When you watch, just relish the entertainment

Audie Gemora and Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, the lead actors of Repertory Philippines's "Sweeney Todd."

MANILA - If you find yourself entertained by slit throats and meat pies made from human carcasses, don't fret. It's supposed to be entertaining.

The recent showing of "Sweeney Todd" is the Repertory Philippines's second performance of the popular 1970s Broadway musical. It runs from November 14 to December 13 at OnStage in Greenbelt 1, Makati.

It was first mounted in the Philippines during 1982 by the late director Zeneida Amador. This time, it is directed by the team of Baby Barredo and Michael Williams.

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" first appeared as a villainous character in the 1840s series "The String of Pearls."

Todd, who murders customers in his barber shop, was also featured in the Hollywood film of the same name starring Johnny Depp.

Mesmerizing music

One of the successful elements of the musical, written by Stephen Sondheim, is obviously its music.

Whether it is the whole gamut of arias or expressive renditions of each character's thoughts, words, actions, and motives; or a one-liner repartee between two characters - music stands out as the mesmerizing tool of the whole production.

Gerard Salonga, a seasoned stage musician, directs and conducts the reliable FILharmoniKA orchestra, who lend depth and dimension to this theatrical piece.

Some faulty technical aspects, as far as the premiere presentation is concerned, are poor lighting in some parts of the play.

Faces, or even profiles of the actors are not fully lighted to achieve effective emotional tensions. However, this can be overlooked, given the noir (dark) nature of the play and its subject matter.

Authenticity

Most of the props onstage are movable and improvised, including the adjacent shops of Sweeney Todd's (Audie Gemora) barber shop, supposedly located on the second floor of the ailing widow Mrs. Lovett (Menchu Launchengco-Yulo).

These are built to withstand strain, even up to the last performance.

What is impressive and breathtaking, though, is the play's use of a sliding device where Todd, the revengeful barber, would be able to dispose of the bodies of his dead customers, whose throats he had just sliced open.

The bodies plummet to a lower chamber, where Mrs. Lovett proceeds to grind up human carcasses for her now-popular meat pies.

Wardrobe could pass for authentic 19th century Fleet Street wear, and serve as a reflection of each character's social standing in English society.

Historically, however, Fleet Street was never known to be a haven for serial killers or shady characters like Todd and Lovett. Instead, it housed Courts and the British press.

For authenticity, Gemora and Launchengco-Yulo adopt British (or in Yulo's case Cockney) accents with flair and distinction.

No small role

Performers sing lines during small exchanges and choruses alike. Newcomer theater actor Marvin Ong (who plays Tobias Ragg, an orphan boy adopted by Mrs. Lovett) is laudable and credible as the limping baker's house help.

Ong ably carries out tunes, just like Franco Laurel, who plays the young sailor "Anthony" - who falls in love with Todd's estranged daughter Johanna (played by Lena Mackenzie).

Roger Chua as "Judge Turpin" (who stole Todd's wife and sent the barber on his demonic spiral) is emphatically devilish.

His stooge, Beadle (Robbie Guevarra) is one villainous lapdog who catches the audience's attention and oddly, their admiration.

Liesl Batucan as the "Beggar Woman" (who turns out to be Todd's long-lost wife Lucy), essays her role as an insane homeless woman with empathy and versimilitude (believability).

The rest of the cast are dependable. Even the chorus - which includes the Repertory's Board of Director Joy Virata, are professional and engaging - however small their roles are.

As Virata puts it, "There's no small role for good actors."

Political correctness?

No doubt, Repertory Philippines’s current production of “Sweeney Todd” is another look at what eclectic Philippine theater is all about.

While the country is in search of "national identity" or a unified vision for the country's development, so too is local theater.

"Sweeney Todd" probably becomes a metaphor of Philippine society, where audiences (like citizens) are spectators to blatant crimes (corruption, murder, etc.) - but find them oddly normal, just like Todd's serial murders at his barber shop becomes normal after the first victim's throat is cut.

Todd murders his clients with alarming regularity, both to practice for his real prey (Judge Turpin, who stole his wife and ruined his life) and to prevent any Fleet Street man to discover his real identity.

Even Lovett, the mad baker, subscribes to a skewed perception of morality: that it is a "man-eat-man" (cutthroat) world out there, so why not pursue the cliche and literally feed humans the meat of other humans in glorified cannibalism?

This is only if you think about such meanings. If not, then take it as yet another entertaining spectacle. Report by Boy Villasanta.