College Times

Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: Calendar

Media Credit: Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts

Ever waited too long to change your razor's blade - usually because you're too broke/lazy to shill out $20 bucks for a friggin' 4-pack of replacements (thanks a bunch, Gillette) - only to suffer unwanted mutilation from all four rusty, dull blades at once? The humiliation of blood-spotted toilet paper clinging to one's face in class can't be overstated, no, but it could be worse.

A lot worse, at least according to the victims of Sweeney Todd, the "demon barber of Fleet Street", title character and grizzly star of ASU Lyric Opera Theatre's latest production.

Todd's badassery is more well-known than ever, thanks to several successful runs of "Sweeney Todd" on Broadway and the 2007 musical-but-not-at-all-marketed-as-such film starring Johnny Depp, but his story isn't any less gruesome because of it.

London barber Benjamin Barber, avenging his wife's tragic death and injustices at the hands of vile antagonist Judge Turpin, returns from falsely-ordered exile a changed man, quite literally changes his name to Sweeney Todd, and murders unsuspecting wrong-doers in his barber's chair with his straight-razor. As if a slit throat isn't gross enough, his partner in crime, the fanatical Mrs. Lovett, helps cover Todd's tracks by having the victim's bodies baked into meat pies, only to be sold to unknowing customers at her pie shop. Yucky.

It's the kind of vile, despicable, twisted, gruesome stuff that certainly isn't offered up in "Cats" or "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (or at least the versions we've come across), so big props are certainly owed the Lyric Opera Theatre and the ASU Wind Ensemble for tackling such an off-the-path opéra comique.

And it looks like Gillette owes both ASU and College Times beaucoup bucks for developing such an ace marketing campaign for their next line of crap-ass razors: "It could be worse… Just ask Sweeney Todd!"

"Sweeney Todd", Evelyn Smith Music Theatre, 50 E. Gammage Parkway, Tempe, 480.965.6536, Opens Thursday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m., visit herbergerinstitute.asu.edu for further dates and times, $7-$22

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