Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street lands at Chapel off Chapel from 11 September, courtesy of Soundworks Productions.
The Sondheim classic hasn’t been staged in Melbourne for two years, and Soundworks Productions is using its return to build Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street around a single governing image: Victorian London as a machine. Not a metaphor for one. Every set element, prop and transition follows the logic of industrial manufacture, with the characters operating as components rather than bystanders. The Chapel off Chapel main space, a converted church, gets the claustrophobic treatment, putting the audience inside the world of the city’s underclass rather than looking at it from a distance.
The story runs on grudges. Benjamin Barker returns to London after 15 years in an Australian penal colony, takes the name Sweeney Todd and goes looking for the corrupt judge who dismantled his life. His wife is dead, his daughter is now the judge’s ward, and his barber shop sits directly above Mrs Lovett’s failing meat pie business. The two form a mutually convenient arrangement, and revenge escalates into something considerably broader and messier.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- 11 – 20 September – Chapel off Chapel (The Chapel), 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran
- Preview: 11 September, 7:30pm
- Opening night: 12 September, 7:30pm
- Session times vary across the season – check the Chapel off Chapel booking page to confirm
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Benjamin Samuel directs, with musical direction from Jack Barnard and choreography by Skylar Delphinus. The cast is Aidan Niarros, Kate Yaxley, Ashley Garner, Annabelle Rosewarne, Amy McMillan, Christian Gillett, Daniel Hillman, Brendan Matthews, Teddy Burgess, Jess Rogers, Ally Long, Joshua Gordon, Matthew Casamento and Teresa Giansiracusa. Behind them: set and prop design by Harry Gill, lighting by Sidney Younger, sound by Thanu Moulton, costume by Jessamine Moffett, with Ashleigh Walwyn stage managing.
Tickets run $85 full, $79 concession, $75 for groups of four or more, $50 restricted viewing and $49 for the preview. The show runs two hours 20 minutes plus interval and is rated 16+, with warnings for simulated violence, loud noises, strobe lighting, theatrical haze, horror themes and dark humour.
Soundworks Productions is an independent company built around musicians, actors and theatre makers at varying career stages, with a stated interest in works that are difficult rather than comfortable. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street follows previous seasons of Songs For A New World and Parade, which suggests the appetite for Sondheim’s darkest score was always coming.
For more information, head here.
