arts & culture
ON THE BILL: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, through July 26, Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, www.centerstagetheatrecompany.org, $10 and up.
The kids are all right
CenterStage offers up a bloody good time by Gary Zeidner
R
einvention is as American as Edison appro- situated conveniently above Mrs. Lovett’s own failing in an unexpected bit of ickiness, Turpin himself seeks priating Tesla’s work or Donald Trump meat pie establishment. Before long, Sweeney Todd to marry her. cloaking himself in the mantle of legitimate and the morally flexible Mrs. Lovett realize that their Throats are slashed. Soylent Green meat pies are presidential candidacy. Hollywood’s current business plans share a certain synergy. Todd will murmade. Secret identities are revealed, and it’s all set to remake/reboot craze illustrates the pivotal der and rob the occasional customer, and Mrs. Lovett lavish musical accompaniment, which, it turns out, place reinvention occupies in the arts, and theatre is no will dispose of the bodies by turning them into the presented the single biggest production pothole, at stranger to the concept. Whether it’s Romeo and Juliet primary ingredient of her signature fare. least on opening night. Either the orchestra’s volume set in New York City circa 1965, the various versions It’s worth noting that with this plot contrivance was set too high or the actors’ mics were set too low of The Phantom of the Opera or English play- Taylor Roberts because the music drowned out the performwright Christopher Bond’s reimagining of a ers in all but the quietest moments. This penny dreadful villain as a crucible of rightechnical snafu must be resolved if audiences teous revenge, theatre embraces reinvention are to have any hope of actually hearing the with vim, vigor and a canny eye for profit. dialogue and lyrics. Bond’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd placed Aside from that issue, however, the cast the character on the road to theatrical fame, and crew of Sweeney Todd by and large but it wasn’t until American composer and deliver. As with any amateur production, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, of A funny Thing there were moments of shuddering disharHappened on the Way to the Forum and Into mony and questionable acting, costuming the Woods fame, turned Bond’s play into a and set design choices, but there were also darkly rollicking musical that the character some clear triumphs. Chief among them and this newly-minted iteration of his story was Lizzy Scholz’s portrayal of Mrs. achieved true immortality. Sondheim’s Lovett. Unlike anyone else on stage, Scholz Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet adopted and maintained an English accent Street garnered numerous Tony awards and for the entire show. Her singing was spawned the popular 2007 Johnny Deppstrong, and her acting equally so. Her duet starring film of the same name. Now, the with Warren on the Act One closer, “A CenterStage Theatre Company brings the Little Priest,” was easily Sweeney Todd’s mad barber’s murderous exploits to Boulder proudest moment. for a two-week run. The CenterStage Theatre Company has Brandon Warren and Lizzy Scholz give steller performances as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, respectively. Sweeney Todd begins with the return of devoted the past 25 years to turning kids on Sweeney Todd (Brandon Warren), bent on to live theatre. Focused on middle school revenge, to London. Fifteen years earlier, a vicious, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street aspires through college-aged performers — with some outlier, malignant judge, Turpin (Nathan Elllgren), took a likto social commentary. The notion is that Todd and older-skewing shows like its upcoming production of ing to Todd’s beautiful wife. Turpin had Todd brought Lovett are balancing the societal scales by turning Avenue Q — CenterStage’s dedication both to educatup on bogus charges then convicted him and sening and empowering youth and to the Front Range upper class oppressors into food for the lower class tenced him to be transported to the penal colony of theatre scene is undeniable. In a novel, reparatory-style oppressed. It’s a cute conceit but one the musical fails Australia. Turpin took from Todd his wife, his young twist for a production of this size, CenterStage is preto follow through on. daughter, his livelihood and his freedom. Was there senting Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Judge Turpin, it turns out, has raised Sweeney ever any better reason for revenge? with two alternating casts. Though it is essentially a Todd’s daughter, Johanna (Sienna Sewell), as his own. Penniless and desperate, Todd’s luck takes a turn This creates a passel of plot perversions as Todd’s asso- high school musical, which we all know offer up wildly for the better when Mrs. Lovett (Lizzy Scholz) recogvaried levels of quality, CenterStage’s Sweeney Todd is a ciate, a sailor named Anthony ( Jacob Bloom), falls in nizes him and offers him his old shop space, which is love with Johanna, Todd seeks to reunite with her and, bloody good time.
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