More than 40 years ago, I talked with Stephen Sondheim about Sweeney Todd. I asked about a note I'd read in Variety about a forthcoming Sondheim "ballad opera." At first, he didn't know what I was talking about. "Something about a barber who kills his customers and eats them," I offered. "Oh, that!" He told me and my friends that he envisioned "an elegant entertainment" where people would "laugh their heads off" and then "throw up in the lobby." Did he think that would have popular appeal? "I like to write shows that aren't like anything else I've seen." (See my Stephen Sondheim page for a picture of that conversation, and many articles about Sweeney Todd on stages and on screen.)
Since then, I've attended the tale of Sweeney Todd at live performances from the original runs in New York (1979) and London (1980) to the Atlanta Opera's production this past weekend; sung along with four different cast recordings, learning the words for every role; and played keyboards in the pit for a production at the Walker School. I anticipate favorite moments; I cry with the characters over the cruel ironies in their lives, no matter who plays the parts; I feel the adrenaline rush when Sweeney rages. I no longer just watch a performance; I relive it!
Since then, I've attended the tale of Sweeney Todd at live performances from the original runs in New York (1979) and London (1980) to the Atlanta Opera's production this past weekend; sung along with four different cast recordings, learning the words for every role; and played keyboards in the pit for a production at the Walker School. I anticipate favorite moments; I cry with the characters over the cruel ironies in their lives, no matter who plays the parts; I feel the adrenaline rush when Sweeney rages. I no longer just watch a performance; I relive it!
Though I can never see the show with fresh eyes again, I kept my notes from that first time. With apologies for prose written under the influence of Henry James, I present my 20 - year - old self's first impressions of the show, split between a journal entry and "my version of the NY Times review" written at the request of my mentor Frank Boggs. In brackets, I draw comparisons to the Atlanta Opera's production and reconsiderations of my youthful first impressions.
[Photos: Above, Playbill from 1979, featuring Frank Verlizzo Fraver's (fraver.com) adaptation of a 19th century image of the Sweeney Todd character. Below, an ad I cut from the New York Times that aggregated highlights from reviews in the first week.].
[from a journal entry, Thursday, March 15, 1979]
"Tuesday night was the big night I'd been waiting for since I first heard A Little Night Music in 9th grade: I saw a Sondheim show on Broadway. In fact, the day after they recorded the album. The Uris is as huge as I'd heard, and the set was hideous: stretching out above and to the sides, it embraces the audience, bringing it into a dirty factory, which soon becomes all of 19th century London.
"The show starts long before 8:00, when some scruffy-looking characters crank the massive machinery of the set into motion. Two gravediggers shovel black dirt out of a coffin - shaped hole in the stage floor. Above them stretches a tapestry depicting the 'Victorian beehive.'
[As the director of Atlanta Opera's production told listeners to WABE-FM, it's eighty percent identical to the original, with a smaller replica of the 'beehive' and the actual Meat Pie Shop from the original cast's touring production. The original designer Eugene Lee still gets the design credit in the program.
"Then a tall sinister - looking guy steps up to the organ downstage right bearing the banner, By the blood of Jesus Christ we are forgiven all our sins, removes top hat and gloves and, as the house lights finally dim, he strikes an appalling first chord, which made the audience giggle at its pompous solemnity and exaggerated portent. He launches into an atonal fugue as a chorus of dirty - looking town dwellers wanders out of the shadows to eye the audience suspiciously. Two men bring out a body wrapped in sackcloth as two workmen grab hold of the two lower corners of the 'beehive' diagram. As the organ music climaxes, and they toss the body in the grave, and they tear the cloth from the high ceiling all at once, a piercing strident whistle screams out, and so does half the audience."
[The stage at the Cobb Energy Center is much smaller than that of the Uris, and the stage lacked the flying iron walkways that animated the original stage, and the trap with elevator. They leave out the organ and business before the prologue; the drop of the smaller beehive had a smaller effect; the whistle, less piercing, gets a commensurate reaction.]
"The orchestra launches into 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd' with suitably uneasy harmonies, and the chorus sneers the melody with suitable violence. [Atlanta Opera, thank you for fielding a full orchestra to play Jonathan Tunick's original orchestrations: the details and inner workings of Sondheim's music work well with small bands, but the richness of an orchestra envelops the action.] At a critical moment in the song, they back away from the grave where we see Sweeney rising, staring straight ahead and snarling his lyrics. He's lit to be the only bright thing on stage, and even that's cold, cadaverous blue.
"[My friend Bess], who doesn't like musicals, said she was thrilled by every moment, 'there was so much to watch.'
