Profile for Wings Haint

Lately: Bingo, Ring of Fire Worst Cast Album of Show I Haven't Seen: Light in the Piazza Best Cast Album of Show I Haven't Seen: Jerry Springer Opera

Ring of Fire. Snooooozzzzze.

Sweeney Todd was disturbing and dull. If you've ever seen the full-out version you would realize not only was the singing less than it should have been for one main character, but music was simply left out in spots! That's just criminal on such a masterpiece of musical theatre. Actors are forced to cover more bases and it is cheapening show quality. If you've never seen Sweeney, this production was hard to follow.

Indeed it must have funding, and a studio in Nashville most likely. What is missed is a specialness in the arrangements; movement that makes sense for the cast; a genuine evoking of the nostalgia of the times he lived in. Who listened to whom in forming this plate of grits with no trimmin's? Some faint old truth was missing in all that smiling and actors-as-set-dressing direction. Sweeney's minimalist trend to scale back, use less people, and move them about more to seem like there's more peo...