‘Sweeney Todd’ Review: Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford Shine in Broadway Revival

Up until about 10.45pm on Thursday evening, this critic thought he had seen the best coup de théâtre of this Broadway season at the end of A Doll’s House starring Jessica Chastain, in which her Nora walks out of her home and… well, it will still go unrevealed here in case any readers have bought a ticket. But then came the last thrilling moment of the zipping, glorious revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, booking to Jan 14, 2024)—and, sorry A Doll’s House, you have been aced.

It is not just a visual feat in that last second. A tangibly delighted audience was ready to applaud. The final exits from the stage were in process, the last crescendo of notes reached. And then, bam, the ecstatic response of the audience anticipating their cue to stand suddenly gained the cherry on top of a gasp of collective shock. In that closing moment—like much of the show, thrilling and arch all at once—an exquisite production outdid itself. (Expect a Sondheim vs. Sondheim situation at this year’s Tony Awards, with this production likely up against Into the Woods for Best Revival; Sweeney Todd the third lovely Sondheim revival in New York following Merrily We Roll Along off-Broadway.)

This Sweeney is an intricate, witty piece of storytelling— from an adaptation by Christopher Bond and book by Hugh Wheeler—with gorgeously frisson-filled orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick. The show, directed with imaginative brio by Thomas Kail, is not fault-free (mostly to do with its deficiencies in its lack of sound and amplification, and its design), but those faults are not fundamentally undermining.

Read more at The Daily Beast.