Julia Rodriguez-Elliott is taking a stab at Sweeney Todd. Co-artistic director of Pasadena’s A Noise Within, known for its inventive interpretations of classic plays, she’s helming the company’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s monumental work opening Saturday, Feb. 17. (For details see below.)
Beloved by musical theatre fans, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street tells the story of Benjamin Barker. The barber, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, has returned to London from exile in Australia after 15 years seeking his long-lost family. He was sent there on false charges by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who with the help of Beadle Bamford, tormented and raped Sweeney’s wife, Lucy. The vengeful Sweeney is determined to get the unsuspecting Judge into his barber’s chair, where he promises to give the ultimate close shave. A convenient relationship develops between the barber and his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, who finds the perfect new ingredient for her meat pies.
With virtually constant music, the score’s 20-plus songs range from the sweet and popular Not While I’m Around, to the beautiful declaration of love, Johanna, My Friends, a paean to his treasured razors, and the chilling Epiphany, Sweeney’s true turning point.
“It’s a show we’ve been wanting to do for some time, says Rodriguez-Elliott. Postponed because of the pandemic and complications with getting the rights, “when we came back acquiring the rights was easier,” she says. “Now it certainly feels of the moment and a play for our times.”
Timely, Enduring Themes
For Rodriguez-Elliott, the essence of the play is summed up in a line from the show’s most macabre yet hilarious number, A Little Priest: “The history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat.” Essentially about the haves and the have-nots, the play is about a power structure, a systemic power structure that destroys people’s lives. “The play has a connection to our current problem of the unhoused and our version, told from the perspective of the poor, is a cautionary tale of what injustice and inequality does to people.”
It hasn’t changed much from Victorian England to now, Rodriguez-Elliott adds. “As a society we haven’t solved the problems of homelessness and mental illness, that are intrinsically linked. Just looking from a local level, our unhoused are not able to pay rent while those at the top benefit. And there’s a huge gap between the lack of care and the resources that are available.
“The timelessness and inhumanity of these stories never goes away,” she says.
A Unique Staging
The original Hal Prince-directed production was a treatise on how the Industrial Revolution crushed a dehumanized society. The set was dominated by a huge factory whose whistle punctuated the action. It wasn’t what Sondheim had in mind.
Rodriguez-Elliott is setting the action in an old, abandoned theater that’s become the home of individual unhoused people. They will use what available props, like furniture, they find in the theater and the personal items they’ve brought with them to tell the story.
Her Brechtian approach makes it a true ensemble piece with the actors “creating the world of the play.” With everyone participating, the actors are onstage for the entire show along with the musicians.
There won’t be the famous barber chair that drops bodies to the basement or the gallons of blood of other productions, “but it still has an epic element,” says Rodriguez-Elliott. “I keep saying it will be minimal and grand which seems a contradiction. It’s theatrical with an approach to match the mammoth structure of the play.”
Keeping The Victorian Flair
Rodriguez-Elliott sees the production through a Victorian lens. She finds parallels between today and that time in England’s history. The era was marked by vast political reform and social change, the Industrial Revolution, authors Charles Darwin, and Charles Dickens who wrote about impoverished children working long hours in factories and workhouses run by cruel governors.
The stark social inequality of the day is a direct line to Sweeney Todd.
Victorian references will abound in the design and visual look of the production, Rodriguez-Elliott says. Designer Angela Balogh Calin has created costumes that become more Victorian as the plot unfolds.
Following are excerpts from my interview with Rodriguez-Elliott on bringing Sondheim’s massive masterwork to A Noise Within.
How Do You Bring An Epic Down To Size?
We tell epic stories in an intimate space, up close and personal, in a way that brings the humanity of the piece to the forefront. Our space gives us the unique opportunity to access the play the way Sondheim originally envisioned it — as a small-scale “chamber musical.”
We’ve previously done The Threepenny Opera, Animal Farm and Man of La Mancha. Sweeney Todd is gigantic. In terms of A Noise Within and musicals we have to ask, ‘what can we bring to it in our particular space.’
