Theatre VCU brings sympathy to ‘Sweeney Todd’

Michael Todd
Assistant Spectrum Editor

Many are familiar with the story: There was a barber and his wife, and she was beautiful.

For most viewers, it is at this point that Johnny Depp sinks into depressing song.

However, Theatre VCU revisits the 1974 melodrama “Sweeney Todd” by Christopher Godfrey Bond that inspired the well-known stage musical and movie adaptations.

“Sweeney Todd” tells the story of a barber surgeon who is imprisoned under false charges by a corrupt judge lusting after Todd’s wife. Todd returns to London years later to discover his wife dead and daughter imprisoned by the same judge and begins slitting the throats of his wealthy customers as an act of revenge.

The original Sweeney Todd model was inspired by “A String of Pearls,” a Victorian penny dreadful, which was a pamphlet-format serial story. Here, the Todd character was simply an evil barber surgeon driven mad by war. Bond added an abused and dead wife, a corrupt judge and a captive daughter.

It is this humanity and sympathy that the VCU cast explored throughout their rehearsal process and they hope to communicate through the show.

“I want the audience, by the end of the show, to really feel for Sweeney Todd, to understand his pain and why he’s driven mad by the abuse of power from the judge,” director Barry Bell said. “There’s nothing better than a sympathetic villain.”

This is what many casts have attempted with their respective characters, many of whom are villains in one way or another. All characters serve the purpose of telling Todd’s story. Though Todd’s deeds are horrible, other characters’ horrible deeds encourage a sympathetic view from audiences.

Before the actors were even allowed to step on set, they spent almost three weeks on table work, where the cast reads and speaks through the script together. Though common at the start of a rehearsal process, few student cast members had experienced table work to this degree.

“By the time we got on our feet, we were pretty well-prepared, and it kind of seemed like we already had the show together,” said Shane Moran, a sophomore theater performance major who plays Todd. “But then, of course, new elements were added (with blocking and set), and a lot of things changed.”

Table work allows actors to analyze their characters, develop depth, invest in building backstories and let their characters grow with the actors.

“It was a new play each time as we added another layer. (After table work), you almost felt as though you were starting all over again,” said Jessica Johns, a senior theater performance major who plays Mrs. Lovett. “And each time it’s grown into something different. The ideas I had about Mrs. Lovett at the beginning have definitely evolved … and now she kind of lives much more organically. … It’s much different from the idea I first came up with.”

Cast members were not allowed to see previous performances to prevent them from emulating prior performers, “rather than creating on their own,” according to Bell.

The cast members had a lot to draw on between the multiple revisions of the barber’s tale and the handouts and lectures delivered by graduate student and dramaturg Michael Haggerty.

Even through the blood, the show is speckled with laughable moments in the most unexpected places.

“There’s some comic relief because if you don’t allow an audience the freedom to laugh, they feel like they don’t have the freedom to feel other things,” Bell said. “We’re not forcing it. (Those moments) are just there.”

Directing the show is like a dream come true for Bell, who is the director for the first-year acting program and a teacher for second-year performance majors.

The show is not the musical version audience members may be familiar with already. However, if audience members who are familiar with the musical version listen closely, they may pick up on original lines that made it verbatim, or nearly so, into the musical and movie versions.

Though little content was changed, Bell did a lot of heavy editing to the lengthy original. Running now at around 90 minutes, the show originally ran at more than two hours.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty for the cast was not the characters or the story, but putting it all to motion once they got on set. Actors move about on and interact with a multilevel set meant to emphasize the levels of power addressed in the show, the very power abuse that drives Todd mad.

“It’s live theater and it’s a complicated show, and we all know that,” Bell said.

Sweeney Todd will show April 6, 11-13 and 18 – 20 at 7:30 p.m. and April 7, 14 and 21 at 3:00 p.m. high school matinees – April 16 and 17 – 10 a.m. All performances will take place at the Singleton Performing Arts Center. $25 general admission, $10 with VCU ID, $20 seniors, VCU faculty and staff and $15 other students with valid ID.