Murder,
Mayhem,
and Fun
Sweeney Todd at Asolo Rep
BY RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE | PHOTOS BY JOHN REVISKY
Ask any random person on Fruitville Road about their favorite musical,
and you’ll get a host of answers. Cats. Show Boat. The Music Man. The
Sound of Music.
The common denominator for all of those? They’re wholesome. Family
friendly. Appropriate subjects for a musical. Ask me, though, and I’ll say
American Idiot, Jekyll and Hyde, and Sweeney Todd. So, when Asolo
Rep announced that its Peter Rothstein-directed version of the latter
was on deck for a May 1 to June 1 run this year, I got on the phone
with Peter to get the full story. After the success he found in directing
Ragtime during the 2017-2018 Asolo Rep season, I wasn’t at all
surprised he’d come back for another great opportunity like this.
If you don’t know the story behind Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber
of Fleet Street, the 1979 musical thriller based on the 1973 play by
Christopher Bond, here you go. It’s 19th-century London and the
barber Sweeney Todd has been unjustly exiled to Australia for 15 years.
framed him and then ravaged his young wife. The carnage that follows
54 SARASOTA SCENE | MAY 2019