SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 10, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that before seeing “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” at the Grand Theatre Thursday, I didn’t really know very much about the show.
I had no idea it is considered one of the best musicals of all time. Both the music and lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim and over 80 percent of the production is sung. Sondheim’s melodies play constantly behind the action; it’s generally considered to be his masterpiece. I should just add also, I did ask one of the cast members how difficult the songs are to sing, on a scale of one to 10. She told me they are an 11, not only for her but for every cast member.
The musical, with a book by Hugh Wheeler, is based on the 1970 play “Sweeney Todd” by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd, or Mr. T as he’s often called by his sidekick, piemaker Mrs. Lovett, first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled “The String of Pearls.” The show opened on Broadway in 1979 and in the West End in 1980, winning eight Tony Awards and the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Many productions all over the world have followed, as well as a film adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. A Broadway revival of the show just opened back in March, starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford.
This incarnation, at the Grand Theatre at 1575 S. State St. in Salt Lake City, opened Thursday and runs until Oct. 28, with performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with matinees on Saturdays at 2 p.m.
So just for fun, after seeing the Grand’s production opening night, I thought I’d do a little price comparison between the Salt Lake show and the Broadway one. The New York version, which is playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, helmed by “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, has single nosebleeds starting at $173.50. The most expensive ticket is $372. If you go and see the musical at the Grand, it costs between $28 and $35. And here’s the thing, everything about the Salt Lake production is spellbinding and sumptuous, from the performances to the production values, and you don’t have to get on a plane to see it.
The musical, in the vein of “Les Misérables” and “Oliver”, is an epic combination of disparate ingredients; it’s shocking, thrilling, horrific, hilarious, touching and a little sentimental; just like a delicious savory pie, with plenty of meat and lots of spice.
Apparently most musical theater fans, excluding me, know the story, of a vengeful barber who returns to London after being wrongfully imprisoned for years, hoping to reunite with his beloved wife, Lucy, and their young daughter, Johanna. But as he learns from Mrs. Lovett, Lucy poisoned herself after being assaulted by the same nefarious judge who sent him away, who is now the guardian of the teenage Johanna. With the help of Mrs. Lovett, Mr. T seeks to exact revenge on those who ruined his life, using his razor-sharp skills to dispatch his victims and then make further use of them. But as his obsession consumes him, he risks losing everything — including his humanity.
The cast of 21, stage directed by Mark Fossen, is helmed by actor, singer and recording artist Dallyn Vail Bayles, who is originally from Green River and who has performed with the Broadway touring company of “The Phantom of the Opera” understudying and performing the roles of Phantom, Raoul and Andre. He also played Enjolras in the Broadway tour of “Les Misérables.” Bayles’ performance is intriguing; his singing voice is as rich and dark as blood and he doesn’t overplay the role. His rage and trauma is held tightly inside as he lurks and broods, only sporadically unleashing the mania that simmers just under the surface.
This Sweeney watches and waits like a coiled snake waiting to attack. In fact, that’s a hallmark of Fossen’s direction as a whole, with musical direction by Jonathan McDonald and choreography by Jessica Pace. They don’t let the show slide too far into melodrama, but really work to show off the various theatrical traditions and styles of the piece, which include Grand Guignol (dramatic entertainment of a sensational or horrific nature which originated in Paris), Brechtian epic theater, ballad opera, and British music hall.
Bayles is nicely matched by local theater legend Tamara Howell, who, by the way, says in the program that Mrs. Lovett has been her dream role since college. If Bayles’ Sweeney is rather sullen, then Howell’s Mrs. Lovett provides many of the show’s laughs with her voluptuous and ebullient personality. Howell has the chops to kill the role; she’s an excellent actor and her singing voice has absolute precision and amazing range. It’s well known that when Angela Lansbury played the role of Mrs. Lovett, in rehearsal, she asked during the particularly difficult song “By the Sea”… “Where do I breathe?”
The rest of the cast also delivers during this 2 hour 45 minute marathon that has a total of 17 songs just in the first act. Their singing voices are as strong as their acting, and there is a nice balance between the comedy and the darker moments, which I will say may not be suitable for young children. I particularly enjoyed Trevor Blair’s turn as The Beadle; there’s a very funny sequence when he has been dispatched to the pie shop to investigate the strange smoke and stench from the chimney, and Mrs. Lovett finds him playing her harmonium and distracts him with the number “Parlor Songs” until Sweeney returns. Blair and Howell’s comic timing is lovely. Christian Johnston and Dawn Veree get to chew the scenery as a bit as Adolfo Pirelli, a flashy Italian barber who isn’t quite what he seems, and the Beggar Woman, while Brock Dalgleish as Anthony Hope and Samantha Paredes as Johanna work well together and have a nice chemistry.
Heidi Farber, in a role shared with Ben Reynolds, appeared on opening night as Tobias Ragg, who is the assistant to Pirelli then Mrs. Lovett. The 8th grader has a lovely clear singing voice and also has ample acting chops, and the way she plays the role with a nice sprinkling of innocence works well as a counterpoint to some of the other more macabre characters. Oh, and I should also mention that the dialect work all round, coached by Stacey Jenson, is brilliant. The dialects range from Cockney to Italian to Irish and I honestly didn’t hear one lapse in vernacular from anyone.
The production values are top notch. The scenic design by resident designer Halee Rasmussen has created a nod to stark 19th century London with a set that resembles a giant metal machine, with raised asymmetrical playing spaces, stairs, and a sliding door, lit so that we can see silhouettes through it, which is put to good use. Oh, and wait until you see the special mechanical barber’s chair that allows Sweeney to do away with clients and then send their bodies directly through a chute into the pie shop’s basement bakehouse. He dispatches quite a lot of people in the second act and it’s fun to watch their disposal every time. The set is amplified by Seth Miller’s dramatic lighting design; he uses incredibly bold swathes of color to depict different moods and characters; there’s a gunmetal gray, paired with grubby orange and yellow to depict the foggy London sky, a blood red that is used when Sweeney disposes of his victims, green for the Beggar Woman, then more pleasant, soothing colors for the calmer scenes; shades of blue and violet for the sequences with Johanna, for example. There is also plenty of smoke used to depict the mood of London.
The costumes by resident designer Shannon McCullock are just right too; with a lovely dichotomy between the smart outfits of characters like The Beadle and Judge Turpin, with scruffy, beaten up costumes for the Beggar Woman and the ensemble that actually look dirty. (It’s a pet peeve of mind when characters that are supposed to be scruffy are clothed in costumes that are dishevelled but look clean.) Her costumes are nicely paired with hair and makeup design by Erin McCullock. The sound design is by Joe Killian, and is absolutely flawless.
On opening night, the audience was so vocal that for a moment I thought I might have wandered into a boy band concert by mistake; there were vigorous cheers and screams from the get-go that continued at the end of every number; there was even an audience member to my left who basically conducted the whole show with his hands. And the bows prompted an enthusiastic standing ovation, which I will say was much deserved.
For tickets to “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” click here or call 801-957-3322. It’s an absolutely perfect spooky delicacy in the run-up to Halloween.
