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Production response for: Sweeney Todd
Produced by: University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Respondent First Name: Andrew
LastName Vorder Bruegge
The Show's Director is: Christine Morris
NOMINATIONS BY RESPONDENT:
This respondent's IRENE RYAN SCHOLARSHIP Emily Mark
AUDITION nominee is:
This respondent's BARBIZON SCENIC nominee is: Matthew
Emerson
This respondent's BARBIZON COSTUME nominee is: Katie Estler
Horney
This respondent's BARBIZON LIGHTING nominee is: Claire Garrard
This respondent's MAKEUP nominee is:
This respondent's SOUND nominee is:
This respondent nominted the following STUDENT
DIRECTOR:
This respondent nominated the following STUDENT STAGE Kelsey Daye Lutz
MANAGER:
This respondent nominated the following STUDENT
DRAMATURGE:
FacultyDirectorNomName
FacultyDesignerNomName
FacultyTechnologistNomName
RESPONDENT'S NARRATIVE COMMENTS:
The respondent provided the following comments on CHOICE OF PLAY:
This musical is definitely an appropriate choice for the UNCG theatre program.
Sondheim’s musicals always offer many challenges, but this one stands out as
the artistic pinnacle in his oeuvre. The demands placed on the singers, the
orchestra, the designers, and technicians are enormous. The UNCG program
stands as one of the finest in the region, so this musical calls upon the excellent
resources of the entire program to do its best work. And the UNCG theatre
program certainly affirmed its stellar reputation with this production. For the
performance I attended, moreover, the theatre program was hosting a reception
for is patrons before the show. The director also brought to my attention that a
special matinee performance would occur the next day for 500 prospective
theatre majors. A production of Sweeney Todd, especially one done so
impressively, is certainly a fantastic vehicle for showcasing the department to
these two important constituencies.
The respondent provided the following comments on DIRECTING:
The director envisioned a conventional interpretation for this production,
wisely eschewing any ill-conceived ideas about imposing some sort of
“concept” on the script. The director succeeded completely in bringing to life
the dark, cynical, cruel, and destructive world that Sondheim and Wheeler
originally created. The show is a “musical thriller,” and that’s what the
director brought to life. The production told the story clearly and powerfully.
Particularly gratifying was the brisk attitude that pervaded the entire
production. Curtains rang down quickly. The chorus moved onstage and
offstage with grim, purposeful vigor. Moving scenery glided or flew with
mechanical precision and speed. Even the stage crew moved at that
wonderfully rapid and efficient pace. All the performers seemed to have clear
guidance from the director about spacing, relationships, pacing, and
performance style—and all the performers were occupying the same fictional
world as a result. Everything about the production worked towards the
powerful climax of suspense and irony—when Joanna sits in the barber chair.
Members of the audience could be heard gasping and groaning.
The respondent provided the following comments on ACTING:
All members of the cast demonstrated mastery of the technically challenging
score and script. Performers spoke the appropriate dialect with consistency and
authenticity. Mr. Campbell was most impressive when he unleashed the
smoldering rage of his character through his voice and powerful physical
presence. Ms. Mark gave a particularly compelling performance. First of all,
her vocal ability was extremely impressive. Moreover, she sidestepped the
inevitable comparison to Angela Lansbury by capitalizing on her own
youthfulness. She brought to the role a younger woman’s sexuality that
became all the more dangerous to those around her (and to herself). As a
result, Mrs. Lovett was a character whom the audience could easily see was
driven like so many of the other characters by her own desire. She was just as
vulnerable to self-destructive, impulsive action as Todd, Turpin, Joanna, or
Anthony. Ms. Mark’s understated performance became extremely effective in
the second act. We saw Mrs. Lovett engaging in domestic chit-chat while
sitting complacently on her settee knitting, all in a sociopathic, cynical,
ghoulishly pragmatic masquerade of respectability. This tableau embodied the
observations in the Directors’ Notes about “the increasingly mechanized world
of the Industrial Revolution, where the gulf between the haves and have nots
was ever widening, and greed was . . . a great motivator.” It strikes home in
this era of torture, suspension of the writ of habeus corpus, imperialistic
occupation, mind-boggling corporate profits, outsourcing of services to
desperate third-world countries, tax give-aways to corporations, and
cancellation of health insurance for impoverished children. Ms. Burrus and
Mr. Douglas sang with stunning clarity and sweetness, as befitting their roles.
It was easy to warm to their characters as the show progressed and their love
intensified.
