By:Susan Lin
If you harbor a fear of old-fashioned barbers who wield one of those long, thin razors right by a boy or man's face, then please be advised: Don't see "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," a musical offering by Hofstra USA Productions and opening Friday at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse in Hempstead.
In one especially creepy scene, at the opening of Act II, a crowd of people are in a local restaurant drinking and yelling over each other's voices. They are there to enjoy Mrs. Lovett's famous mince pies. Meanwhile, upstairs, Sweeney Todd is pacing around his barbershop by himself, clearly with something rattling on his mind.
What do you imagine a barber filled with deep vengeance against the world might be thinking about doing? Well, you're right. Sweeney Todd does it in a bloody way over and over again, and then some more. If you're one who enjoys a good action movie where every other person gets mauled, then, this might be something for you.
Gary John La Rosa, the director of this staging of "Sweeney Todd, said he is well aware that the musical is off-putting. "It's always been a controversial piece" mainly because of the depiction of murder on stage, he said.
Nonetheless, gory as it may be, off-putting everyone is probably as impossible as pleasing everyone. "Sweeney Todd," which debuted in 1979 on Broadway with Angela Lansbury in the leading role of Mrs. Lovett, now enjoys the status of a cult classic, said La Rosa.
According to the director, Sweeney Todd had been documented in British drugstore novels and popular folklore for more than 150 years. "There's no proof whether he existed or not, but the name 'Sweeney Todd' became synonymous with the 'Bogey Man.' He's a legend," said La Rosa.
The musical takes place in London of the mid-1800s, when the industrial revolution was beginning to take hold. At that time, said La Rosa, there was a very large lower class, and those at the bottom of society found it very hard to rise up. Disease and "factories full of children" were part of everyday life. "The picture is not of quaint old London," he said.
In such a setting, Sweeney Todd is sentenced to exile in Australia by a malicious judge for a crime he knew the barber did not commit. Sweeney eventually returns to find his wife and daughter taken from him. Because he was wronged, the barber is driven to take revenge on the judge as well as the world in general. Sweeney devises a scheme with the help of Mrs. Lovett, the maker of popular mince pies.
La Rosa, who is staging "Sweeney Todd" for the first time, said "it's probably the most challenging and rewarding piece I've worked on." The musical was challenging for him, La Rosa said, because "it's a very difficult emotional piece. It deals with murder, revenge, poverty, class struggle, and history. And, you want to do justice to it."
La Rosa, though, has ample experience. His directorial credits include other musicals such as "Marry Me A Little," in 1988 at the Queens Theater in the Park, and "Nunsense" at the Cortland Repertory Theater, in Cortland, N.Y. For this fall, La Rosa is also set to direct "The King And I," at the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera in New Mexico.
The actors in the play are as varied as the characters they portray: Bruce Rebold of Syosset plays Sweeney Todd. He is otherwise a doctor and heads the ob/gyn department at the North Shore University Hospital in Jericho.
Rebold, who arrived at one of the rehearsals last week in scrubs, said, "My day basically consists of waking up, going to work, running to a rehearsal, showering and then going to sleep."
Brian Muellers plays Anthony Hope, a character connected with the plot as someone who loves the barber's daughter. Muellers works as a member of the Nassau County Legislature, representing District 18.
The cast also includes Craig Woythaler of Rockville Centre, who plays the evil judge's right-hand man Beadle Bamford. Woythaler, 23, said that he enjoys playing Beadle because the character is different from the ones he usually plays. "If you play one type for too long, you kind of get into a rut, and you can find it difficult to play other types.
"I tend to play nice roles, but this character is a little bit on the not-nice side," he said.
