition of the timeless classic. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” the story of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Claire Marie Spencer), who learns to be a lady under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins (Trevor Martin, sublime) never grows old. In this scaled back rendering the small ensemble seems twice the size, playing multiple roles and selling standards like “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me to the Church on Time.”
The leading roles are mostly smashing with electric chemistry between Spencer and Martin and lively support from Joe Dellger, an ideal Colonel Pickering, and especially Scott Mikita as Eliza’s society-snubbing father, Alfred. The orchestra, which only consists of two grand pianos on either side of the stage, are expertly played by musical director Jill Brunelle and David Marottolo. The book-lined backdrop upstage and on the sides is nicely designed by Cully Long, but it doesn’t really work for scenes outside the Professor’s home. The lighting by Marcus Abbott and costumes/wigs by Elizabeth Saylor do impress, though.
Feehan opens the show with the company running on and off, setting the scene resulting in silly chaos, but thankfully it settles down soon after. He paces the nearly three hour production extremely well, though sometimes at the expense of squandering Shaw’s verbal gold. But, all told, this is an admirable rendering of an oft-produced treasure.
Sweeney Todd has been extended at the Legacy Theatre, 128 Thimble Island Road, Branford, CT through August 31. For further information visit: www.legacytheatrect.org or call the box office at: 203.315.1901.
My Fair Lady continues at the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton, CT through September 7. For further information visit: www.ivorytonplayhouse.org or call the box office at: 860.767.7318.
Tom Holehan is one of the founders of the Connecticut Critics Circle, a frequent contributor to WPKN Radio’s “State of the Arts” program and the Stratford Crier and Artistic Director of Stratford’s Square One Theatre Company. He welcomes comments at: tholehan@yahoo.com. His reviews and other theatre information can be found on the Connecticut Critics Circle website: www.ctcritics.org.
