Sweeney Todd – New Theatre

Overview

The New Theatre’s Sweeney Todd gives Stephen Sondheim's dark musical a uniquely Australian focus. There’s a lot to discover within Giles Gartrell-Mills’ staging, if you’re a theatregoer with an open mind. Yet it goes without saying if you’re in any way averse to musicals, and their associated style of acting, even the discordant score and narrative gore of this will be too much for you. With that, I’ll make like Sweeney’s razor and plunge in.

Though you'll probably know the story from Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s film version, the relationships and motivations are clearer on stage. For example, I was completely ignorant that barber Benjamin Barker had been deported to Australia before returning to London as the throat-slitting Sweeney Todd (played by Justin Cotta), but Gartrell-Mills chooses to highlight this oft-overlooked fact. He explores how the ‘Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ was borne from the horrors of convict Australia; a man hardened by the severe and unapologetic landscape of “a living hell”. Gartrell-Mills’ rejuvenates a story that in other aspects (like the lack of agency of the daughter/damsel character, Johanna) may seem tired.

The show demands much of its actors and even more from the only three musicians who underpin the 2+ hour performance. The adept ensemble make the sound in the cavernous New Theatre ring out like in a cathedral. Yet it's clearly a place of dark worship, with unsettling organ music, screeches and clangs that perfectly conjure the squalor of low-class Victorian London.

As Sweeney Todd, Cotta is most frightening in stillness, while the world around him goes berserk. He adequately conveys Sweeney's complex personal tragedy, which begins when the evil Judge Turpin (Byron Watson) banishes him in order to steal his wife. When this plan fails, Turpin takes custody of Sweeney's daughter, Johanna. Lucy Miller as Sweeney’s accomplice/lover Mrs Lovett is this production’s absolute gem. Her comedic timing is perfect, as are her slightly crazed facial expressions. Her singing voice accesses the brashness needed for the pragmatic, matronly character, as well as gentle womanly textures to indicate her romantic weakness for the story’s hero. It's hard to take your eyes off her.

Sweeney Todd is at its best when it’s turning an eye onto us, the audience — referring to us as “meat”, or exploring base human nature. Although the explicit imagery of the poster had me wanting more gore than the piece delivers, perhaps reflecting on the continued public spectacle of executions and beheadings, this darkly cynical musical about the inescapable spiral of revenge has a lot of life in it yet.