Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Ryan Mardesich, Director/Co-Producer. Dan Ryan, Music Director/Conductor. Joy Clark, Choreographer. Cameron McEachern, Set Design. Kat C. Zhou, Lighting Design. Rebecca Glick, Costume Design. James Cannon, Sound Design. Lauren Corcuera, Properties Design. Margaret Clark, Fight Choreography. At Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge, through November 5.
by Linda Chin
With their intensely powerful Sweeney Todd christening the new black-box theatre at Arrow Street Arts in Cambridge, Moonbox Productions is “setting the city on fire.” Mercifully, not because all hell has broken loose in Harvard Square, with ‘rats in the grass!…or lunatics yelling!…or great black crows screeching!’ like in Sondheim’s London, 1846. But rather because, like when used in rap music or modern slang in 2023, the term ‘set the city on fire’ means a large number of people are excited and interested in what’s happening.
Musical theatre is the most collaborative of art forms – and at its best, seamlessly blends music, drama, dance, and design to advance the storytelling. Stephen Sondheim is arguably the most important figure in musical theatre history, and Sweeney Todd is arguably his masterpiece. Set in London during the Industrial Revolution, the tale of Sweeney Todd is the story of a villainous duo who make meat pies filled with human remains. It is a colossal undertaking that requires actors and musicians who can play the complicated characters and handle Sondheim’s challenging score.
Enter director/co-producer Ryan Mardesich, who is ambitiously making his Moonbox debut with this behemoth of a musical. Smartly, he has assembled a strong team of theater artists working on- or off-stage to tell the tale of Sweeney Todd. Remarkably, Mardesich’s closest artistic collaborators, Dan Ryan (music director) and Joy Clark (choreographer), work both sides of the ‘curtain’ with seeming ease, with Ryan (as conductor) and the full orchestra performing on-stage and Clark (as Mrs. Lovett) playing the leading lady. I wonder what this energetic trio eats for breakfast – I’d love to have what they’re having…unless it’s meat pies, of course.
The operetta-like musical is mostly sung-thorough and demands vocal prowess and master character acting skills. Todd and Lovett each perform in over half of the musical numbers. To play Sweeney Todd, award-winning singer and actor Davron S. Monroe, whose portrayal of African-American classical concert soloist Roland Hayes in Breath and Imagination was -breathtakingly beautiful beyond my wildest imagination – won the role. Under Ryan Mardesich and Dan Ryan’s direction, Davron S. Monroe and Joy Clark deliver razor-sharp, pitch-perfect performances of two of the meatiest roles in the musical theatre canon.
Lighting designer Kat C. Zhou’s Moonbox debut is impressive. She masterfully uses light to illuminate the actors in various shades of darkness, cast ominous shadows, and delineate smaller playing areas on the unit set – a multi-level, industrial-grade metal structure designed by Cameron McEachern that is evocative of Dickensian London, 1846, during hard times (or a building in mid-construction in 2023). A striped barber pole, a neon sign that reads ‘Lovett’s Meat Pies’, and a pair of opaque curtains covering rough openings add some softness, texture, and curves to the mostly unadorned set and other areas for Zhou to add color and her magic touch. In the musical number ‘City on Fire’, which is staged across the full span of the stage, the ensemble members are framed with light that makes them seem ablaze; in moments when a murder has taken place, the stage is awash with red light, and; when the oven doors are thrown open for another victim, the burning-hot flames in the human oven are so realistic you practically feel the heat that’s generated. The color red is featured prominently/woven into other parts of the production, including the neon sign and barber pole; the stairs and railings, center stage gangplank, captain’s wheel (used to mix the bloody meat); some of the tiles on the checkered and speckled (blood-splattered?) floor; and the co-conspirators’ costumes – Todd’s shirt, Lovett’s corset (designed by Rebecca Glick).
Based on the Victorian short story ‘The String of Pearls,’ Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (which won the 1979 Tony Award for Best Musical) is a collection of characters’ backstories that are each individual jewels and of musical numbers that are each pearls, connected with a red thread. You can attend this tale through November 5. I hope that, like me, you’ll Lovett. For tickets and information, go to:
