Sp11_ATT_4_13_11.qxp:Layout 1
4/13/11
11:12 AM
Page 11
Around the Table
VALENTÍN HERNÁNDEZ ’11
SweeneyTodd Unleashed Upon PEA
F
or one weekend in mid-February, winter’s chill was forgotten for the cold machinations of a murderous barber. Students put on three sold-out performances of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd on Fisher Theater’s mainstage. Set in 1840s London, the staging was inspired by old lithographs, explains Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11, chair of the Theater and Dance Department, in the show’s Director’s Notes. “We turned to the notion of old Victorian and Edwardian lithographs and the kind of pen-and-ink illustrations used in early editions of Dickens’ stories.” The limited color palette onstage, she explains, created a “sharpened visual response to color. My choice was to create the ‘blood’ through the use of specific, sporadic saturated flashes of red onstage, rather than employing more literal stage gore. This is a thriller and it should frighten the audience through the power of its storytelling and its music; but it need not be a horror show. It is chilling enough to contemplate what a man can do when his need for revenge overpowers his conscience, his restraint, and his reason.”
(Above) Chorus members enjoy Mrs. Lovett’s “meat” pies. (Middle) Alec Bronder ’11 stars as Sweeney Todd and Dulcinée DeGuere ’11 as his landlady, Mrs. Lovett. (Left) Evan Strouss ’11 plays the young sailor who falls in love with Todd’s daughter, played by Rebecca Millstein ’12.
SPRING 201 1
The Exeter Bulletin
11