Shana Dirik is a force of nature. Any production she’s in is
enhanced by her presence. Now she’s her own theater company! Last evening her
brand new enterprise, THEATER UNCORKED, staged a staggering, one-time-only
event in Harvard Square
I’m reminded of the (one performance only) concert productions
of operas performed in the many cathedrals in England
and France
While music director Gina Naggar conducted the sonorous
orchestra, director Allison Olivia Choat maneuvered almost three dozen performers
on and off the platform (which I wish had been raked so we could see better).
Discipio broke my heart again, as he did at Metro years ago, when Sweeney remembers
his infant daughter, singing his sorrowful “I’ll never see my girl again.”
Dirik makes your blood run cold when Mrs. Lovett answers her shop boy’s tender
pledge of protection with his own words, even as she contemplates his demise. Dirik
pulls Alex Boyle’s sweet, innocent “[Nothing’s Gonna Harm You] Not While I’m
Around” inside out, with gut wrenching precision.
Jordan Reynolds, as the naïve sailor who falls in love with
Sweeney’s daughter (Audrey Clark), wins us over with his clear, ringing tenor,
swearing earnestly “to steal” her from the wicked Judge. Matthew Zahnzinger is
magnificent as the loathsome, leering, self-flagellating magistrate and
Christopher Porth has a delightful scene, infuriating Mrs. Lovett with
interminable parlor songs. What an undertaking. What an evening. But one
SWEENEY TODD is never enough.
