RISE’s Sweeney Todd Appeals to the Darkness Within

Society has long been fascinated by serial killers. Macabre though it may be, we are drawn to these stories of people who represent the extremes of derangement and the gory details of their deeds. Hence their prevalence in the media: in documentaries, television shows, films, books and, yes, a musical. Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street appeals to this dark interest, and RISE’s production comes at a seasonally appropriate time between Friday the 13th and Halloween, and soon after an immersive off-Broadway revival set in a working pie shop.

The tale of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls. Since then, the character has re-appeared on stage and in film. You likely know the gist of his story even if you have not seen the show or its Tim Burton film-adaptation: Sweeney is a barber who kills his patrons by slitting their throats with his razor, and Mrs. Lovett makes meat pies from the bodies to sell in her pie shop.

Beyond all that cannibalism business, Sweeney Todd is predominantly a tale of revenge. A prisoner (Robert Grady) unjustly shipped off to Australia to fulfill his sentence returns to London alongside a sailor, the ever-optimistic Anthony Hope (David Read), with a new name and a thirst for vengeance against the people who sent him away in order to pursue his wife. He returns to the building where he used to live with his wife to find Mrs. Lovett (Mahria Trepes), the owner of a struggling pie shop. She offers the apartment above her pie shop to him so that he can open up shop as a barber and reveals that his wife poisoned herself, and his daughter has become the ward of Judge Turpin (Preston Arnold), the man who, along with his servant, Beadle Bamford (Kevin Hernandez), is responsible for his wife’s demise. Meanwhile, Anthony comes across and immediately falls in love with a young woman named Johanna (Rachel Hanauer), who happens to be Sweeney’s daughter. However, Beadle and the Judge catch them together and forbid Anthony from seeing her. Realizing that now that Johanna is a young woman, suitors like Anthony who see her may try to take her from him, and consumed with lust for her, Judge Turpin resolves to marry Johanna himself. Upon setting up his shop, Sweeney soon claims his first victim: his flamboyant, faux-Italian competitor, Adolfo Pirelli (Scott Berozi), who reveals himself to be a figure from Sweeney’s past and threatens to expose his true identity. His death leaves Mrs. Lovett to take in his servant boy, Tobias Ragg (Iain Yarbrough), and come up with a plot to dispose of the body. All the while, a beggar woman (Leslie Nevola), wanders in and out of the action, asking for alms and sexually soliciting Anthony and Sweeney, the latter of whom she seems to recognize.

There is a benefit to being familiar with the show before seeing it, especially since a lot of the lyrics are difficult to understand due to being delivered at the speed of Sondheim, as well as the prevalence of some sound issues, including the balance between the performers and the orchestra being off and feedback from the mics (before the start of the show, they warn of loud sounds, including gunshots, but the loudest sounds by far come from mic issues). On the other hand, there are a lot of unexpected twists and turns, and the experience of watching these unfold for the first time is unrivaled — as the company notes in the prologue, “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” “What happened then, well, that’s the play/He wouldn’t want us to give it away.”

The company as a whole does remarkably well in terms of the music, considering the challenging score with Sondheim’s characteristic dischords and rapid-fire patter. As Johanna, Hanauer’s soprano vocals are every bit as soaring and flighty as the birds she sings of in “Green Finch and Linnet Bird.” She and Read’s Anthony provide a counter to the darkness of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett with all of the innocence and naivety of a first love.

Grady’s vocals as Sweeney are delivered with every bit of the spite that defines the character, especially in the recurring lines, “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit/and it’s filled with people who are filled with shit/and the vermin of the world inhabit it.” There are moments where I wanted more from his performance. Near the end, in particular, there is a moment where Sweeney manically dances with Mrs. Lovett, but this performance fell flat; the audience still knows what is coming, but when it happens, it feels more contrived than it ought to. Moments of anger and despair are much better portrayed, but the flesh did not quite reflect the madness within. Trepes’ Mrs. Lovett is as wild as her Hocus Pocus Bette Midler-esque hair with a soft, maternal side longing for a domestic life.

Though his appearance is short-lived as Sweeney’s first victim, Berozi’s hilarious portrayal of Pirelli steals every scene he is in. The young Yarbrough’s Tobias shines in his sweet rendition of “Not While I’m Around,” though he doesn’t quite have the charisma to command the stage in his first appearance where he peddles “Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir.”

Surprisingly, the show is not as dark as you might expect considering its premise. The set, which uses the limited space of RISE’s venue well, is probably the darkest aspect of the production. There are a slew of comedic moments, between Pirelli’s scenes and the pun-tastic Act 1 finale, “A Little Priest,” and even the murders are pretty tame. Some productions go all-out with the fake blood, but this one limited it to a streak on the throat of the victim — and for the final two deaths, which are the most pivotal, there was no blood at all. In this, the film is much more gory. There is almost something comical about watching the victim be ejected from the chair and sent off stage down a chute that leads to the bakehouse. And the icing on the levity cake — if you’ll pardon the pun — are the red-velvet cupcakes offered at intermission adorned with eyeballs and fingers; though not the thematically appropriate meat pies, it was a cute touch.

RISE’s production of Sweeney Todd runs through Oct. 22. For tickets, visit ristage.org.