SOURCE: “Spirited Revivals,” in Commonweal, Vol. 116, No. 18, October 20, 1989, p. 566–67.

In the following review, Weales presents a comparison of the original 1979 production and the 1989 revival of Sweeney Todd, praising Sondheim's score.

The new Sweeney Todd at the Circle in the Square inevitably lacks the shock and surprise of the original 1979 production of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical. Although it is a restaging of last year's revival at the tiny York Theater it does not have the intimacy of the television version (now available on VCR) in which George Hearn is an electrifying Sweeney, even more appealingly frightening than was the admirable Len Cariou. The ghosts of two heavyweight Sweeneys hover over this production, but Bob Gunton holds his own in their company—a forceful, scary, sometimes touching, even playful Sweeney. Beth Fowler, as Mrs. Lovett, stakes her own claim to a character, some small corner of which is forever...