I'm referring to the fact that almost one year ago, last April in fact, I attended a live performance of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and here I am at it again, last night. This time though, right here in little ol' Sebring.
After attending last fall's performance of The Wizard of Oz at Highlands Lakeside Theater, I gave a glance over at the rest of their season and for some reason nothing looked really interesting to me so I pretty much didn't think I'd be back here anytime until maybe later on this year or early next year if they had anything new to offer. But either they inserted it into their program late or my eyes must have totally missed it but lo and behold as I was driving back from my eye doctor appointment Friday afternoon, I happened to make out a billboard as I passed by it on Route 27 coming into town an advertisement for Sweeney Todd.
"Is HLT doing Sweeney Todd?" I thought to myself. I don't remember seeing that. I forgot to check it out once I got home, but the next morning I remembered and went to the HLT website and lo and behold, there it was and I thought to myself, "How about going tonight?"
Clickety clack, and within seconds I bought my ticket for 7:30 p.m. I got to the theater and made my way to my seat and struck up a conversation with the lady to the left of me who said she'd never seen any production here at this theater nor had she seen or heard of Sweeney Todd before. Her partner was about to tell her a synopsis of the show and I jokingly begged him to not reveal too much saying to her "Oh it's just a little tale about a barber who just takes a little off the top." and her boyfriend, taking the cue perfectly, picks it up from there and says "Yeah maybe a little too much off the top." Fun little moment.
So 7:30 comes, the two young gals who are the new directorial team for Highlands Lakeside Theater come out and do their little announcing thing in a way to lackadaisical fashion for me but maybe that's the style, now I don't know. They're the same team that directed The Wizard of Oz and I thought that went well so, high hopes for this one, I thought, but if I remembered correctly, I also thought that it seemed like they shoot for a style of Complicated Razzmatazz. I'm not sure how else to describe it but it seems like they just want to jam as much in a show as possible to hit all the buttons and to show off their skills despite their young age and the assumable limited budget and maybe limited talent pool that a small rural community such as ours has at their disposal. Or maybe I'm totally imagining all of this and you can just ignore my bitter queen critique. Because at the end of the day, that's all this is anyway.
The ensemble comes out and stands in front of the well-positioned accent limelights giving them their ghostly glow belting out the ever so haunting "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" doing a really well choreographed popping dance twitch move every now and then making them look oh-so terrifically creepy and I think to myself "Oh I definitely could do this as an annual event for sure if they would only have live performances of Sweeney Todd throughout Central Florida once a year." I'll be on the hunt, believe you me, because in case you haven't figured it out I really, really love this show.
And all in all this one didn't disappoint.
Highlights: First up, the ensemble. In other performances at this theater (I'm looking at you Jesus Christ Superstar), the ensemble numbers were either mumbled, a little disjointed, or not vocalized with enough power. Not this time. This ensemble did not mess around. Not only did they belt out their musical numbers with absolute precision and in perfect harmony but their acting skills both in how they evoked the passion of the meaning behind the song they were singing and in their gestures and movements, especially in the non-musical parts they played, like for instance, as the psych patients at the insane asylum, what can I say, chef's kiss!
Best acting: Once again as he did in The Wizard of Oz, Corey Adams as Signore Pirelli, OMG, this guy is a hoot! Is he a ham? Of course! But in this role, isn't it the perfect way to play the part? I think so.
Another ham, played to a surprisingly humorous effect was Mariah Alvarez's portrayal of the Beggar Woman. When she ambled her way out on stage with her arms fled out in classic beggarly woman style and belted out her tunes in crazy woman contralto, it had many in the audience cracking up but it's a bit odd since really, insofar as the plot of the entire musical goes, her story is one of utter tragedy. Well, actually, isn't everyone's story one of utter tragedy in this damn show, it really doesn't end well for anybody does it?
Tony Toler as Beadle Bamford brings it once again. Tony is an old veteran at the incredibly young age of probably 26, I would say. He's been in probably a dozen performances here I would guess over the years. I've seen him in at least five. He gets better and better as he ages. This one was a relatively small role for him. Perhaps he's busy doing other things and could only commit to the Beadle roll but he did it, of course, in his true fashion, perfectly well.
