Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The hottest show in town! Sean Murray and James Vasquez's co-staging brims with excellence. The cast across the board has no weak links, and since a majority of them are San Diegans, this amazing production does us all proud. Best of show: Cygnet Theatre gets the Stephen Sondheim-ness of the musical: wild flurries of notes that create sheer, swirling turbulence. But as in Chaos Theory, there's an underlying order beneath. As Sweeney, the tonsorial serial killer, Sean Murray probes Sweeney's pain and rage, both beyond redemption. Deborah Gilmour Smyth's boundary-free Mrs. Lovett, a maternal recidivist, is a treasure. Sondheim's score loves to swallow melodic lines the way Sweeney does lives. But the musical also has gorgeous, get-this-one-right-or-else songs: "Johanna" foremost among them. Jacob Caltrider and Steve Gunderson's bipolar versions give audiences a tune to hum for weeks to come. Sean Fanning's Industrial Age London set has brick walls the color of black lungs. Shirley Pierson's costumes range from pinpoint accurate to gloriously screwball. And Eric Lotze's lighting is special. He does with light what Sondheim does with music.
Critic's Pick.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, May 9, 2010
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm |
| Thursdays, 7:30pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |