What has Cole Escola wrought with his “Oh, Mary!”? After he trashed Abe Lincoln, turning him into a hungry queer, the flood gates have opened to go after other sacred icons. “Slam Frank” recently opened, giving the finger to Anne Frank. And now comes “Queeney Todd: The Demon Bottom of Fleet Street,” which opened Thursday at the Judson Memorial Church under the auspices of the Heartbeat Opera. An assassinated president is one thing, a Holocaust victim another. But now even Stephen Sondheim isn’t off limits?!
In this hysterically funny send-up of “Sweeney Todd,” the title character here is an insatiable submissive queer who gets ticked off one night when he has lined up a troop of tops on Grindr to service him — and then gets stood up by all of them! Making matters worse, he prepped himself, and those meds are expensive!
Queeney Todd (Nathaniel Sullivan), unlike Sweeney, doesn’t intend to kill anyone. When he runs into Mrs. Lovedick (Matt Dengler), the owner of a failing sex shop, she sings “The Worst Thighs in London.” Being gay, Queeney has no problem resisting her meager charms. Mrs. Lovedick, hoping that he’ll eventually change his mind, rents him an apartment, and it is here that Queeney finally gets lucky one night. A trick (Imara Miles) actually shows up, and when Queeney starts to shave his privates, thinking it will make him look younger, he accidentally castrates the guy. Always in search of new kinks, Mrs. Lovedick gets the idea to expand her sex shop to offer flesh-and-blood dildos.
I counted only three Sondheim songs, all given new and obscene lyrics, in “Queeney Todd.” More often the talented singers borrow from Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, Alan Menken and Ginuwine. “La donna è mobile” from “Rigoletto” is sung when a Queeney victim (the multi-cast Miles, who’s in great voice), looking to transition, thanks him for cutting off her unwanted penis.
Several things come to a head when a horny client (Eliza Bonet) comes to the Lovedick Sex Shop, demanding the biggest cock in London. She knows it belongs to the Barber of Seville (Jonathan Burke), who performs a striptease that easily tops what you get at Broadway Bares.
“Queeney Todd” takes it full cycle with a cabaret ending that’s an inspired send-up of the “Oh, Mary!” finale. Mrs. Lovedick isn’t the woman we think she is.
Kemar Jewel directs this drag extravaganza, which is a group effort written and created by Jewel, Jacob Ashworth, Peregrine Teng Heard and Garrett Bell.
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