by Harry Duke*
Local audiences seeking a solid presentation of an American theatrical classic actually have two very diverse choices right now. The Raven Performing Arts Theater hosts the Raven Players’ production of Stephen Sondheim’s massive macabre musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street while The 222 offers Sam Shepard’s more intimate fraternal drama True West. Both run in Healdsburg through Nov. 8
The story of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a penny dreadful back in 1846 and has since been adapted multiple times for theater and film. Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1979 Broadway adaptation is by far the most famous and has become a staple of regional and community theatre companies this time of year.
For the unfamiliar, it’s the tale of Benjamin Barker (Garet Waterhouse), an unjustly jailed and exiled barber who returns after 15 years seeking his wife, his daughter, and vengeance on the Judge (Matthew Witthaus) who wronged them. Using an assumed name, he sets up his tonsorial parlor above the Meat Pie shop of Mrs. Lovett (Katie Watts-Whitaker) and together they hatch a scheme that will allow “Sweeney” to avenge his family and supply Mrs. Lovett with an ample supply of fresh meat for her pies.
Director Steven David Martin has assembled an impressive group of performers (and voices) to tackle this challenging show. Waterhouse and Watts-Whitaker are well matched as the haunted Sweeney and deliriously self-centered Mrs. Lovett. Lovely work is done by Clarice Perez and Sean Cooper as Johanna Barker and her young pursuer Anthony. Good character and vocal work is done by Declan Hackett as rival barber Pirelli and Master William Young as Pirelli’s apprentice.
Witthaus’s Judge Turpin and Anthony Martin’s Beadle Bamford are appropriately villainous, but each performer seems better suited to the other’s role.
This is the Players’ second “stab” at Sweeney, and the technical issues evident in their first production a decade ago remain. The central set piece is huge and really limits what can be done around it as well as the use of projections behind it.
Also in common with the previous production is an excellent live orchestra well executing Sondheim’s complex score. Musical director Les Pfützenreuter conducts an impressive 12-piece orchestra this time around.
The show is about three hours long but it is a very entertaining three hours.
‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ runs through November 8 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater, 115 North St., Healdsburg. Fri & Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 pm. $10-$44. 707.473.9152. raventheater.org
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For folks seeking a full-throated, darkly comedic drama in a more compact time period, True West gets you in and out in about 90 minutes. It’s the tale of two estranged brothers “reconnecting” at their mother’s Southern California home.
Austin (Chris Butler) is a screenwriter working on a script while house sitting for his mother (Cheri L. Miller). An unexpected visitor arrives in the person of his brother, Lee (Kevin Kenerly), a ne’er-do-well who’s set his sight on the neighborhood as plum for the picking.
Austin tolerates his brother’s presence but for a period when he’s supposed to meet with Saul (Tony DeBruno), a Hollywood producer interested in his script. Lee injects himself into the meeting and before long has Saul biting at his own idea for a script. Austin’s script is out, Lee’s idea is in, and Lee asks Austin to develop it into a script. Things do not go well for either of them (or Austin’s typewriter) from this point forward.
Butler and Kenerly are terrific together and their work on stage is absolutely riveting. Shepard’s script is dark, funny, occasionally perplexing, but never uninteresting.
And when’s the last time you had the opportunity to see an art gallery get absolutely trashed with beer cans and toast?
‘True West’ runs through November 8 at The 222, 222 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. Thur & Sat, 7pm; Sun, 2 pm. $35-$105. Students free with ID. 707.473.9152. the222.org
These reviews originally appeared in an edited version in The Healdsburg Tribune.
