I returned to Sweeney was last night (along with most of the NY critics) and found it much improved, especially in Act One. Doyle has made several changes in the blocking and managed to make the ensemble work much more integrated and less distracting. He's lost some of the needlessly obscuring presentational effects, cleaned up the transitions and done a better job of clarifying certain key plot points (there were also lighting adjustments in kind). There was still some instances of clumpishness, incoherency and repetitiousness in the staging in Act II (he seemed to run out of ideas about midway through), but overall he acquits himself fairly well.
LuPone was even more solid with her timing (though STILL garbling the odd lyric or two here and there) and Cerveris was even more assured than before -- he must be a front-runner for the Tony next year. Overall, a much improved, cleaner production -- I'd bump it up a half star over my initial rating (I'd give it now a 4 1/2 out of 5).
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
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