Signature Wraps Season of Sondheim with Sweeney Todd

Two days after Stephen Sondheim passed away in 2021, I attended a production of Rent at Signature Theatre. I was looking forward to one particular moment: how would the audience react to the Song “La Vie Boehme” during the lyric “To Sontag, to Sondheim, to anything taboo?”

Cover photo: Bryonha Marie (Mrs. Lovett) and Nathaniel Stampley (Sweeney Todd) in Sweeney Todd at Signature Theatre. Photo by Christopher Mueller.

I was in good company. The theatre shop sold t-shirts emblazoned with the lyric. The audience cheered along with me at “To Sondheim.” Signature dedicated their following season to Sondheim. Filled with productions, programming, and social media content, “So Many Possibilities: A Season of Sondheim” celebrated Signature’s favorite composer.

Saving the best for last, Signature is wrapping the season with their fourth production of what they consider to be Sondheim’s masterpiece: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Before the show’s opening, the production had already caught my eye with a social media video featuring the cast singing the opening number with one noticeable tweak:

“Sweeney pondered and Sweeney planned, like a f*cking machine, he planned.”

I certainly didn’t remember that lyric. I was hooked.

Signature confirmed that Sondheim himself made the lyrical change during the Kennedy Center’s Celebration of Sondheim. They upheld the decision and allowed it to open them to more creative updates that make this Sweeney unlike any other.

We know the story: Benjamin Barker is unjustly exiled when a judge lusts for his wife. Fifteen years later, he returns as Sweeney Todd, ready for revenge with the help of Mrs. Lovett, baker of the worst pies in London. We wouldn’t want to give the rest of it away.

Some production values like the iconic train whistle make the production feel like classic Sweeney while others like the notably not two-story set immediately indicate we aren’t in for a copy-and-paste production. Choices that brought a smile to my face like the butcherhouse-esque set design at the bottom of Act I or Mrs. Lovett’s gaudy dress in Act II which pays homage to the pussies she was previously poppin’ into pies are fresh, fun, and enough to make any Sondheim purist clutch their pearls.

Signature’s Sweeney Todd honors Sondheim not by imitation, but by upholding the sentiment in his iconic lyrics from another of his masterpieces, Sunday in the Park with George: “Stop worrying if your vision is new. Let others make that decision—they usually do. Just keep moving on.”

Sweeney Todd runs at Signature Theatre May 16 – July 9, 2023.

Purchase tickets online at sigtheatre.org.