12:53:29 pm 
Sweeney Todd - The Tale Endures Razor Sharp
Categories: UncategorizedMove over Angela. Make way, Patti. There’s a new Mrs. Lovett in town.
She’s Carrie Cimma who’s baking and singing up a storm as the demon barber’s accomplice in murder and revenge in a better-than-average, non-equity rendering of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford.
This tour of the 2005 Broadway revival reflects director John Doyle’s scaled-back staging, which utilizes a minimal dark set and where actors sit and stand on chairs or ladders to depict scenes with an ever-present black casket at the center of the action. The actors double as musicians and play a variety of instruments on stage, a choice made to meet regional theater budget needs for the original venue in the U.K. Doyle's conception, which won him a Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical, went further, reducing the original 27-piece orchestra and 30-member cast of the original 1979 Broadway staging.
So it’s hard not to compare: full orchestra with some less accomplished musicians of fewer number; equity vs. non-equity, Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou (the original Mrs. Lovett and Todd) Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris (stars of the revival) and even Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (his Todd is the epitome of perfect casting) in Tim Burton’s movie version of the show with Cimma and Merritt David Janes headlining here. Surprisingly, this production stands up well, due in large part to a very talented cast and a standout performance by Cimma.Duke Anderson’s beautiful tenor melts hearts as Anthony sings of his love for Johanna (Wendy Muir) whose operatic soprano (and deft cello playing) sings of being free from the clutches of her guardian Judge Turpin (David Alan Marshall, back in his native Connecticut), the object of Todd’s revenge for sending him to prison and trying to steal his wife. A beggar woman (Patty Lohr) suspects (and smells) something foul as Todd goes on a murder spree aided by Lovett who bakes the evidence into her pies while feeling motherly toward Tobias (Chris Marchant), a boy left homeless when his guardian Pirelli (played delightfully by Ruthie Ann Miles in a bit of gender-blind casting) becomes one of their victims. Bob Bohon gives a strong supporting performance as the beadle and Matt Cusack as Jonas Fogg is noteworthy on the bass.
While it’s a strong production, it contains a few distractions. The characters spend a lot of time speaking and singing directly to the audience instead of interacting with each other and that combined with the actors’ constant handling of numerous musical instruments gives the production a staged reading, rather than musical theater, feel. Janes is pleasing enough, especially vocally, but maybe pleasing isn’t the best depiction of Todd. That “odd eye” is missing and it would be better to see a glimpse of the madness behind Todd’s revenge.
Similarly Cimma, although humorous and engaging in her black mini skirt and torn fishnet socks while making Sondheim’s killer score seem easy as pie, is hesitant to take Lovett over the top. Perhaps it’s born out of reluctance to leave her cast mates in the shadows of a performance that already reminds of a young Angela Lansbury.
The ensemble is strong vocally, though, and for the most part, the reduced orchestration works. And then there’s Sondheim himself, whose beautiful score and genius lyrics continue to give a rather macabre tale life and soul and enduring ability to be razor sharp through transitions in orchestra strength, absence of sets and non-equity tours.
---- Lauren Yarger
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street plays at The Bushnell (166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT) through Oct. 19. Performance times are Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday at 8pm, Saturdayat 2pm and 8pm and Sunday at 2pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are $16.50-$65.00 and can be purchased by calling 860-087-5959 or by visiting www.bushnell.org.
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