Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – 12 November 2023

The most remarkable element of the latest and greatest revival of Sweeney Todd, featuring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford was the authenticity of the way the production was staged and presented. Watching this show felt like catching a glimpse of what Stephen Sondheim was picturing when writing this score.

This production beautifully managed the tropes that Sondheim is beloved for– a first act that’s relatively light followed by a deeply disturbing second act, familiar character archetypes (beautiful woman locked away in a tower, old woman who was once beautiful and is now a mess, a solitary protagonist who can’t find what he’s looking for, bizarre routes out of poverty), as well as some of Sondheim’s most well known theatre conventions–the entire ensemble singing in unison with very few vocal harmonies, moments where all of the characters on stage are singing different parts about different things, overlapping in a rush of emotion where it’s difficult to discern the words but everyone’s passion and anguish are clear.

The thing that disappointed me about this production were some of the design elements. I really struggled to hear a lot of the words because I felt that the vocal mix was completely overpowered by the orchestra, particularly in moments where a good mixer should have helped the audience hear whatever is most important in the melee of sounds. I felt like I was on my own trying to discern who I should be listening to and who I should be watching, and in the chaotic moments of this show when the ensemble flooded the stage, it was very difficult, even with Natasha Katz’s beautiful lighting, to discern where I was supposed to look and what was supposed to draw my attention.

There was nothing all that brilliant or innovative in this retelling of the tale, but it was nice in a different way. This revival captured Sondheim’s vision, and was truly respectful of giving fans the experience Sondheim intended, which was not necessarily what a modern audience expected. There have been many adaptations of Sweeney Todd that have turned Sweeney into an actual demon, or made him into a monster, when the point of what Sondheim was trying to capture had more to do with how far grief and loss can drive a broken person. Sondheim created a protagonist who we know from the beginning is an unlikeable villain, and while he doesn’t try to convince us that Sweeney is a good person, he does make sure we walk away understanding that it’s complicated, and that rage and anger can make a person utterly up recognizable when he lashes out at the world around him.

I enjoyed Groban’s depiction of Sweeney as a human being, with dynamic, soft-spoken moments in addition to the killings and anger and the lack of forethought about potential consequences. And I especially enjoyed that it didn’t make him likable. It showed us the worst of humanity, the violence that is characteristically human, and, above all, the futility of that violence. At the end of the show, Sweeney kills everyone he’s ever loved, in some cases without realizing until it’s too late. All of the the despicable acts that he engaged in to avenge them and appease his anger eventually destroyed the people he loved and the people who loved him. In most productions of Sweeney Todd, people walk out of the theatre seeing Sweeney as a monster. But this version, faithful to Sondheim’s intentions, left us walking out of the theatre seeing Sweeney as a human being. Not a good one, mind you. But a broken person who lost sight of everything around him and went, to use an Andrew Lloyd Weber reference, “past the point of no return.”

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.