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Anyone for a Meat Pie?
15th May 2008
By Melissa Trickey
Throwback Players present the brilliant story of revenge, obsession,
and despair - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The
rare instance of a musical thriller, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh
Wheeler’s chilling, suspenseful, heart pounding masterpiece of
murderous barber-ism and culinary crime tells the infamous tale of
the unjustly exiled barber who returns to 19th Century
London
seeking revenge against the lecherous judge who framed him and
ravaged his young wife. His thirst for blood soon expands to include
his unfortunate customers, and the resourceful proprietoress of the
pie shop downstairs soon has the people of London lining up in
droves with her mysterious new meat pie recipe!
 Sophisticated,
macabre, visceral and uncompromising, ‘Sweeney Todd’ nevertheless
has a great sense of fun - mixing intense drama with howlingly funny
moments of dark humour, audiences find themselves laughing
hysterically one moment and gasping with surprise the next. I spoke
with Director Gavin Ballard about the upcoming production.
“I chose to direct Sweeney because I feel it’s not only a
brilliantly written show in terms of book and music, but also
conveys a really powerful message about the nature and dangers of
obsession. It can be hilarious funny one moment; then shove the
audience to the edge of their seat in suspense the next. I love the
way the show can manipulate you.”
“As a disclaimer, I have to say that we started mounting the
production of Sweeney before we were aware of the movie, not
the other way around! It’s certainly been great to be able to ride
off the movie’s publicity somewhat, but I do think the movie and the
stage show have significant differences. Audiences should not turn
up expecting to see a Burton-style gothic nightmare piece on stage –
I feel something much lacking from the movie is the morbid sense of
fun and humour which holds a great deal of appeal for me. I’m
certainly not a die-hard purist who thinks the movie’s a terrible
thing – it has the opportunity to expose a whole lot of people to
the show – but hopefully when folks think of ‘Sweeney Todd’ the
first thing that comes to their minds is not Johnny Depp.”
“As I write this, we’re about to go in to our final dress rehearsal,
and I’m very happy with progress at the moment. Our cast is full of
fantastic performers, and have adapted well to the intensive
rehearsal schedule we set up for this show. Anyone coming along will
really be blown away by the young amateur talent we’ve got, and the
sound we can get out of our 21-strong cast is quite powerful at
times.”
“There are highlights all over the shop, in both the technical and
character arena. Definitely keep an eye out for our barber’s chair
(well, you won’t be able to miss it), and in terms of songs you can
take your pick from the vocally engaging Kiss Me Quartet to
the intense Epiphany to the darkly humorous A Little
Priest. Again, all of our principals give fantastic
performances, but I think audiences will be particularly enthralled
with Helena Plazzer’s interpretation of Mrs Lovett, although the
Judge (Paul Treasure) and Sweeney Todd himself (Reuben Krum) also
acquit themselves brilliantly. I really could go on through the
whole cast with that list!”
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
May 17th – May 24th, Union House Theatre,
University of Melbourne
Performances at 7:30pm on the 17th, 21st, 22nd,
23rd and 24th May.
| Adults: $20 | Concession: $16 | Group (8+): $14 |
Bookings:
tickets@sweeneytodd08.com or (03) 8344 7447
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