Sweeney Todd 1991 Revival?

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:36pm

I don't know much about it except I've heard it refered to as the "tiny-Todd" revival. What was it like? Was it bad?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:41pm

Well, Mr. Stalker, it lasted 188 performances. Ken Mandelbaum has said that Beth Fowler, who played Mrs. Lovett, was miscast. Even the original production ran longer.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:44pm

SO it was bad?

[myManCape]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:47pm

It played your favorite theatre, you know the one where you got to spell and overheard Barrett.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:50pm

Actually, it was pretty well-received, and was nominated for several Tony Awards. It had a short run, but it came less than a decade after the original. And it is "Sweeney Todd"--even the current revival, despite all of its accolades, will surely close relatively soon. It's just not commercial fare.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:53pm

I know it played at at Circle in the Square theatre thank you.

Thanks for the people who helped!

[myManCape]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 9:59pm

No problem, glad we could assist you.

[AC126748]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:12pm

This revival opened in 1989, not 1991. I don't have my copy of Hot Seat in front of me, but I'm pretty sure Frank Rich gave it a rave review.

[HereNowhere]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:27pm

I forgot that this revival played at Circle in the Square. The thought of this current revival in that theater is wonderful, however.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:33pm

Found the NY Times Review:

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: April 8, 1989, Saturday

LEAD: In the 10 years since it first opened on Broadway, 'Sweeney Todd,' Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Grand Guignol musical of revenge run amok, has only grown in stature.

In the 10 years since it first opened on Broadway, 'Sweeney Todd,' Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Grand Guignol musical of revenge run amok, has only grown in stature.

Among other things, 'Sweeney Todd' anticipated darker times. New York City today, with its homelessness and municipal corruption scandals, feels a lot more like the show's grim 19th-century London setting than it did a decade ago. That's why the show's railing misanthropy hits so much closer to home. In 10 years, the somewhat forbidding Sondheim score has also been absorbed into the culture. Music that echoes composers as disparate as Gilbert and Sullivan, Puccini and Bernard Herrmann has been recognized as one of the most majestic of modern operatic scores.

One of the questions surrounding the future of 'Sweeney Todd' has been how much weight it could carry if given a drastically scaled-down production from the one on Broadway that used a gigantic set incorporating parts from an iron foundry. The York Theater Company's stunning revival happily proves the show can be just as gripping when done as a small chamber opera. In some ways it even benefits from the more intimate scale.

Susan H. Schulman, the director of the York Theater revival, has ingeniously re-conceived 'Sweeney Todd' as an environmental theater piece in which the floor in front of the audience is a painted cobblestone street. At one end stands the shop where the demon barber dispenses bloody murder. Opposite looms the headquarters of the diabolical Judge Turpin. The theater walls are a painted set of shabby tenements and clotheslines. Inside this ominous shadowy environment, one has a real sense of social constriction and lurking danger. During the course of the evening, the company sweeps back and forth between the two sites, stopping occasionally to make accusatory, threatening eye contact with the audience.

The director has assembled a cast almost as impressive as the Broadway company, with the brilliant performance of Bob Gunton in the title role, surpassing even Len Cariou's iron portrayal in the original cast. Hollow-eyed and zombie-like, ignited by an unappeasable lust for vengeance, Mr. Gunton projects an intensity that at moments borders on seizure. Even in the show's lighter moments, he remains a tense, quivering hulk, wracked with demons. And as his murderous fury escalates into a literal foaming at the mouth, he becomes a terrifying, pitiable creature who still retains enough humanity to engage compassion. Vocally Mr. Gunton has a harder, more gravelly tone than Mr. Cariou's more mellifluous baritone. But this harsher quality gives his solos an extra edge of crazy determination.

As his doting accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, Beth Fowler is quite different from Angela Lansbury and in her own way as convincing. Instead of a savage comic caricature of an avaricious shopkeeper with dime-novel dreams, she is a more conventional, self-deluded woman with a streak of genuine tenderness. Jim Walton and Gretchen Kingsley-Weihe as the young lovers are less satisfying. Though both have fine singing voices, their stage encounters are clumsy and rushed. But David Barron imbues the role of Judge Turpin with just the right air of corrupt self-righteousness. And Eddie Korbich and Calvin Remsberg are outstanding as Tobias Ragg and the Beadle.

Not the least of the production's accomplishments is the musical director David Krane's reduction of the original orchestral score into full-bodied arrangements for three synthesizers whose textural subtleties range from birdsong to snare drum. And the colder, pricklier electronic textures that frequently sound like pipe organ and harpsichord eerily complement the play's fiendish imagery of glinting, lethal razor blades.

