Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the only show we had purchased tickets for before our trip. My mom is a huge Josh Groban fan and was so excited to see that he was coming back to Broadway in this classic Sondheim show as the title character. I felt that it was fitting to see this Sondheim show in a theater I’ve never been in after seeing a show in the Sondheim theatre for the first time two days prior. The reason we purchased tickets ahread of time was because we knew that this was going to be a hot ticket show with not only Josh Groban, but Jordan Fisher (a former Disney star and the male vocalist for the Magic Kingdom fireworks show “Happily Ever After”), and Gaten Matarazzo (Stranger Things) in the show as well in the supporting character roles of Anthony and Tobias, respectfully.
Sondheim is a difficult score to sing and every true musical theater performer wants the chance to be in one of his shows. We have been blessed with a slew of revivals of his shows, starting with Company last season, to Into the Woods in the middle of the 2022 year, and now Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd may be the darkest show he created but the story is fascinating. I’ve only listened/watched the entire show once with the movie musical production of it starting Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and felt like it was a little too dark for me, but I was excited to see how it translated as a stage production.
I have to start off this review by saying that the set (Mimi Lien) and lighting design (Natasha Katz) are incredible. We walked out of the show feeling like they are the front runners for winning the Tony in their respective categories. To be able to create the atmosphere of a dark and dreary London town, while also creating a small speck of lightness in Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop. Then the way Katz created the way to shop the pie shop with the barber shop on the floor above and how their scheme works was fascinating. I don’t want to spoil much from the show, but the set design really did blow us away.
Annaleigh Ashford’s performance is the best I’ve seen all season. She had us laughing throughout the entire first act of the show and even into the second act. I walked out of the show and immediately told my mom that she was going to win the Tony Award for her performance. What’s incredible is that the day after we saw her performance, she won the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League. This is an award you can only win once in your career and it’s an award that doesn’t have any separation from gender, lead or supporting role, or musical or play. This means she was awarded for the best performance across the entire season. I read in an article on Broadway World that Annaleigh’s performance is the reason why revivals are so great because it allows performers of our time to get a chance to perform and put their own spin on these iconic roles we grew up with.
Josh Groban’s performance was spectacular. I felt like this role was more challenging and dimensional for him than his role as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. It’s just honestly more challenging of a role for him as an actor, but he did it with such grace and emotion that he had people in tears by the end of the show. The only part of his performance that stood out to me is that I don’t believe he was speaking in an English accent for most if not all of the show when the rest of the cast was. Ruthie Ann Miles’ performance of the Beggar Woman was incredible. For me, she’s tied with Betsy Wolfe (&Juliet) for whom I would like to see win best supporting actress at the Tony’s.
It must take such an emotional toll on the entire cast to be able to do this show every night – some days twice a day. I applaud the entire cast and crew to be able to tell this story every night. The ensemble helped carry the show from scene to scene. Led by the duo that helped bring Hamilton to life, Alex Lacamoire (Music Supervisor) and Tommy Kail (director), this show is a masterpiece as a technical show. All the costumes by Emilio Sosa were gorgeous with a mix of colorful gowns and pieces in dark shades. Jeremy Chernick designed the special effects in the show including all of the bloody gore moments that happen.
For our performance we saw the following principal cast: Josh Groban (Sweeney Todd), Annaleigh Ashford (Mrs. Lovett), Jordan Fisher (Anthony), Gaten Matarazzo (Tobias), Ruthie Ann Miles (Beggar Woman), Maria Bilbao (Johanna), Jamie Jackson (Judge Turpin), Raymond J. Lee (understudy Beadle Bamford), Nicholas Christopher (Pirelli), and Jonathan Christopher (Bird Seller).
Sweeney Todd is currently running at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and has recently announced that it will be going on a National Tour in 2024.
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