In director Alexander Greenfield’s new production of “Sweeney Todd,” the clamor of 19th-century London is compressed into a morguelike room, where cadavers lie in repose in coffinlike drawers and body parts float in jars of formaldehyde, the better to illustrate Mrs. Lovett’s panache for creating meat pies out of priests and poets.
Just in time for Halloween, Fabrefaction Theatre boils down the giant musical into a skeletal system for nine actors, made up to resemble ghosts who are free to wander in and out of space of time and play multiple roles. In its economy, the effort brings to mind director John Doyle’s 2005 Broadway staging, which required 10 actors to double as musicians and gave Patti LuPone a brassier sound than ever. (She played the tuba.) Here, a six-piece band is secluded in the back of house while the cluster of zombies fade in and out of the picture.
Fabrefaction, a strong young ensemble with a fresh-eyed audience and a beautiful space in a former West Side warehouse, opens its second professional season with an impressive if somewhat uneven production of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler masterpiece. The group’s take on the bloodthirsty tale finds its pulse in the swollen emotions of the mad barber (Clint Thornton) who is bent on exacting revenge on a system that has robbed him of his wife and daughter, Johanna (Lyndsay Ricketson).
In a way, Johanna is the object of everyone’s desire here: Sweeney pines to see her. Kindhearted Anthony Hope (Trey Getz) falls in love with her. Sleazy Judge Turpin (Bryan Mercer) drools after her like a pet pigeon that he will someday turn into a pie. Greenfield’s conceit is to tell the tale through the eyes of this pivotal but often voiceless character, who comes down from her chambers to hover mutely at the edges of the drama -- a device that sometimes resonates but more often gets lost in the Gothic Sturm und Drang.
It’s hard to imagine Sweeney’s tonsorial parlor without a barber chair, which is sometimes outfitted with a trapdoor for sending his victims straight to the pot-pie inferno of Mrs. Lovett (Diane R. Mitchell). Scenic and lighting designer Jeff Martin creates a nicely detailed environment of wooden cabinetry topped by a curtained balcony that can function as Johanna’s bedroom or Sweeney’s barbershop. The curtain lets the actors engage in some lovely human shadow puppetry, a nice detail. But without that chair, the horror of Sweeney’s astonishing series of executions is diluted.
Thornton, who is probably better known as a director than as a performer, is an excellent Sweeney; behind his tortured visage and powerful baritone (who knew?) lurks a modicum of tenderness that is sweetly affecting. Mitchell, alas, seems to have been chosen for her belting abilities and comedic sparkle, but the young actress doesn’t seem old enough to convey Mrs. Lovett's maternal side. More Helena Bonham Carter-style, raccoon-eyed wisp than Angela Lansbury frump, her Mrs. Lovett appears to be a contemporary of her surrogate child, Tobias (the delightful Daniel Collier). (Travis Boatright’s bloody costumes, by the way, are pretty standard-issue Victoriana.)
While Daniel Burns wears the role of the smarmy Beadle as naturally as his pork-chop sideburns, Mercer seems physically uncomfortable as Turpin. Maybe it’s the Frankenstein-size platform shoes that throw him off balance. What’s up with the shoes? Can’t a diminutive guy still convey evil? The grainy veneer of Mercer’s voice alone could do the trick.
Considering that the show is framed around her, Ricketson’s Johanna is the weak link. She musters the filigree of her first solo, “Green Finch and Linnet Bird,” one of the prettiest songs in the Sondheim canon, but can’t sustain the momentum. Getz, on the other hand, is a standout. His “I Feel You, Johanna” passages are haunting.
In this troubled arts economy, it’s nice to see a sparky and ambitious theater appear on the Atlanta scene. I’m not fully convinced that Sondheim’s majestic study of despair and obsession needs a makeover. Greenfield delivers a moving and admirable “Sweeney Todd,” nonetheless. Fabrefaction (almost) guaranteed.
Theater review
“Sweeney Todd”
Grade: B-
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 3 p.m. Sundays. Also 8 p.m. Oct. 31. Through Nov. 13. $15-$30. Fabrefaction Theatre, 999 Brady Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-9468, fabrefaction.org.
Bottom line: Attend the tale.
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