SWEENEY HAS OPENED!
And I'm grateful to be back at Neptune and helping launch their 50th season!!! That's one of the longest running regional theatres in Canada.
Here's a look at the Beggar Woman. (yep, that's me!)
Congrats to a great team! The audiences and critics are impressed. And more importantly, it's a joy to work with this crew every day.
Here are some of the reviews:
Amanda Campbell, TWISI
http://www.twisitheatreblog.com/archives/1501
ATTEND THE TALE OF SWEENEY TODD
Posted: September 15th, 2012
f
shane carty & shelley simester
If Neptune Theatre’s current production of Sweeney Todd is any indication of the rest of the 50thAnniversary Season to come or, indeed, the calibre that we can expect from future shows directed by George Pothitos I am very excited and thrilled for the future of our regional theatre.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim based on the British folklore tale of Benjamin Barker (alias: Sweeney Todd), a crazed serial killer and his accomplice Mrs. Lovett, who begin taking revenge on London by slitting the throats of unsuspecting barber patrons and baking them into meat pies. The musical was popularized in an inspired re-imagining by Tim Burton in the 2007 film of the same name starring Johnny Depp as Todd and Helena Bonham Carter as Lovett.
George Pothitos’ production is much more subdued. In fact the characters begin the play with much more subtlety than one often expects from this musical. None of the characters seem particularly bloodthirsty or villainous at the beginning of the play but they grow increasingly more so as the plot progresses and the world and their understanding of it warps and changes them.
One of the most immediately striking aspects of this show, and one that has been sorely missed in Neptune’s musicals in the last few years, is the staggering vocal power of the entire company when singing all together. Sondheim’s intricate harmonies and gorgeous sweeping score require a strong foundation in the ensemble, which this production certainly has in abundance, and the result is that the entire production reverberates with intensity and incredible depth. This, mixed with a gorgeous band of musicians and a striking use of the cellist makes this show a wonder for the ear.
This show also boasts of some beautiful performances by a nice mixture of Halifax-based actors and visiting artists from elsewhere in the country. Laura Caswell gives a stunning and haunting performance as the wild and desperate Beggar Woman, Mark Allan is perfect sweet naiveté with a gorgeous voice as young Tobias and Patrick Cook captures Anthony’s passionate ferver for Johanna like a singing Romeo. Kevin Dennis is hilarious as the Italian Adolpho Pirelli and gives the show a much needed comic laugh-fest in the First Act. Ellen Denny’s soaring and bright soprano voice is stunning but what is just as impressive is how interesting she makes Johanna, a character so often portrayed with less personality than a lark in a window. Denny’s Johanna is bright and strong, distinctive in her choices and one is given the strong sense that she and Anthony, although two people who barley know one another, have the potential not just for romance, but for a real friendship based on respect and understanding, which is rare, and so refreshing, for a story set in 1846. Cliff Le Jeune also manages to find the humanity in the slimy Judge Turpin, keeping his dark rage and lascivious thoughts tightly cloistered under the garb of propriety. Shelley Simester has fantastic comic timing as Mrs. Lovett and a beautiful chemistry with Shane Carty’s Todd. Her “A Little Priest” and “By The Sea” are standout numbers in the show. Carty’s dreamy baritone voice is so deep one has the feeling she could fall into it and with his distraught eyes and broody intensity the audience is with Carty for the full duration of the bloody adventure from the very first note he sings.
Geoffrey Dinwiddie’s mammoth stone set with intricate moveable pieces and traps and other mad contraptions all over the place is a revelation and coupled with Kevin Fraser’s brilliantly ghostly lighting design, the scene upon which the actors tell their tale could not be more perfectly and adeptly set.
There were a few moments where I thought the stakes could be raised a bit, a little more intensity when Pirelli blackmails Todd, for example, and a frantic acceleration during the first “Pretty Women” and there were a very few moments where the emotions in Sondheim’s sweeping ballads seemed to grow more in volume than in grounded intensity, but these things may come naturally with more performances and additional audiences.
In all, Sweeney Todd is exactly the kind of musical that our audiences and our community deserves from the Regional Theatre and if this is the standard for the future of Neptune, Halifax is very fortunate indeed.
