“Sweeney Todd”
Bridgeport Downtown Cabaret Theatre
By Tom Holehan
Connecticut Critics Circle
“Sweeney Todd” Opens New Cabaret Season
Opening their new season on a challenging high note, Bridgeport’s Downtown Cabaret Theatre (DTC) is offering Stephen Sondheim’s Tony winning masterpiece, “Sweeney Todd” in an impressive production. This stripped-down, bare-bones adaptation of the musical by director Bradford Blake and Musical Director Mark Ceppetelli was no easy feat but in most areas the Cabaret succeeds admirably.
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 1970 melodrama.
Todd (Perry Liu) fell victim to the ruthless Judge Turpin (Mark Feltch) who exiled him to Australia and raped his young wife, Lucy. At the start of the show, Todd has returned to London bent on revenge when he meets Mrs. Lovett (Priscilla Squiers), the owner of a failing meat pie shop. The shop has an upstairs room where Todd, then known as Benjamin Barker, 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 of 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 with Liu and Squiers heading the mayhem at DCT, the show is in very good hands.
Even hampered with a COVID mask the night I saw the show, Liu made for a commanding Sweeney, blood-thirsty and blinded by fury with a voice that gloriously rocks the Cabaret rafters. Squiers is a revelation as Lovett, mining all the gallows humor at her disposal and sharing mischievous chemistry with Liu throughout. Their act one finale of “A Little Priest”, one of Sondheim’s most cleverly grisly songs, is a wicked delight. The haunting “My Friends” and upbeat “By the Sea” are another pair of duets that find Squiers and Liu in fine form.
The Cabaret ensemble is a force to be reckoned with, superb right from the top with “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”. As Anthony, the young man who befriends Todd and falls for his daughter, Charles Romano sells the familiar ballad, “Johanna” beautifully. Playing the villain, Feltch obviously relishes the role and his duet with Liu of “Pretty Women” is a highlight. John Michael Whitney’s beautiful tenor voice is used effectively as the Judge’s cruel toady, Beadle Bamford.
Also fine in difficult roles are Carly Jurman as the Beggar Woman and Elias Levy as the black-mailing Pirelli though diction was often difficult for both. In the key role of Tobias, Pirelli’s shill who is taken under Mrs. Lovett’s wing, Isabel Sonnabend is misdirected to mostly shout Sondheim’s gorgeous ballad, “Not While I’m Around”, but otherwise is serviceable.
As accomplished as the small band of three is under conductor/pianist Ceppetelli, and they perform miracles here, I would have preferred them offstage so scenic designer David Kievit could have given us more of a set and the cast could have had more room to tell the story. The final moments, with bodies being pushed into the oven, was not smoothly realized and confusing.
Small complaints to be sure. Blake and company should be very proud of this excellent rendering of one of the great musicals of the 1970s.
“Sweeney Todd” continues at the Downtown Cabaret Theatre, 263 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport, CT through October 13th. For further information visit: www.dtcab.com or call the box office at: 203.576.1636.
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.