Young Tobias was played by Levi Abbott, the son of the star Ryan Abbott who played Sweeney Todd. Levi killed it singing "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir," and get this, he can't be older than 9 years old.
And speaking of his father, truly the star of this performance, Ryan Abbott absolutely is one of the best Sweeney Todd's I've heard. Better than Josh Groban? Of course not. Better than Johnny Depp? Oh yes! By the way, just as a side note, the picture at the top is indeed a pre-show press release photograph printed in the local rag online but I guess either they made the choice to ditch that wig or maybe they had some other issue with it but he didn't wear it at the performance I saw. He just had a very close cropped buzz cut, the style of which I normally wear on my head. And frankly, I'm not sure if it would be historically accurate that way, but I don't care, it looked good.
Not-so highlights: Margaret Macbeth as Mrs. Lovett. She's been in other things here before. What parts? I don't remember. And that's the gist of her performances. Just not very memorable. The review in the local rag, which like all the reviews that that local paper does of any HLT performance, is really just a lip service to giving every single cast member some kind of credit in a publication so I guess they can put that in their resume. It's total lip service and has absolutely no business being a true review since it's always so glowing and congratulatory even for the most shitty performances imaginable but I guess that's what you would figure would be the norm for a very small town newspaper. As if they would diss their next-door neighbor. But I digress. She at least didn't suck. And I got to say, she brought some comic chops to her "By the Sea." Unfortunately, she has virtually zero acting ability so it was most painful when it came to her duet with Tobias singing "Not While I'm Around."
So that brings me to young Levi sadly losing it during that same song. I'm sure I wasn't alone in the audience feeling bad for him as his voice was cracking and hearing his audible frustration trying to hit notes and not quite getting there. He pushed through, but in some cases just couldn't even make a sound. To quote another song, Poor Thing. He got a rounding set of applause at the end though and deserved it. This kid's a trooper. And at this young age to be so talented, he'll get those notes eventually, hopefully he won't take it so hard. More importantly, I kind of wonder what playing a part in a very grisly play like this every night is going to do to his psyche. Yikes!
But, this also brings me to another tragic inability to hit the proper notes. And again, it's with fucking "Joanna." I looked back just now on my review of last year's performance of this show in Orlando and I don't think I made mention of it, but even then the actor playing Anthony just couldn't quite accomplish the song "Joanna" as well as you think he should have. This Anthony, Julian Jimenez, did make up for it with other performances in his other songs, most notably "No Place Like London," and even in the reprises for "Joanna," but in that first very important belting out of this super-emotional song, he went into it too weak and sure enough, just couldn't hit those notes. I mean, I'm no singer. But I sing this to myself all the time. I love this song. For me, it's right up there with "Pretty Women" which by the way, as a rough segue, was done awesomely in this performance in a duet between Ryan Abbott and Marcus Conerly playing Judge Turpin. I hate Conerly's acting. He's in almost every freaking performance at this theater and has been for the past few years and in every single one I have negative criticism about it, this one notwithstanding. His portrayal of Judge Turpin was his usual "fake pompous act" he tries to pull off with every character he does. Something about this guy just grates me. But he can sing. I'll give him that. And last night's "Pretty Women" satisfied much better than last year's version.
All right enough about the song and sizzle and razzmatazz and all of that, what about the usual, costuming and set design?
Hey, costuming was actually pretty okay. 1840s England has got to be a challenge for any modern person unless they have actually a bit of fashion history under their belt. Of course a gay costume designer would have no problem: Somebody like the only person I follow on Instagram, Zack Pinsent.
But they don't got that. They got some older lady that no doubt was hired because her for crafting and whizbang Singer sewing machines skills. But got to give her credit, she and her crew did a good job scouring the thrift stores for things that she could stitch together and make kind of look a little bit period.
Set design. The paint jobs. The construction. Ugh. The Playbill lists a bunch of dudes responsible for this duty. I guarantee they're straight dudes right off the construction lot. Maybe they work at Lowe's or Home Depot. And boy it shows. Well my dictation software says I’m out of my free sixty minutes per day allotment so…ta da, this is the end.
See you next year at another bloody barber’s shop / pie shop at another local theater? Maybe?
