STAGE REVIEW : Getting in Moody for ‘Sweeney Todd’

“Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” has always seemed like one of the oddest musicals, at least in plot, ever to come down the pike. A show about one of the first recorded mass murderers, an English barber who turned his clientele into meat pies? Oh sure, that’ll be rich.

But Stephen Sondheim--Broadway’s musical Merlin--saw the Todd legend as a perfect morality tale: the story of a man much-wronged who turned to murder in a vacuum created by bitterness, self-loathing and a need for revenge. This 1979 musical, based on Christopher Bond’s 1973 play, “Sweeney Todd,” even tries to deliver comment on the bankrupt British social structure that could have bred someone like Todd.

Never mind that history is imprecise on Sweeney and that his motivations were not as clear as this show would like us to believe. The demon barber was probably your typical maniac--just another over-achieving psychopath who killed for no obvious reason at all.

But Sondheim was able to put together an effectively atmospheric piece by adding the human element. And Rancho Santiago College, under Barbara Covington’s direction, does more than a respectable job with it by emphasizing the obvious moodiness so central to “Sweeney Todd.”

Covington gets her cast to assume a somber, existential tone, only intermittently leavened by black humor. David C. Palmer’s lighting has a shrouding quality, even the spots are muted. Gil Morales’ set is poverty-stricken, all heavy grays and splintered looks. Karen J. Weller’s costumes add a swatch of color here and there, but they, too, mix easily with the shadows.

Rick Franklin fulfills the need to show Todd as multidimensional. He makes him almost a man to be pitied, a husband who lost his wife and a father who lost his daughter when the evil Judge Turpin (Reed Boyer) engineered his banishment to prison and usurped his family.

There’s little doubt that he’s no ordinary shave-and-trim guy when he raises his straight razor like an icon and envisions the carnage. But there’s a weird humor as well, especially when Franklin gets into all the joking in “A Little Priest,” that tidy cannibalistic number.

As Mrs. Lovett, the opportunistic wench selling the pies below Todd’s shop, Sheryl D. Donchey is a welcome presence. It’s a role that is almost all comic relief, and Donchey wrings much out of it. She’s the right flavoring in this heavy, wicked stew.

‘SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET’

A Rancho Santiago College production of the musical, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Directed by Barbara Covington. With Steven Connor, Rick Franklin, Kathi Cook, Sheryl D. Donchey, Reed Boyer, Steven Jay Warner, Linda May, Michael C. Yarbro, Michael J. MacMullen and Martin Kennedy. Set by Gil Morales. Lighting by David C. Palmer. Costumes by Karen J. Weller. Makeup by Gary Christensen. Musical direction by Gary Mattison. Conductor Todd Helm. Plays Friday through Sunday at 8 p.m. at Phillips Hall, 17th and Bristol streets, Santa Ana. Tickets: $6 to $8. (714) 667-3385.