Sweeney Todd is not just a fluff musical

Staff from Perseverance Theater on A Juneau Afternoon. (Photo by Scott Burton/KTOO)
Staff from Perseverance Theater on A Juneau Afternoon. (Photo by Scott Burton/KTOO)

Perseverance Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opens Friday night.

Actor Enrique Bravo plays Benjamin Barker, aka Sweeney Todd, in the musical. On a Juneau Afternoon, Bravo sang a few lines that are the foundation of the story.

“There was a barber and his wife,
And she was beautiful.
A foolish barber and his wife.
She was his reason and his life,
And she was beautiful.”

Listen to the audio version of the story and Bravo sing here:

Enter the evil judge Turpin who is interested in Barker’s wife and unjustly sends the barber off to prison in Australia. Barker breaks out, returns to London and finds out that his wife, Lucy, poisoned herself and that their daughter, Joanne, is a ward of the judge.

One might assume the rest of the plot would be a predictable revenge tale until Barker teams up with Mrs. Lovett who runs a pie shop — that serves meat pies.

“She’s been in love with Benjamin Barker for a long time, so that fuels that relationship,” Bravo said.

So does their business arrangement where Barker dispatches his victims with a straight razor and Mrs. Lovett cooks them in pies. But the play is about more than that.

“There’s a lot of themes of classes in society. The rich basically taking advantage of the poor. So it’s got a lot. It’s a meaty musical. It’s not one of those fluff musicals,” Bravo said.

A meaty musical! The cast includes 14 actors and singers and 6 musicians. Music director Todd Hunt said he’s gained new respect working with the play’s sometimes complicated music composed by Stephen Sondheim.

“You can see, though, that in all of the difficult things that he put in, there’s always a dramatic reason for why. Like when there’s something repeated, it’s not exactly repeated; it’s a little bit different or the harmonies are a little bit different underneath it. It’s because things are always changing. And in that way it’s very organically written music, and that has been wonderful to discover,” Hunt said.

Note that there are both a pie and a barber shop within walking distance of the theater. OK, well pizza and a hair salon, but you never know.

The play opens Friday at 7:30 p.m. and runs through Sunday, Dec. 6. Tickets are available at ptalaska.org.

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