Preview '05-'06: Attend the Tale
For the last four months of the run, original stars Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou were replaced by Dorothy Loudon and George Hearn. Although the show was not yet completely out of business, it was too expensive a production to run at considerably less than capacity. So Broadway's Sweeney Todd closed after a less-than-spectacular run of 557 performances, not having returned all of its investment.
Still, the run was respectable for such a daring piece, and Sweeney was a prestigious credit for all involved. About a week after it closed on Broadway, a duplicate of the Prince production opened at London's equally cavernous Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock were fully up to the demands of the leading roles, but local critics and audiences did not buy the show, failing to take to its serious, operatic treatment of a tale that was, to them, something of a childhood jest.
The London production of Sweeney Todd closed after a mere 157 performances, and must have lost virtually all of its investment. Considering that Sweeney Todd failed to pay back in either its Broadway or West End incarnations, it's remarkable that the show keeps on returning to New York and London, with the latter perhaps having the edge in the competition. And part of the reason for that is, of course, the fact that Sweeney Todd is one of very few shows from the last thirty years that has come to be widely regarded as a masterpiece of contemporary music theatre.
In a somewhat scaled-down version of the Broadway staging, Lansbury and Hearn took the show on a national tour that culminated in a videotape for television, one that's now available on DVD. A second, bus-and-truck tour was headed by June Havoc and Ross Petty. Lansbury had played Havoc's mother just a few years before Sweeney Todd came along.
But the first significant step in Sweeney Todd's new life came in July 1984, when the work was taken into the repertoire of Houston Grand Opera, with Timothy Nolen Broadway's second Phantom and Joyce Castle in the leads. Three months later, Sweeney got its first New York return when New York City Opera brought in the Houston production, with Nolen and Rosalind Elias and later Castle and Elaine Bonazzi. In pretty much the Hal Prince staging of the first national tour, City Opera's Sweeney Todd has been brought back twice; New York saw it again as recently as last year, with Elaine Paige and Mark Delevan starred.
Thus far, Sweeney was still a big show with a sizable orchestra. That changed in September 1989, when a small-scale York Theatre Company production was transferred to Broadway's Circle in the Square. Some of the undue acclaim this production won was owed simply to its intimacy; critics who were thrilled that they could hear every word this time around overpraised Susan H. Schulman's production, which featured a miscast but game Beth Fowler opposite Bob Gunton.
Perhaps because the original had closed as recently as 1980 and City Opera had mounted the show twice in the mid-'80s, the second Broadway Sweeney lasted only 189 performances. But soon another small-scale production, at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe auditorium in 1993, won greater acclaim, and finally secured for the piece the raves from the English press it was denied the first time around. Declan Donnellan directed Alun Armstrong and later Quilley and Julia McKenzie, and BBC radio eventually broadcast the production. But there was no talk of a New York transfer, as Broadway had seen the show too recently.
Next came a series of concert versions in Los Angeles Kelsey Grammer, Christine Baranski, London Cariou and Judy Kaye, who had done the Michigan Opera and Paper Mill versions, and New York. The latter was a 2000 New York Philharmonic concert, staged by Lonny Price and starring Patti LuPone opposite Hearn. The result was a triumph, repeated in Chicago and San Francisco, preserved for PBS telecast, and available on CD and DVD.
Major New York critics were in attendance when Sweeney was the kick-off show of the Kennedy Center's 2002 Sondheim Celebration. Directed by Christopher Ashley, the D.C. production co-starred Baranski and Brian Stokes Mitchell. In 2003, Sweeney received its most prestigious opera-house mountings, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Thomas Allen and Felicity Palmer, and at Chicago Lyric Opera, starring distinguished baritone Bryn Terfel, who was to have done the Philharmonic concert opposite LuPone.
One would think London would have had it with Sweeney for a bit. But in February, 2004, a new production opened at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, west of London, and won sufficient acclaim to transfer to the Trafalgar Studios formerly the Whitehall Theatre and then to Ambassadors Theatre.
New York and London had seen small-scale Sweeneys before, but none quite like this one. Directed and designed by John Doyle, the show was played on a mostly barren set of wooden slats, dominated by a coffin. There were nine principal performers and a miscellaneous ensemble of four, but there was no orchestra. That's because all of the principals with the exception of Paul Hegarty's Sweeney played at least one musical instrument. Mrs. Lovett played the triumpet; Johanna the cello; Tobias a flute; Beadle Bamford the piano; and Pirelli/Fogg two male roles, played by one woman an accordion.
It's possible to view the action of this Sweeney as taking place in Tobias's mind, the narrative functioning as the insane Toby's fever dream while strapped down in Fogg's asylum. With no crowds available for such scenes as the Pirelli-Sweeney shaving contest or "God, That's Good," much of the action is played directly to the audience. The throat slittings are symbolized by a whistle, a red glare, and a bucket of blood poured into the coffin. There are some cuts in the score, and almost all the "buttons" have been removed from the numbers. As a result, there's almost no integral applause, and the playing time is closer to two hours than to the traditional two-and-a-half.
In London, this production featured no name actors whatsoever. Indeed, its Mrs. Lovett was the least glamorous you're likely to encounter, with none of the star fabulousness of a Lansbury, a LuPone, or a Baranski. But for Broadway, Doyle's Sweeney is getting names in leading man Michael Cerveris and, more significantly, LuPone. When this Sweeney begins previews at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on October 3 and opens there November 3, it will mark LuPone's first New York stage musical run since 1987's Anything Goes. Some may regret that LuPone is returning in a role she has already done in concert and preserved on CD and DVD. But her performance in Doyle's staging is bound to be different from the one she gave in concert.
The O'Neill is actually a fairly large venue for such a small-scale production. It's rumored that LuPone will, like her London counterpart, play the trumpet, although some of the other instrumentation is bound to be reassigned according to the particular skills of the performers.
London reviews for this production were mostly terrific, with critics again emphasizing the advantages of intimacy. In Variety, Matt Wolf wrote, "It sounds, looks, indeed plays like no Sweeney you have ever seen before...turns a potentially overfamiliar piece --at least in Britain-- into something entirely fresh." Among the few dissenters was Mark Shenton, writing in The Sondheim Review: "It might even be impossible for a newcomer to this musical masterpiece to actually follow the story...instead of intensifying its claustrophobic, macabre tale of murder and cannibalism, this approach comprehensively diminished the story, with a magnificent score being forever scratchily compromised."
Among the curious aspects of the new Sweeney Todd is the fact that it was first announced as a Roundabout Theatre Company production, where it would have joined such other Roundabout Sondheim productions as Company, Follies, Assassins, and Pacific Overtures. As such, it would have been safe as a not-for-profit attraction. Instead, the London Sweeney has been picked up for Broadway by commercial producers, and thus becomes a riskier venture, albeit one with a relatively low overhead. It remains to be seen if such a small-scale Sweeney will attract a wide audience. But I would expect the reviews to be strong.