The Gate's first major musical, Sweeney Todd, looks beyond the gore to the humanity of the famous cut-throat, writes Arminta Wallace
In 1784, a small but intriguing news item appeared in The Annual Register of London. "A most remarkable murder was perpetrated in the following manner," it declared, "by a journeyman barber that lives near Hyde Park Corner, who had been for a long time past jealous of his wife, but could in no way bring it home to her. A young gentleman by chance coming into his master's shop to be shaved and dressed; and, being in liquor, mentioned his having seen a fine girl home to Hamilton-Street, from who he had certain favours the night before, at the same describing her person; the barber, concluding it to be his wife, in the height of his frenzy, cut the gentleman's throat from ear to ear, and absconded."
There's no suggestion that the barber in question was a serial killer, and not so much as a whiff of a meat pie - but from this almost bashful beginning grew the legend of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. And we all know how that one goes: don't we? The cut-throat razor, the lethal barber's chair with a built-in trap-door for despatching victims to the cellar below, where they are converted into confectionery by Todd's accomplice Nellie Lovett. The homicidal barber has become one of the villains we most love to hate; an archetypal figure, almost as well known as Dracula, and recreated in popular culture on a regular basis. One of his most recent incarnations was in a BBC horror film shown in January 2006, with Ray "hard man" Winstone in the lead role. Arguably, however, the most successful dramatic depiction of Sweeney Todd is to be found in Stephen Sondheim's eponymous musical - a new production of which is due to open at the Gate Theatre in Dublin on April 24th.
But how did the story develop from an almost offhand murder report to a spree involving a vast number of victims, body parts floating down the Thames, a lascivious judge and a new and distinctly dodgy pie filling? The mythical elements were there from the beginning. Life was certainly cheap in 18th-century London. As the industrial revolution got up a head of steam, refugees from the shires flocked to the city in search of work; but after years of devastating plague, the capital was ill-equipped to receive them.
If there ever was a "real" Sweeney Todd, his greatest misfortune may have been to be born into this city in the first place. At the time of Todd's birth, the Thames was considered the dirtiest river in Europe. Raw sewage and industrial waste were dropped into London's streets without a qualm, as were unwanted babies - though the latter were sometimes thrown discreetly into dung heaps or open drains. Smallpox and consumption were rife, no one dared walk the streets at night, and class distinctions were rigid and non-negotiable. In the midst of this teeming mass of humanity, however, barbers commanded a modest measure of respect. Besides shearing and shaving, they were trained to carry out a range of treatments - which we would now consider more medical than cosmetic - and a sick person, especially one of limited means, was as likely to seek treatment from a barber as from a doctor.
Historical facts such as these give the Sweeney Todd story added potency. On the surface, of course, it's frankly risible. But if you've ever found yourself sitting in a hairdresser's chair, dripping and vulnerable, and looked up to catch the steely glint of a scissors reflected in the mirror, or if you've ever found a hair in your hamburger . . . well, let's just say there's a reason why even the most incredible urban myths persist.
Enter the impeccably named writer Thomas Peckett Prest, who - almost half a century after the original crime - adapted the murder story into a "penny dreadful" romance entitled The String of Pearls. It ran to 18 instalments in The People's Periodical and Family Library in the autumn of 1846, and was so popular that it was adapted for the stage the following year by one George Dibdin-Pitt. With a suitably startling new title, The String of Pearls: the Fiend of Fleet Street, it was heavily advertised as having been "founded on fact".
THE STORY OF Sweeney Todd could, in fact, have been tailor-made for Victorian melodrama. The Victorian imagination was devoted to the macabre, and the interplay between the domestic and the dreadful - cut-throat razors and homely meat pies - combined with the simplicity of a yah-boo-hiss villain to create the perfect piece of theatre. Why, then, has it proved so enduringly popular in our own time, when most melodramas look incurably dated? One reason may be the ambiguous nature of the character himself. According to Todd tradition, Sweeney Todd was tried at the Old Bailey and hanged at Tyburn in 1802. Yet there is no record of such a man, either in the Old Bailey sessions papers or the Newgate Calendar. Nor are there any contemporary press reports of a trial, a hanging or even records of a barber's shop at 186 Fleet Street.
