If you go:

What: Sweeney Todd

When: Tonight at 8 p.m. (runs through May 10)

Where: Storch Theater at Syracuse Stage

Cost: $16 for students, $18 for public

Eric Bilitch hasn’t seen ‘Sweeney Todd’ on the movie screen. He didn’t want to.

After being cast as the title character in the Syracuse University drama department’s production, the senior acting major pushed away all of his previous ideas about the show and studied the script on a daily basis.

And upon returning from a semester in New York City, he arrived at rehearsal ready to collaborate.

‘Sweeney Todd’ opens tonight at 8 p.m. at Syracuse Stage, with tickets costing $16 for students, available at Syracuse Stage box office.

The musical is set in mid-19th century London and follows the arrival of barber Sweeney Todd after returning from being exiled to Australia for 15 years. He returns determined to find the family a local judge stole from him. With revenge on his mind, Todd begins killing everyone who stands in his way. His accomplice is downstairs neighbor Mrs. Lovett, who takes this as an opportunity to create a new meat pie recipe – a great way to dispose of the victims’ bodies.

‘This is terrible, slum of the earth, industrial revolution London,’ said Chrissy Malon, a senior musical theater major who is one of two actresses playing Mrs. Lovett. ‘It is dirty. It is grotesque and just kind of thinking those images helps you adapt. It’s the language, you can’t help but go to those dark places – I found it impossible to not go to those crazy places because it’s all laid out for you.’

The cast for the challenging musical is composed of 26 students and has been rehearsing the music all semester, enduring six weeks of full rehearsals. The show is musically complicated, with numerous patter songs, in which the music is very fast and tell a story, Salatino said.

But along with the depth of the music and text, is a complicated storyline meant to expose the darker side of humanity with the only point of contrast being the love between Johanna and Anthony, played by juniors Catherine Charlebois and Brendon Stimson. But the majority of the world created in ‘Sweeney Todd’ centers around the relationship between Todd and Mrs. Lovett – a very twisted love.

‘There is so much love and desperation in the character, and that’s what makes it so beautiful,’ Malon said. ‘She does terrible things. … because she loves him so much that she is willing to do anything to make him forget his wife and his child so that he can be with her. And I feel like everything she does, be it completely terrible, is out of deep, deep desperate love.’

The stage is a maze of metal and moving stairs. Playing a central role is Mrs. Lovett’s bakery and Todd’s barber shop above. Revealed in the second act is the chair – Todd’s silver barber chair where he slices the throats of his victims.

The construction of the chair itself has been one complication the show has encountered, Salatino said. After Todd kills the victims, the chair – at the pull of a handle – sends them to Mrs. Lovett’s kitchen below.

‘There has been a whole interesting way of looking at the construction of this chair that’s going to work and how they drop and how safe is it and it has to be scary at the same time,’ Salatino said.

Though many will know the Todd’s story from the Johnny Depp film released last winter, there are numerous differences between the film and musical. After all, the film did not stay true to its musical roots. In the SU drama version, people are singing all the time.

Another noticeable difference will be the blood – or lack there of.

‘We use blood, but it’s not like in the movie where it’s gushing out and veins are popping out, but we have a special handled razor…’ Salatino said. ‘Should I be telling these secrets? You have to come and see the rest, I can’t say much more than that – you see them get sliced.’

kmimamur@syr.edu

Published on April 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm