Pittsburgh in the Round: It’s not every day you hear a homicidal barber described as “a mood,” but that is precisely how Noah Pleunik describes his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The first show in Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center’s You’re Home series and Pleunik’s first lead, this musical showcases the mental decline of a wrongly-imprisoned barber and his obsession with revenge.
3 comments:
Sweeney Todd is definitely in my top five favorite shows. It's also easily one of the hardest shows to perform, especially for companies (like schools) that don't have the budget or the human resources. Nevertheless, I think it's always a good challenge, that everyone: directors, designers, actors can learn from. Even though this review does have a lot of leaning more negative observations, I think at the heart of it the actors gave engaging performances, and I think the understanding of these complex characters is this first and most important step at creating a good Sweeney Todd. The music is utterly hard. Sondheim creates challenging pieces that are difficult even for people who are more used to his writing style. Tempos switch, and there are conflicting notes, so it's a little less intuitive. Also, sound is pretty important, and hopefully the sound designer can learn from this, and hopefully improve over the run, but it again, is a difficult show to sound mix. The ranges skip around (and are huge), and depending on the actors the dynamics really matter since many people sing over each other. Sweeney Todd is one of the only operas that are mic-ed because of the large ranges. I don't think this production should feel bad about the mixed reviews, because it seems like they have strong actors, but technically (accents and actual tech) should use this as a learning experience.
Like Elizabeth this show is in my top five, it is also in my top one of all time favorite shows. It is so unfortunate that this production had sound issues, nothing is worse than when you cannot hear or understand Sondheim, which is hard enough to comprehend even when the sound is perfect. As far as the accents, there is only so much one can do, but is it really that difficult to pull off a shoddy Italian accent for Adolpho Pirelli, it is supposed to be crappy and over exaggerated. The most important thing, that they luckily got right is that Sweeney is scary, he is psychotic and maniacal, the best compliment any Sweeney could receive is that the he felt dangerous even when sitting in the middle of the house. With the show having so many levels the fact that he could maintain that intense insanity without it becoming cliched or cartoony is quite impressive. As far as the set besides the original production and the movie I have seen only one other set at the regional theater near my house which used an elevator shaft and steel beams to create the set. From the sounds of the article it sounds almost like some twisted version of a Christmas Carol set, something that intrigues me deeply. All in all it sounds like a deeply fascinating production of the greatest musical ever.
Bec Kashuba’s review of Lincoln Park’s Sweeney Todd interested me because I would love to hear how other people put on the show. Junior year of high school, my school put on sweeney todd, it has been one of my favorite shows I’ve been apart of. Funny enough both performances shared malfunctioning microphones during one of their performances. They also used a rotating set. I wish I could compare more design and tech wise but the article focused mainly on the acting in the musical. I enjoyed how the actor described how he played the role sweeney and how he saw Sweeney as “a mood”, and acknowledged the character’s zest. It was unfortunate to hear about some of the actors slipping out of their accents, and Bec even called forced anyways, apparently it caused the writer to “enjoy the otherwise splendid production”. I wish I could hear more about the production, and see some pictures of the set hee called dynamic. I wish the article gave more for me to compare to prior adaptations/showings of the story of the demon barber.
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