Elissa Barnard, Chronicle Herald
http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/136421-sweeney-todd-may-make-your-blood-run-cold
SWEENY TODD MAKES YOUR BLOOD RUN COLD
Neptune Theatre opens its 50th season with a dark operatic musical that demonstrates two traditions at the beloved 500-seat playhouse.
The first is its ability to successfully squeeze large-scale Broadway musicals onto its small stage. Former artistic director Linda Moore, who was at the theatre for Friday’s opening night of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, proved the theatre could hold epic shows with her 1994 production of Les Miserables.
The second is the presentation of quality theatre, and this production is pure artistry in terms of music and visual imagery.
Sweeney Todd, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, is a gruesome combo of Dracula and Les Miz, with shades of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea since it’s from the horror genre, but the artistry is rich and rewarding.
Artistic director George Pothitos has assembled a stunning cast for a show of musical complexity and grandeur. It’s a big sing and it’s a big canvas writ large with human desperation and darkness.
When the ensemble first came out for bows at the end of the show, the opening night audience jumped up for a standing ovation. (This ensemble, which includes young Halifax actresses Ann Doyle, Keelin Jack and Karen Myatt, is finer than most and a vivid part of Sweeney Todd.)
Shane Carty’s rich, fluid baritone flows like a raging river throughout this play as he incarnates the crazed and embittered barber.
This 1979 musical is based on Christopher Bond’s play, which was based on the Penny Dreadful horror story that thrilled those in the Victorian era.
After being unjustly sent to a penal colony by a judge who craved his beautiful wife, Sweeney Todd returns to discover his wife is dead and his daughter a prisoner of the judge. The wronged barber is a tragic figure but his single-minded desire for murderous revenge takes him beyond humanity.
Mrs. Lovett, who has a pie shop beneath Todd’s former barber shop, comes up with the idea of turning Todd’s murder victims into pies.
Shelley Simester as Mrs. Lovett is a scene-stealer in a wonderful, energized performance of this crafty, confident character who treats the twisted details of her life as ordinary. She is the audience’s entree into this horrific world as she holds onto her vision of herself as a respectable business woman with a fondness for the dear Mr. Todd.
A lot of the humour belongs to Mrs. Lovett and the word-play song in which she and Sweeney Todd concoct the idea of human meat pies is a gem — impossible though that may sound.
The only bright light in this Dickensian world is the young couple of Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna, sung in a soaring, pitch-perfect soprano by the blond and glowing Ellen Denny, a recent Dalhousie music and theatre graduate, and Anthony, the sailor who rescued Todd, a handsome and genuine romantic hero as sung by Patrick Cook. The two craft the complex talk-sing duet Kiss Me beautifully. It’s a show highlight.
The music is so key to Sweeney Todd that it’s fitting the musicians are just visible in the shadows playing on the second tier of a three-tier set. Led by musical director and pianist Chuck Homewood, the stirring and accomplished musicians are Tim Elson, trumpet; Isabelle Fournier, violin; Catherine Little, cello; Bradley Reid, clarinet and flute; and Gillian Smith, violin.
The actual killings are done in a blaze of red light, without fake blood, so this version of Sweeney Todd goes easy on an audience who dislikes horror. But there is no redemption in Sweeney Todd, and there is no emotional connection to the characters. It is a bleak view of humanity. You leave the theatre scared, shaken by a beautifully crafted picture of a version of hell.
The strong visual imagery is due to Geofrey Dinwiddie’s barred and bricked set design of a prison and mean city streets, costume designer Helena Marriott’s ragged period garb and Kevin Fraser’s lighting design, key to creating the gloom with dramatic chiaroscuro effects on the chorus. He bathes the lovers in a warm incandescent light.
The ensemble includes Anders Balderston, Robert Murphy and Kyle Gillis. Also noteworthy in the cast are Laura Caswell as the Beggar Woman and Cliff LeJeune as the nasty Judge Turpin.
Sweeney Todd runs by quickly in two hours and 20 minutes, including intermission. This year Neptune has changed its opening time to 7:30 p.m. from 8 p.m. Tuesday to Friday. Weekend times remain the same. The show runs to Oct. 7. (ebarnard@herald.ca)
