(Chris Jones’s article appeared in The Chicago Tribune, 8/18.)
Blood-red chaos — "a city on fire" — is as crucial to any production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's "Sweeney Todd" as those silver razers are to the famously vengeful barber whose inhospitable tonsorial parlor lies at the core of this great American musical. And when you're slashing and burning at a venerable suburban theater astride wedding ballrooms and cocktails? All the more riveting and radical the experience. Don't expect Mrs. Lovett's meat pies as the special of the day in the dining room at the Drury Lane Oakbrook. But the filling on this grandly ambitious stage is tasty indeed. If you like intensity of flavor and a little kick.