‘Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ at Ophelia’s Jump Productions

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Written for OC Theatre Guild by MaryAnn DiPietro

There is murder, revenge, corruption and, of course, a rather unsettling approach to pie.

But for Beatrice Casagrán, producing artistic director of Ophelia’s Jump Productions, there is also something irresistible about stepping into that world. Casagrán, who is directing the production, has wanted to tackle “Sweeney Todd” for years. 

“It was on my bucket list,” she said.

Casagrán, who studied law at UCLA before earning a theater degree from UC San Bernardino, co-founded Ophelia’s Jump and has built the company around intimate, thought-provoking theater. As the company expands its programming to include musicals, “Sweeney Todd” seemed like the right show at the right time. 

“People want to escape the world,” Casagrán said. “This musical is dark, but it’s also fun. It’s so dark that people can disassociate from it.”

And then there is Sondheim. 

“Musically, it’s one of his masterpieces,” she said, before quickly adding, “There are so many masterpieces.”

The musical follows Benjamin Barker, a barber who returns to London under the name Sweeney Todd after being unjustly exiled. Consumed with revenge against the men responsible for destroying his family, he joins forces with Mrs. Lovett, the owner of a struggling meat-pie shop. Soon, Sweeney’s barber chair and Mrs. Lovett’s ovens are working together in a darkly convenient business arrangement.

At Ophelia’s Jump, that story unfolds in a 60-seat theater, placing audiences just feet away from Fleet Street. 

“Because of the proximity, people will feel like they are in the world,” Casagrán said. 

Rather than trying to make the small room feel bigger, she is embracing its intimacy. 

“It is a very gothic show,” she said. “It’s a gothic piece. It’s a commentary on social structures and the kind of crushing aspects of industrialization and the dehumanizing effects.”

The setting is significant. “Sweeney Todd” takes place in 1846, during a period when industrialization was rapidly transforming everyday life. Factories, machines and steam power changed how people lived and worked, and Casagrán sees parallels between that disruption and the technological transformation happening today. 

“Since then, there have been three other industrializations,” she said. “We are currently in the fourth with AI.” 

“Sweeney Todd” isn’t intended as a history lesson or political lecture. Casagrán wants audiences to recognize those connections while still having a good time. 

“I want the audience to enjoy it and understand that there is relevance,” she said.

A tension between darkness and hope will also be visible onstage. Most of the characters are costumed in dark colors, while Johanna, Sweeney’s daughter, appears in white. 

“Anthony and Johanna are the embodiment of hope,” Casagrán said. “They’re the people who are going to make it and not fall into what everyone else has fallen into.”

Visually, Casagrán is keeping the physical set relatively bare and allowing lighting and projections to transform the space. Hanging panels with open areas between them will provide surfaces for images to appear and disappear throughout the production. Lighting and projection designer Sheila Malone is central to creating that world. 

“Sheila Malone is a genius with color, and she is a brilliant projection designer,” Casagrán said. “She is incredibly creative.” 

Malone previously worked on Ophelia’s Jump’s “Nevermore,” and Casagrán is excited to see what she creates inside such a confined space.

The production is also compact in its casting. Eleven performers take on the show, with every actor except Sweeney playing multiple roles. That intimacy may ultimately be the defining element of the production. There is little distance between the audience and Sweeney’s world and nowhere for the story to safely stay on the other side of the footlights. 

“I want people to feel like they were there,” Casagrán said. 

And when they emerge from Fleet Street, she hopes they leave with more than the memory of a razor, a meat pie and a famously macabre score. 

“I want them to be surprised, and have fun, and also be led to ask some questions and want to talk about it,” she said. “I want them to feel the darkness and get people talking that this feels relevant in a way that allows conversation and allows them to enjoy the show.”

Casagrán is proud of Ophelia’s Jump’s commitment to its artists beyond this particular production. Though the company is small, she said, it pays its artists as employees, something she considers an important part of how the theater operates. 

For a company working in a 60-seat house, Ophelia’s Jump is thinking big about its artists, its audience and what Sondheim’s dark tale can still tell us about the world outside the theater. 

In this “Sweeney Todd,” Fleet Street isn’t somewhere audiences simply watch. They’re sitting right in the middle of it.

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