Jane Coyle reviews Todd at the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast.
Todd
Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast
Jane Coyle
It is alleged that, some years ago, an unholy alliance stalked the dark streets of London, luring innocent victims into a shabby but innocuous looking boarding house, where a dreadful fate awaited them.
If the horrific story sounds similar to many others unearthed in our own time, that is entirely one of the points of the exercise daringly embarked upon by Kabosh director Karl Wallace and composer Conor Mitchell. Here, the partnership is between the crone-like piemaker Mrs Lovett and her lodger Sweeney Todd, the best barber in Fleet Street. She makes the pastry and the gravy, while he provides the fillings. As demand for her delicacies increases, so does the need for a ready supply of content.
And so the bloodbath escalates into a madness of potentially Faustian proportions, stunningly captured in music, mime and visual effects (by designers Diego Pitarch and William Fricker and lighting designer Amy Smyth).
Wallace and Mitchell have gone way back to the earliest days of the demon barber legend - to the manuscripts of its original author Dibden Pitt and the Penny Dreadful magazines, where they have uncovered a rich seam of inspiration for this authentic, extravagant slice of Victorian melodrama and music hall. In its floridly dark presentation, complex piano score (played live by Mitchell), discordant instrumental inserts, bitter satire and expressionist performance, comparisons with Brecht and Weil, "Struhlpeter" ("Shockheaded Peter") and Carl Sternheim do not go amiss.
And how refreshing it is to be presented with a genuine piece of European theatre, forged and crafted in Belfast, in a daring feat of on-the-hoof creativity. For the words and music were written, not in advance of but during rehearsals, in the space of just 21 days and in close collaboration with the excellent cast of actor-musicians - Alison Harding, Jon Trenchard, Christian Edwards, Diane O'Keeffe and Sean Kearns as Todd.
This swaggering production is at the point where what is called for is some pruning of text and score in order to cut to the chase of the rise and fall of the central character, instil a frisson of terror into its audience and explode into into a sharp-edged chilling finale.
Todd is at the Old Museum until March 25th (048-90233332) then tours to Riverside, Coleraine (March 27th), Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge (March 29th), The Helix, Dublin ((March 30th to April 2nd), Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford (April 14th), Garage Theatre, Monaghan (April 15th), Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen (April 17th) and Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick (April 22nd to 24th)
