Jason Alexander and Stephen Sondheim's 'Sweeney Todd' proves to be a bloody good match in La Mirada

They don’t marque musicals similar “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” anymore.

The ambition connected show is awe-inspiring to an astir alarming degree. Consider the lyrical and orchestral complexity of Stephen Sondheim’s score, the mode Hugh Wheeler’s publication (from an adaptation by Christopher Bond) blends fearfulness and drama arsenic if the 2 were earthy bedmates and a accumulation conception that views the worldly of a fiendish penny dreadful done a Brechtian lens.

Could the American theatre ever again propulsion disconnected specified an outrageously superb philharmonic experiment? Harold Prince’s 1979 Broadway premiere, starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, seems similar eons agone successful presumption of originative possibility.

This is the crushed revivals, specified arsenic the coagulated 1 that opened Saturday astatine La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts nether the absorption of Jason Alexander, are truthful important. They punctual america not lone of the richness of our theatrical past but they besides situation our artists and producers to imagination bigger successful the future.

Will Swenson stars arsenic “Sweeney Todd” astatine the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

(Jason Niedle / TETHOS)

Alexander, the beloved “Seinfeld” prima who made his Broadway debut successful Sondheim and George Furth’s “Merrily We Roll Along” successful 1981, knows a happening oregon 2 astir American musicals, having served for a clip arsenic the creator manager of L.A.’s bygone Reprise Theatre Company. His absorption has grown successful sophistication and easiness since helium staged Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Sunday successful the Park With George” for Reprise successful 2007.

Alexander’s accumulation of “Sweeney Todd” has breadth and heft, but besides intimacy and lightness. The scenic plan by Paul Tate dePOO III savors the show’s Grand Guignol flavors portion leaving plentifulness of flexibility for antic comedy.

The barber chair, the locus of Sweeney’s revenge connected the heartless cruelty of a Victorian London that wrecked his life, isn’t the elaborate contraption of different productions. His execution victims don’t autumn down a chute aft their throats are slit during their shave and a haircut. They person to beryllium tilted into a dumpster that is moved into position, but Alexander makes the comic astir of these clumsier signifier mechanics.

Will Swenson, the accomplished Broadway actor, offers an unusually sympathetic yet ne'er sentimentalized Sweeney. He understands that Sweeney is archetypal and foremost a victim. The lust for vengeance yet gets the amended of him, but Swenson leads america measurement by measurement to depravity done sorrow, injustice and humiliation.

Andrew Polec, right, with the institution of “Sweeney Todd” astatine the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

(Jason Niedle / TETHOS)

He’s man-made alternatively than a earthy monster. The aforesaid could beryllium said of Lesli Margherita’s Mrs. Lovett, the proprietor of a filthy and failing Fleet Street pastry shop, but it’s a shakier case. She’s the 1 who gets the agleam thought of putting each those corpses Sweeney is intent connected piling up into culinary use. Meat is successful abbreviated supply, and the taboo of cannibalism is nary deterrent to a pistillate who has taken to bosom the jungle instrumentality of 19th-century British society: Eat oregon beryllium eaten.

Swenson and Margherita are singing marvels, but Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett’s numbers acceptable up Olympian challenges, vocally arsenic good arsenic lyrically. Their comically macabre Act 1 showstopper, “A Little Priest,” successful which they gleefully ideate the assortment of quality pies, needs a small much clip successful the oven. Margherita, who played Mrs. Wormwood successful “Matilda the Musical” connected Broadway, is simply a deft clown. Swenson whitethorn beryllium a measurement slower successful this regard, but helium plays it perfectly by accentuating the delight Sweeney takes successful the merriment of Mrs. Lovett’s perverse rhyming game.

Swenson, who starred successful the Broadway premiere of “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical,” has a lush baritone. But Sweeney’s descent into an adjacent little scope produces a dependable that emerges from unimaginable depths. Finding the quality successful that hellish croak — thing that Josh Groban was capable to bash successful the past Broadway revival — tin beryllium exceptionally difficult. It’s Swenson’s elaborate quality enactment arsenic a vocalist that impresses most. His handling of “By the Sea,” the Act 2 duet with Margherita, forensically details Sweeney’s increasing distaste for the conjugal fantasies of his spouse successful crime.

Allison Sheppard and Chris Hunter prima successful “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” astatine the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

(Jason Niedle / TETHOS)

The romanticist constituent of Sondheim’s people is champion captured successful the gorgeous singing of Chris Hunter’s Anthony Hope, whose crooning of “Johanna” provokes an epidemic of goosebumps passim La Mirada Theatre. Allison Sheppard’s Johanna, Sweeney’s girl nether the fastener and cardinal of the wicked Judge Turpin (Norman Large), warbles arsenic melodiously arsenic the caged birds that reflector her plight.

Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper’s Beadle Bamford, the judge’s henchman, has a malicious ebullience each his own. He’s not arsenic unapologetically hammy arsenic Andrew Polec’s Pirelli, the tonsorial con antheral who adopts a fake mustache and an adjacent faker Italian accent, but helium lends the philharmonic a satiric gaiety.

Meghan Andrews’ Beggar Woman and Austyn Myers’ Tobias, giving dependable to the downtrodden Dickensian masses, infuse the accumulation with the charm of their singing. Myers makes the astir of 1 of the musical’s astir beloved numbers, “Not While I’m Around,” Tobias’ duet with Mrs. Lovett that some performers bring to poignant, demented life.

Austyn Myers, center, with the institution of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” astatine the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

(Jason Niedle / TETHOS)

Alexander’s staging occasionally overdoes the comic exuberance. The ensemble-cum-chorus, burdened with overblown asylum imagery, is sometimes called upon to inject a circus-like atmosphere, implicit with acrobatics. Lee Martino’s choreography, similar the accumulation arsenic a whole, is astatine its champion erstwhile observing decorous constraints.

If immoderate of the much seductive colors of Sondheim’s people get mislaid successful the acoustic shuffle, it whitethorn person much to bash with the dependable strategy than Darryl Archibald’s euphony direction. Unfortunately, the shattering quality of the euphony is sometimes swallowed successful the devilish din.

The stark ocular panache of the production, however, is an awesome show to behold. Jared A. Sayeg’s crepuscular lighting and Kate Bergh’s humanizing costumes lend opposition and texture to the world-building scenic design.

Hats disconnected to this Southern California “Sweeney Todd” and to La Mirada Theatre for undertaking this Herculean feat. Sondheim and Wheeler’s haunted masterpiece doesn’t request perfection to unrecorded again.