![]() ![]() Kail’s production has an austere severity that’s suited to serial killings but also makes it feel coolly remote. And as measures of how far there is to fall, there are the Beggar Woman (Ruthie Ann Miles, a Tony winner for “The King and I,” in a part she makes you wish were bigger) and the orphan Tobias (Gaten Matarazzo of “Stranger Things,” stunt cast and vocally out to sea among the rest). There’s the crooked Judge Turpin (Jamie Jackson), who ruined Sweeney’s former life, and his lackey Beadle Bamford (John Rapson). Lovett, the role originated on Broadway by Angela Lansbury, is a warm and kooky lantern in an otherwise cold and earnest penny dreadful packed with stock characters: There’s Anthony, the young romantic, who falls for Sweeney’s damsel daughter Johanna (beautifully sung by Jordan Fisher and Maria Bilbao, respectively). But only one of them is a genuine thrill. And Ashford’s fleet, agile instinct for comedy, which earned her a Tony Award for “ You Can’t Take It With You,” is like a dippy bird for dopamine. Groban’s weighted-blanket baritone makes the prospect of reclining in his company and never waking up again seem like a great way to go. But in the stately and star-filled revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s macabre 1979 musical that opened on Broadway Sunday night, the people-to-pastries pipeline quickly assumes a grim air of mundanity.įor its stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, this lushly orchestrated and opera-scale production, from “ Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, proves a magnificent showcase for their respective, jaw-dropping talents. Slitting throats and baking bodies into pies is a wild and wicked business. Lovett, who laments that alley cats were too quick and meager to carve up anyway - well, it’s a living, innit love? ![]() ![]() The cannibalist startup in “ Sweeney Todd” kills two birds: For Sweeney, the ruined barber who holds a grudge as steadily as he does a blade, it means turning enemies into actual mincemeat. ![]()
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