A Flawed Masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2007)

Burton's SWEENEY TODD is visually brilliant and 3-dimensional, bringing the audience right into the heart of the worst part of Victorian London. This is no place for the gentile characters of a Masterpiece Theatre production, but the sad characters of Dickens, the denizens of William Hogarth's 18th century etchings, and the criminals of any time. The darkness is claustrophobic and vast at the same time, and there is no predicting what's coming at you (if you don't know this story).
The casting is mostly brilliant, with Sacher Baron Cohen an interesting surprise as Pirelli. He brings the same Victorian Music Hall style to this character that's been seen in the previous stage productions. Johnny Depp's almost understated performance in the competition scene seems to bring us back to reality by comparison. Except for Cohen, the Music Hall atmosphere is completely lost in the voices as well as the staging. Helena Bonham Carter is a good enough actress for the role of Mrs Lovett, but her voice needed some more work; it's too thin. It wasn't the best match for Depp's rock-musician voice which worked surprisingly well in a role where we have been accustomed to hearing heroic baritones. I also expected a little more from Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin. His lechery is underplayed in "Pretty Women", although perhaps counterbalanced by the scene where he fondles his porn collection.
Jamie Bower's Anthony is a little younger than we are accustomed to seeing, but perhaps that was because Johanna is only supposed to be 16 years old. I had some difficulty believing that he had "sailed the world" yet. This role requires a little more maturity. Johanna also needs to look a little more mature; a Victorian 16-year-old would look like today's 25-year-old. These roles were also cut back a little too far, with a cut in a song that is highly significant in the stage version. This may have been done to satisfy a need for greater realism in the script, along with cutting the chorus parts.
Having said that, I have to wonder why anyone thought it was a good idea to cut most of the other songs in half. The most egregious cut, in my opinion, was in "A Little Priest" where the absent stanzas and dialog breaks had supplied most of the humor of this piece. It then just becomes creepy instead of a brilliant example of gallows humor. We can hope that the forthcoming DVD will be the "extended version" with the full versions of most of the songs, which are Sondheim's most brilliant work to date and "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" sung over the closing credits.
In closing, Johnny Depp was his usual brilliant self, demonic and sympathetic at the same time and Ed Sanders' Tobias Ragg was perhaps the casting jackpot of this production, the first where we get a Toby who is an historically appropriate age to emphasize the horrors that poverty visited upon orphaned children. This kid will have an excellent career with this as a launching point.