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Review: A razor-sharp ‘Sweeney Todd’

Portland Center Stage mounts a compellingly sung version of Stephen Sondheim's penny-dreadful tale of meat pies, murder, and revenge on the mean streets of Victorian London.

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A close shave: Miguel Ángel Vásquez as Sweeney and Leif Norby as Judge Turpin in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" at Portland Center Stage. Photo:  Jingzi Zhao
A close shave: Miguel Ángel Vásquez as Sweeney and Leif Norby as Judge Turpin in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at Portland Center Stage. Photo:  Jingzi Zhao

Portland Center Stage has mounted a strong production continuing through Nov. 3 of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, featuring a dream cast that carries off Stephen Sondheim’s operatic vocals with energy and power. It’s a music lover’s musical and, though Sondheim and book writer Hugh Wheeler didn’t do all that one might wish to illuminate the insights lurking in the play’s dark elements, this production will thrill audiences and offer the curious plenty of unsettling things to ponder.

The play is built off an apocryphal story about a serial killer in Victorian London (thought by some to be based on a real-life person), some of whose clients met their end by means of a particularly close shave.  By the time Sondheim built the musical around the character, the demon barber’s story had been adapted many times. 

In Sondheim’s version, Sweeney Todd’s murderous enterprise is motivated by a desire to avenge the actions of two powerful men, Judge Turpin and his police accomplice, Beadle Bamford, who are responsible for stealing and abusing Todd’s beautiful wife, confining his daughter, and subjecting Todd to years of wrongful imprisonment. Escaped from prison after many years, Todd becomes a sort of vigilante, expanding his enterprise beyond his original powerful targets, assisted by his former landlady, Mrs. Lovett.

Todd appears to be motivated by single-minded rage over having been deprived of the wife and daughter he loved. Mrs. Lovett, for her part, is motivated by unrequited love for Todd, and also by a rather calculated scheme for improving her flagging meat pie business in the face of scarce meat supplies: She devises a plan to use Todd’s victims as a meat supply, to great success. 

A gaggle of Londoners, savoring Mrs. Lovett's meat pies. Photo:  Jingzi Zhao
A gaggle of Londoners, savoring Mrs. Lovett’s meat pies. Photo:  Jingzi Zhao

It all takes place in a London wracked by poverty and corruption, where the poor and mentally ill are exploited and abused, and where those with power (most especially Judge Turpin and Bamford) freely manipulate those conditions to their own ends. Todd and Mrs. Lovett are reacting to those conditions, but mostly exacerbate them rather than setting them right; Todd’s murders are not confined to those who deserve it, and Mrs. Lovett creates an appetite for more exploitation and murder. 

Sondheim doesn’t prettify or soften this world; he punches it up with humor and complex vocals. This ensemble is full of strong vocalists, who are called upon to sing overlapping melodies that make the room vibrate in this most operatic of Sondheim’s musicals. 

Miguel Ángel Vásquez, classically trained and making his PCS debut, anchors the cast with his powerful baritone; his Todd is a single-minded and towering presence, laser-focused on his grievances. His energy is matched by every member of the company, which includes several performers beloved by Portland audiences (including Leif Norby and Judge Turpin, Isaac Lamb as Bamford,  Leah Yorkston as Beggar Woman, and Madeleine Tran). Isaiah Reynolds, last seen in PCS’s excellent production of Choir Boy, dazzles as Tobias Ragg, Mrs. Lovett’s devoted assistant, as does Emily Shackleford as an angel-voiced Johanna, Todd’s lost daughter, desperate to escape the clutches of Judge Turpin.

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I missed seeing Delphon “DJ” Curtis, Jr., who I am confident makes a memorable Mrs. Lovett; the night I was there, understudy Ashley Song played the role. It is a mark of a strong production when someone as versatile as Song is your backup; her Mrs. Lovett anchored the show, cajoling audiences with the deft and dark humor that keeps them invested in such bleak material. It’s a feat, given how poorly Mrs. Lovett behaves, and Song made it her own.

Chip Miller serves as director and choreographer in a production marked by strong energy and movement.  He has assembled an inventive team of collaborators: Britton Mauk’s scenic design builds an intricate world of trap doors and dark corners, eerily lit by Marika Kent, with sound design by Scott Thorson that keeps this world complex. There really aren’t any weak links.

I can understand why artists especially are drawn to this show. It demands their A-game and offers an opportunity to show range that most shows don’t require. I wish I felt as enthusiastic about the play itself; it assembles the elements of social commentary but doesn’t really illuminate them—so, as Richard Eder pointed out in his original 1979 review in The New York Times, “at the end, when the cast lines up on the stage and points to us, singing that there are Sweeneys all about; the point is unproven.”

Isaiah Reynolds as Tobias and Ashley Song as Mrs. Lovett: an unequal adoration. Photo: Jingzi Zhao
Isaiah Reynolds as Tobias and Ashley Song as Mrs. Lovett: an unequal adoration. Photo: Jingzi Zhao

And yet, though it doesn’t enlighten us much, the play is reflecting back some things that are true. There is corruption in the world; the rich and powerful are indeed free to exploit, leaving many hungry and desperate and, some, righteously angry.  But as the desperate and angry focus on and pursue their own interests without regard to the whole and without regard to impact, they inevitably create more mechanisms of harm.

Sweeney Todd, rageful at abuse and exploitation, creates more of it. Mrs. Lovett, pursuing what she wants without regard to the cost to others, creates more harm, facilitating ways for the hungry to feed on each other. For me, the most heartbreaking moment of the musical is her duet with Tobias, who loves and trusts her, who senses but can’t quite name the evil afoot, and who promises that “nothing’s gonna harm you, not while I’m around.”  When she sings it back to him, we know she doesn’t have it in her to mean it. Instead, the cycle of harm will be perpetuated. If only we could see that in ourselves.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

  • Company: Portland Center Stage
  • Where: U.S. Bank Main Stage, The Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave., Portland
  • When: Continuing Wednesdays-Sundays through Nov. 3
  • Shedule and ticket information: Here

Darleen Ortega has been a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals since 2003 and is the first woman of color and the only Latina to serve in that capacity.  She has been writing about theater and films as an “opinionated judge” for many years out of pure love for both.

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Photo Joe Cantrell

Darleen Ortega has been a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals since 2003 and is the first woman of color and the only Latina to serve in that capacity.  She has been writing about theater and films as an “opinionated judge” for many years out of pure love for both.

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One Response

  1. The performance that I saw on Wednesday night was very uneven vocally. The acting was fine, but the singing was pretty mediocre at times and not worthy of the professionalism required for PCS productions.

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