(Posted October 19, 2004)

FRANKLIN, Tenn. – There’s no mystery in the world, my friend, to why people come again and again to Boiler Room Theatre.

With thoroughly entertaining productions like their current run of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, why should anyone stay away?

Director Jamey Green has shaped a balanced revival of the multi-award-winning 1979 Stephen Sondheim musical thriller. He's packed the industrial-oriented BRT space with singing that nourishes the ear and acting that’s razor-sharp.

It’s the story of Benjamin Barker, who was unjustly transported to Australia 15 years before the tale begins by order of a lecherous judge who had coveted Barker’s wife and taken his daughter as his ward.

Barker has escaped his confinement and returned to London. He encounters Nellie Lovett, a pie shop owner whose business is failing. The two combine on a murderous means of improving her business while Barker, who now calls himself Sweeney Todd, seeks to make the judge his victim.

Composer-lyricist Sondheim and book writer Hugh Wheeler based their work on a 1973 play by Christopher Bond. Bond’s play had its roots in an 1846 English “penny dreadful” serialization called The String of Pearls by Thomas Peckett Prest that was apparently inspired by an 1825 magazine story of a murderous barber titled A Terrible Story of the Rue de la Harpe.

This lengthy literary backstory produced a musical that has macabre Grand Guignol Opera-like overtones coupled with a Brechtian-style social commentary undercurrent. It’s a mixture that can become unbalanced in the wrong hands, but thankfully Green’s handling is sure.

In Green’s production, we are greeted by the giddy ghoulishness of the tale, but we’re also reminded of the class victimization that was part of Victorian society. He doesn’t overemphasize the latter, though, appropriately letting the show’s dark humor reign supreme.

Lisa Gillespie’s characterization of Lovett is a prime example of letting the humor shine while not forgetting the social context. She can certainly handle the funny patter of a song like The Worst Pies in London, but when she and her hapless apprentice Tobias Ragg join for the touching Not While I’m Around, you remember that this woman has more than to her than ghoulish witticisms.

Alan Lee lets us see, feel and hear the anger and pain that transformed a loving but naive Barker into the dead-eyed, demonic Todd.  He is particularly strong in setting up his character in the mournful The Barber and His Wife and revealing his anguish and anger in the Pretty Women duet he has with his intended victim, Judge Turpin (played with guilt-ridden grace by John Warren).

Designer Lewis Kempfer has borrowed well from the Industrial Age-staging elements that first served the show when it opened in epic scale 25 years ago at New York’s Uris Theatre. He’s scaled the set down to fit the cozy confines of BRT’s space without losing the feel or functionality needed for the performance. The theater’s brick walls and exposed pipes serve as authentic compliments to Kempfer’s moving stage pieces and props.

Billy Ditty has decked the actors out in distinctive, often dark hues that add to the Grand Guignol atmosphere. The choreography by Lauri Bright and Jamey Green serves its purpose, though it breaks no new ground. A stronger element is the musical accompaniment of the four-player ensemble conducted by Mark Beall. It plays Sondheim’s score with the variety and intensity it deserves.

Boiler Room Theatre takes Sweeney Todd and plays its musical mayhem for all its worth. If this show was a true-crime mystery, you could certainly mark it as case solved.

To See The Show…

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ended its run on Nov. 6.