The respondent provided the following comments on DESIGN ELEMENTS:
The designers deserve nothing but high praise for their efforts. They all
worked cohesively to support the director’s vision of the production. The
scenic and costume designers shared a tight color palette, and their visual
power came through with stunning force during those few moments when large
numbers of characters were on stage. The lighting design succeeded in a
difficult assignment—to render that dark mood of the story and at the same
time put light on characters so that they can be seen. The moving gears in the
scenery evoked all that is magical about the theatre—not to mention the
enormous amount of work invested in them. We wanted to see that wonderful
effect put to more use in the production. For example, when the Todd-Lovett
partnership is running like a well oiled machine in “God, That’s Good!” the
power of that song could be reinforced by the smooth, relentless turning of the
monumental cogs. On the one hand, the use of the “hash-mark” gobos and
low-intensity illumination on the scenic surfaces communicated the dangerous,
dark, ominous world of the show. On the other hand, the lighting designer
poured intense, white light in very tight pools on the individual scenes all about
the stage. We could SEE performers’ faces! It is no small feat to accomplish
these two goals simultaneously as a lighting designer.
The respondent provided the following comments on TECH ELEMENTS:
The execution of the designs was as impressive as their imaginative
conceptualization. Everything about the lighting, costumes, properties, and
scenery presented a finished, professional look, including the act curtain and
the warming lights upon it. The quality of performance by the orchestra
rivaled any professional orchestra anywhere. This production confronted the
artists with innumerable technical challenges, and the production staff met
these challenges with great mastery. The millinery, make-up and wig
craftwork of Ms. Kurtzman, Howell and Foreman deserve special
commendation. Electronic amplification of musicals presents an agonizing
conundrum to theatre companies that do not have the million-dollar budgets of
Broadway. Still the UNCG program used good technology to support the
volume of the principal performers. Every solo voice came through with
strength and clarity. Such technological achievement made it all the more
disappointing that the chorus was not electronically amplified at a level equal
to that of the principals or the orchestra. The chorus offered a vital component
to the overall story and sang extremely challenging music very well. Their
superb vocal contribution to the production was positively overpowered by the
orchestra. Use of stage microphones might have resolved that problem, if it
was technically possible to use them. The sound engineering triumphed
magnificently over one very difficult logistical problem. The performers and
the orchestra needed to be amplified so that all could be heard by the audience
and so that orchestra and cast could hear each other. This is not an easy task,
especially when the orchestra is situated in a Bayreuth-like catacomb beneath
the stage. Mr. Shearin deserves special praise for this work on this problem.
There are miscellaneous topics worthy of mention that do not fit clearly into
any one of the categories, and I will add them arbitrarily at this point. The
KC/ACTF response form offers no place to acknowledge the work of the
musical director, fight choreographer or specialty craft/technical work by
students. I can only hope that the form can be revised to admit those
possibilities as award nomination categories. In this production, students
worked in all these categories, and so they deserve the opportunity to be
honored alongside the student stage manager, for example. I do want to give
particular credit to Mr. Matthews for his achievement as musical director. As
noted already several times here, this score offers enormous challenges. He
obviously brought the entire company to a high level of professional quality for
this production.
The playbill for the production raised a number of questions. The choice of
black ink on red paper made it difficult reading for this aging baby-boomer. A
choice of higher contrast colors between background and text would have
alleviated this problem. On the cover, there are logos of the School of Music
and Theatre Department. This suggests that the production was a collaboration
between these two UNCG programs. The rest of the playbill, however, does
not give much credit to the School of Music. Theatre faculty and graduate
students are listed, for example, but Music faculty and graduate students are
not listed. Moreover, there is no credit for a conductor of the orchestra. Was
the musical director the conductor? If yes, then Mr. Matthews deserves the
appropriate credit for his excellent work in BOTH important and substantial
capacities. The listing of the members of the orchestra did not indicate if any
of these musicians were hired professionals, faculty, graduate students, or
undergraduate students. That would be useful information. Mr. York’s
graphic image on the cover of the playbill and on posters for the production
baffled me more than anything else. The image looks as if there is an eyeball
with a cloud above it, enclosed by an arm. It took quite a bit of work to discern
the representation of Sweeney slashing the throat of a victim whose mouth is
open in a scream.
These expressions of concerns about the playbill should be taken in perspective
of the larger picture. The production was impressive, and the playbill should
communicate the same high levels of professionalism that radiate from every
other aspect of the production. The students, faculty and audiences at UNCG
deserve it, indeed. This production validated the reputation and truly fine
quality of the juggernaut-like theatre and music programs at UNCG. All who
were involved in the production of Sweeney Todd should feel great satisfaction
about their achievements. I drove home the next day reflecting about the 500
prospective students who were arriving on campus: Who wouldn’t want to
study there? Who wouldn’t want to work there? Congratulations to the
Theatre Department and the School of Music.