Five years ago, the York Theater mounted an incandescent revival of 'Pacific Overtures,' another complicated Sondheim show that one would have thought impossible to revive effectively in a small church theater. In 'Sweeney Todd,' the company has more than matched that impressive accomplishment. NO PLACE LIKE LONDON SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; boook by Hugh Wheeler; from an adaptation by Christopher Bond; directed by Susan H. Schulman; scenic design and graphics, James Morgan; costume design, Beba Shamash; lighting design, May Jo Dondlinger; technical director, James E. Fuller Jr.; production stage manager, Trey Hunt; music director, David Krane; choreographer, Michael Lichtefeld. Presented by the York Theater Company, Janet Hayes Walker, producing director; Molly Pickering Grose, managing director. At the Church of the Heavenly Rest, 2 East 90th Street. Sweeney Todd . . . Bob Gunton Mrs. Lovett . . . Beth Fowler Judge Turpin . . . David Barron The Beadle . . . Calvin Remsberg Tobias Ragg . . . Eddie Korbich Johanna . . . Gretchen Kingsley-Weihe Anthony Hope . . . Jim Walton Dora . . . Dawn Stone Jonas Fogg . . . Tony Gilbert Policeman . . . David E. Mallard Bird Seller . . . Ted Keegan Mrs. Mooney . . . Mary Ellen Phillips Beggar Woman . . . SuEllen Estey Pirelli . . . Bill Nable

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:36pm

COol! Thanks!

[ljay889]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:39pm

All the music was played by two synthesized keyboards.

ABSOLUTELY AWFUL sounding.

[morosco]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 10:40pm

And here's a link to Frank Rich's opinion...
Critic's Notebook

[jonartdesigns]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 11:33pm

i'm confused by the fact that the review above credits mrs. mooney... i was unaware she was ever a character in the show as opposed to just a reference

[HereNowhere]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 11:35pm

Well, it says that there were various buildings in the set, more than just Mrs. Lovett's, so maybe they actually named an ensemble member who came out of Moonie's Pie Shop?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 11:42pm

I saw it and enjoyed it a lot. Having Sweeney sing "Epiphany" two feet in front of you is pretty intimidating. I thought Gunton and Fowler were both different and equally valid in the roles. (Fowler's Lovett and the Beggar Woman were both a bit more grounded, less crazy). The synthesizers weren't great, but you did get used to them after a while.

[ljay889]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 11:44pm

It just makes me laugh that people complain that the new revival is only played by 10 actual musicians. Meanwhile the 89 revival was played by three synthesizers.

And didn't they cut the KISS ME Quartet? That's a big no no in my book. One of the greatest quartets from the stage.
Updated On: 7/25/06 at 11:44 PM

[Smaxie]

Posted: 7/25/06 at 11:50pm

I think they did the quartet. I don't remember anything missing from the score.

[luvliza89]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 12:32am

I'm curious to see the set and costumes. Are there any pictures of this around online?

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 6:08am

The production did include the complete "Kiss Me/Ladies in Their Sensitivities." They did cut the tooth-pulling and the prelude, and (I think) they did the short version of "Parlor Songs." I think that three synthesizers and players were used, at least when it moved to Circle in the Square.

Maybe it played better at the York than it did later at Circle, but re-reading Holden's review it does sound like he saw a different production than the bland, passionless one I did.

It's a tough to reimagine the show for a space like Circle and I don't think they did a great job of that, but I'm not sure it really can be done.

The bigger problem was the stylized, weird performance of Gunton and the generally undistinguished performances of most of the cast.

I do think that the production probably was a lot closer in feel to the version that Sondheim first saw in London. It had a slightly campy feel to it some of the time, it was more of a penny-dreadful, more of a horror show, at least at Circle in the Square.

What is true, and I suppose to its credit to some degree, is that it didn't feel like the original production.

Because the ensemble was only five people (which seemed so small for this show back then, although Chris Bond had already done his 10-person production in London), each was given a "character."

In fact, even in the original production there was a chorus member who played Mrs. Mooney (and wore a dress or a jacket with a collar that looked like it was made from the tail of a dead cat) but she's barely visible in the national-tour video. In "God, That's Good!" Lansbury (and Loudon) clearly referred to her as she staggered around drunk and angry after getting up from the table. The role wasn't separately identified in any way in the playbill.

The Circle production was videotaped for TOFT and can be seen there. The performance shot had both Gunton and Fowler going up on lyrics. I saw the production live and have seen the TOFT video.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 6:12am

I saw that production several times and feel it was far better than the atrocity that is currently on Broadway.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 6:25am

Well, I'm not sure I would disgree with that. I don't really know what I feel about the current production except that for me it doesn't really seem to be a production of Sweeney. I would say that the Circle production was a production of Sweeney.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 8:37am

In my mind, the passion of SWEENEY TODD is found in its rich orchestrations. When Antony opens the birdcage during "Johanna" and the orchestra soars, I get goosebumps. That was lacking in the current deconstruction of the show.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 9:15am

But it was there when the score was played on three synthesizers?

I actually saw the current SWEENEY again last night (I hadn't seen it since October) and was thrilled by the sound of the orchestra, particularly in the moment you mention. The sound of the music is definitely the aspect that is tighter now than when it first opened.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 9:22am

I loved the late 80s revival. I thought Gunton and Fowler were terrific.
I preferred it at the York, when the York was on 91st, which was even more intimate than Circle, and yes, Epiphany was terrific. Gunton was chilling.

I also remember thinking that Eddie Korbich was astounding as Toby. How he slipped through the Tony noms I'll never understand.