Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd
The Diabolical Barber of Fleet Street | A musical thriller by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler, and Christopher Bond | German adaptation by Wilfried Steiner and Roman Hinze

A serial killer is on the loose in London. He murders men at random: with a razor from his barber’s chair, when they are at his mercy with their throats exposed. Behind the monster lies a desperate man. The barber Benjamin Barker has returned from prison after 15 years and, under the name Sweeney Todd, is taking revenge not only on his former tormentor but on nearly everyone who crosses his path. His tormentor is Judge Turpin, who wrongfully imprisoned him in order to steal his wife, Lucy, and his daughter, Joanna, away from him. Now free again, Sweeney Todd learns of his wife’s alleged suicide and his daughter’s captivity in the judge’s house. Together with the innkeeper Mrs. Lovett—who not only bakes the worst pies in London but also dreams of a life together with “Mr. T,” he begins his bloodthirsty quest for revenge, which drives him further and further into madness until, in a woman he has murdered, he recognizes his beloved Lucy and completely loses his mind. 

With this work, originally based on a story from a “penny dreadful,” composer and multiple award winner Stephen Sondheim created a musical in a class of its own, which he himself described as a “black operetta.” Through striking duets and poignant ballads, he paints the portrait of a man who loses himself due to the injustice he suffers and who, despite—or perhaps precisely because of—the vigilante justice he metes out, finds no redemption.