When we take a blockbuster and put it in the intimacy of our thrust stage with the audience on three sides, we access the show and its subtleties in a different way. This gives us the opportunity to move beyond the surface and explore the truth of the story. With his particular piece, there’s so much there one can unearth.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
For Example? Mining The Story
It’s the same with any great play. A first blush you might think you know it, but then you give it a 360-dregree view. You get little clues, and your questions are answered the more you dig.
In the song Green Finch and Linnet Bird, Johanna sings about wanting to understand how birds live in a cage. When you consider her situation of being groomed and kept in captivity, the song takes on a whole new meaning.
She talks about rooms being” damasked and dark.” And that makes you think about what other rooms look like to her, and if she occasionally sees other rooms in the house or is kept alone in one room as the judge’s prisoner. That’s not inconsistent with the man who and rapes her mother for not giving him attention.
Looking at little details like that gives you the opportunity to ignite actors and your imagination and to start asking deeper questions. Our pairing down and tight focus give us the ability to examine story lines that might not be part of a more commercial production. And our audience is open to that.
What’s Your Take On The Psychology Of The Characters?
Sweeney Todd is a complex character: both a tortured victim wronged by a corrupt society and a villain with a thirst for blood. Sweeney doesn’t start out as a serial killer. But by virtue of his circumstances, he’s blinded by the notion of revenge. Sweeney becomes a psychopath.
Mrs. Lovett has never had a moral code and they become partners who never express any remorse for their murder spree. She’s obsessively in love with Todd. He’s everything she’s ever hoped for and the possibility of all her hopes. He’s her everything and it’s very sad.
Did You Do Any Kind Of Research To Prepare For The Production?
Our dramaturg Dr. Miranda Johnson-Haddad did lots of research, primarily focused on poverty in Victorian England.
I try not to look at other productions or what others have done. I view the play as if it’s never been done before to come up with my own vision.
How About The Music?
Yes, it’s a beast of a score, but we’re not giving up on any of the music or singing. Our orchestration is in scale with the rest of the production.
The music is extraordinary with so much depth. At first and second hearing the songs don’t seem related. But when you really study it, you find the strong through line. The score isn’t a mix of insular songs, but rather a complex web of recurring motifs. It’s operatic in scope, often with duets, trios and quartets of characters singing simultaneously, expressing independent inner thoughts or dialogue.
We have a fantastic cast with terrific voices that can handle the tricky arrangements. Fans of the company will see A Noise Within co-artistic director Geoff Elliott in the bloodthirsty title role, with resident artists Cassandra Marie Murphy as Mrs. Lovett; Jeremy Rabb as lecherous Judge Turpin; and Kasey Mahaffy as con man Adolfo Pirelli. Also starring are Joanna A. Jones as Turpin’s ward Johanna; James Everts as Johanna’s idealistic suitor, Anthony Hope; Harrison White as the pompous Beadle Bamford; Amber Liekhus as a deranged beggar woman who harbors a dark, surprising secret; and Josey Montana McCoy as the young barber’s apprentice, Tobias.
You’ve Called Sweeney Todd Shakespearean In Scope.
I think the journey that Sweeney and a lot of the characters go through emotionally is Shakespearean. This play and a lot of the Shakespeare’s works show the places that people go and their willingness to go to the ugly side of human nature and even kill. What Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett commit to is Shakespearean.
Sweeney Todd and Hamlet are both eaten up by revenge that eventually destroys them.
Another commonality is the writing. Sondheim’s play is nearly 400 years after Shakespeare, but it too shows a beautiful use of language.
A Noise Within is at 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. Performances Saturday, Feb. 17 through Sunday, March 17 are at 7:30 p.m., Thursdays; 8 p.m., Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m., Saturdays and 2 p.m., Sundays. (No 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, Feb. 17; dark Thursday, Feb. 29). Post-performance conversations will take place every Friday and Sunday, Feb. 25. Tickets start at $29, $18 for students. To purchase and for more information, call 626-356-3100 or visit www.anoisewithin.org.
