Sweeney Todd之前Johnny Depp有演過，中文譯名好像叫瘋狂理髮師，是一部musical。以下這篇文章是我幫 Cambridge Theatre Review寫的表演評論：
When Sweeney Todd (played by Michael Craddock) first appears on stage, I ask the question: this frail young man as the demon barber of Fleet Street? Michael Craddock started out a bit unsure of his character. This plus the un-flirtatious Mrs. Lovett (played by Lorna Reader) who seemed positively afraid of touching her object of infatuation, gave the play an ominous beginning. It wasn’t until halfway through the first half when Judge Turpin (played by Laurence Williams) sang his quasi-incestuous desire for his ward Johanna (played by Anna Cavaliero) with brows furrowed and hands clutching his crotch that the show finally lifted. And the moment Pirelli (played by James Cormack) steps on stage, his self-assured beam and ostentatious gestures sucked in the audience’s attention. It was also around this time that Sweeney Todd eased into his character and the demon began to twiddle his fingers.
The actors had superb voices and their vocal expressions more than made up for their lack of acting skills, especially in the first quarter of the show. The interaction between Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd was rigid and artificial yet their sung repartee was seamless with most of the punch lines well delivered. But there were several major setbacks: the actors kept on knocking into stage props and each other; the throat-cutting scenes were clumsy and bordered on hilarity; the raised platform was too small for the amount of action taking place on it, and twice, actors were in danger of falling with the barber chair off the platform. The lighting was simply appalling—it was as if the lighting director could not find where the actors were.
Yet despite these setbacks, the musical was still highly entertaining. Judge Turpin was brimming with emotions—his final groan in his death scene could only be delivered by an actor extremely confident in his stage presence; the Beadle (played by Hiroshi Amako) was just outright the most (unintentionally) comic actor—his fluffy thrusts of the fists and his determination to play the piano despite the top clamming down on his hands must be applauded, though the audience mostly just laughed. The above are serious scenes which turned out comic. But Sweeney Todd delivered superbly the song “By the Sea,” which was actually intended to be comic.
By the end of the show, I was persuaded by Sweeney Todd’s diabolic eyes and smirk that the frail young man was indeed capable of murder, and I was enchanted by his character. Overall, though the choreography was messy, the lighting dreadful and too many serious scenes were turned comic, the actors’ beautiful voices and sincerity in delivering their best were so endearing you wanted to forgive them. The show is highly entertaining, though for all the wrong reasons.
