NEW YORK—Ghosts from the past return demanding vengeance in the 1979 Tony-Award winning musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” The current U.K. production, now at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre, allows the audience to get very up close and personal with the story. With meat pies hot and fresh and a scintillating production so small, you can literally reach out and touch the characters.
The entire musical is enhanced by its presentation as a wonderfully laid out, site-specific production. This particular revival begins at Harrington’s Pie and Mash Shop—established in 1908 and the oldest continually operating shop of its kind in London. Much of the audience sits on benches running the length of a series of long tables. This allows the actors to walk and sing atop them and indulge in several bits of audience interaction.