Nevertheless, the question of whether the demon barber ever really existed has proven to be one of the biggest talking-points of the whole affair - and it's still hotly debated by, among others, the horror writer Peter Haining, who has written two books that purport to show that Todd was indeed a historical character.
But in a postmodern age, perhaps we prefer stories that allow for more than one interpretation of "reality". In 1973 Sweeney Todd was resurrected yet again, this time by the playwright Christopher Bond, who updated the drama to the 20th century and transformed the barber from a melodramatic villain to someone with considerably more psychological clout. And then came Stephen Sondheim. Born in 1930, he has been writing musicals since the late 1950s and is generally credited with revolutionising the genre. Sondheim's version of Sweeney Todd, with a new libretto by Hugh Wheeler, adapted from the versions by Bond and Dibdin-Pitt, was first produced on Broadway in 1979. It was promptly hailed as a masterpiece of music theatre and - thanks to its unpredictable melodies and sophisticated use of diatonic harmony - Sondheim's greatest score.
'IT'S LIKE A soundtrack for a very advanced computer game," says the musical director of the Gate Theatre's new production, Cathal Synnott. "Or a Wagner opera, maybe. Things coming at you from left, right and centre; mood changes, you name it.
"Sondheim writes very densely, and the changes are very swift, and it's extraordinarily well-thought-out. He has left absolutely nothing to chance. If he writes something high, he wants people to sound like they're in pain, you know? He expands the dramatic potential of everybody's voice. It's not like a Rodgers and Hammerstein score, in that there are no real singalongs. But there are some extraordinarily powerful songs."
For director Selina Cartmell, who also directed the hugely successful Festen at the Gate last year, the powerful score presents a perfect opportunity to delve into the emotional depths of the piece. "Everyone has this image of Sweeney Todd killing people in his barber's chair and putting them into mince pies," she says. "Everyone knows that story. But the humanity of the man is something that I'm working towards."
Cartmell's recent production of Shakepeare's Titus Andronicus - oddly enough, another drama involving dodgy meat pies - netted her an Irish Times theatre award for best director.
"Everyone thinks that's a bloodbath as well - but we didn't use any blood on stage at all," she says. "So I'm trying to take a different approach to Sweeney Todd rather than go for the guts and gore. Explore it in a different way rather than go for the obvious, I suppose. The other thing was for myself and the designer to try and create a world that makes sense for today. I really want to try and make as many connections through this piece as possible - especially since it's an Irish company and an Irish cast. I want it to feel very much of today."
LOOKED AT FROM this perspective, the question of Todd's "reality" almost becomes part of the drama. "It's very interesting," Cartmell says. "There are so many different stories and myths - Chinese whispers. I think that all adds to the power, the mystery of the figure. I'd love to leave it at that. Did he exist? Didn't he exist? Who was he? Like Jack the Ripper, I suppose. Everyone thinks that they may know, but they actually don't."
The most often-repeated refrain about serial killers is the one that goes, "but he was a nice, quiet, law-abiding young man and a good neighbour . . . ". Sondheim expresses this perplexity in the lyrics of The Ballad of Sweeney Todd: "His voice was soft, his manner mild/ he seldom laughed, but he often smiled/ He'd seen how civilised men behave/ He never forgot and he never forgave . . . ".
"The lyrics are extraordinary and the music is extraordinary," says Cartmell. "It really does get under your skin; and it has the power to make you feel things. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry - all those things that someone speaking words on stage would never be able to do."
It is an interesting move for the Gate Theatre, because although many productions at the Gate have featured live music as a component - Salomé and The Threepenny Opera, to name but two - this is the first time a major piece of music theatre has been staged at the venue. Sweeney Todd will use a musical arrangement for a seven-piece band, made by the musical director's brother, the composer Andrew Synnott, performed by an onstage band featuring Cora Venus Lunny (violin), Susan Doyle (flute/piccolo), Jane Hughes (cello), Conor Sheil (clarinet/bass), Noel Eccles (percussion) and John Walsh (trumpet/flugle), with Cathal Synnott on keyboards.
"At the moment," says Cathal Synnott, "we're still wondering how it's all going to come together. We're biting our nails and chomping at the bit, really." But not eating meat pies? "No. We're eating Chinese, actually."
• Sweeney Todd opens at the Gate Theatre on Tue