[from my letter to Frank]
"The show is an opera, with three hours of music and only ten lines of dialogue. Unfortunately, all ten lines are bad, especially at the end of the 2nd act, before the final number saves the show."
[I suppose that I didn't count numerous lines spoken over accompaniment; the effect was of non-stop music. Sondheim does admit that he regrets not composing music for the final scene. The actor playing Toby, left high and dry by the orchestra's silence, has to recite a nursery rhyme and cheesy lines about cranking the meat grinder "slowly... slowly... slowly....]
"Some have criticized it for Brechtian social comment, an invalid criticism, unless one is distracted by the social comment in My Fair Lady as well."
[I was writing with a scrap of the NY Times' Richard Eder's "Critic's Notebook" in my collection. He lauded the music and lyrics, but asked what moral purpose motivated all this powerful storytelling? While director Harold Prince has said that he needs to find a social relevance to any show he does, the creative team was content to tell a ripping good story. But while we attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, the creative team underscores resonances between the world of the story and our own: maniacal obsession, class resentment, official corruption, sexual predation, dehumanization of industrialization, and serial violence.]
"[Angela] Lansbury is as funny as anyone could possibly be, especially in two of her songs 'The Worst Pies in London' and 'A Little Priest.' [Maria Zifchak nailed the comedy in Atlanta, too, with a stronger, richer voice across the range of her songs. Since 1979, I've learned to love "By the Sea" for operating on several levels: music hall pastiche, Mrs. Lovett's fatal attraction to a man she doesn't understand, word play, and comic business. "Oo, Mr. Todd" (kiss) "I'm so happy (kiss) I could eat you up...."]
"Len Cariou radiates dark energy and is attractively chilling in his madness." [Ditto, baritone Michael Mayes, who adds to the role his more imposing physical and vocal presence.]
"Victor Garber is likable as the young sailor." [But Joseph Lattanzi brings a superior voice and ease to his singing.]
"The villains were villainous, and Ken Jennings, blessed with a splendid voice, is wonderful as the comic and touching young Toby. His duet with Lansbury, 'Not While I'm Around,' is the one moment of affection and warmth in the show, and does indeed 'touch the heart.' After this calm - before - the - storm, there follows an operatic sequence that pulls Sweeney Todd to its horrifying melodramatic conclusion with breathtaking speed."
[See, I thought of "Beadle Banford","Judge Turpin", and "Signor Pirelli" as THE villains of the piece. That makes heroes of murderous Sweeney and amoral Mrs. Lovett. Forget about Brecht and social commentary: the real moral ambiguity is that we -- rooting for Sweeney's revenge, laughing at Mrs. Lovett's cheerful amorality -- are complicit in their crimes. In Atlanta Opera's production, Toby -- performed with innocent earnestness and sweet voice by Ian McEuen -- brought us back to our right minds. He vows to protect Mrs. Lovett, even while her face and a dissonant obligato tell us she's planning to kill him. We're not on team Sweeney after that. There's a similar effect in Sondheim / Weidman's Assassins, when the song "Something Just Broke" snaps us out of accepting the assassins as endearing misfits.]
"But the greatest thrill of the evening is unrelated to the plot. It is the ecstasy of discovering a superbly crafted and aggressively original work of art. That is a joy more profound and satisfying than any number of average happy endings." [Amen! I'm surprised to see that I saw things this way so early in my life. I had believed that art had to deliver a good message to be good.]
[from a journal entry, Thursday, March 15, 1979]
"Tuesday night was the big night I'd been waiting for since I first heard A Little Night Music in 9th grade: I saw a Sondheim show on Broadway. In fact, the day after they recorded the album. The Uris is as huge as I'd heard, and the set was hideous: stretching out above and to the sides, it embraces the audience, bringing it into a dirty factory, which soon becomes all of 19th century London.
"The show starts long before 8:00, when some scruffy-looking characters crank the massive machinery of the set into motion. Two gravediggers shovel black dirt out of a coffin - shaped hole in the stage floor. Above them stretches a tapestry depicting the 'Victorian beehive.'
[As the director of Atlanta Opera's production told listeners to WABE-FM, it's eighty percent identical to the original, with a smaller replica of the 'beehive' and the actual Meat Pie Shop from the original cast's touring production. The original designer Eugene Lee still gets the design credit in the program.
"Then a tall sinister - looking guy steps up to the organ downstage right bearing the banner, By the blood of Jesus Christ we are forgiven all our sins, removes top hat and gloves and, as the house lights finally dim, he strikes an appalling first chord, which made the audience giggle at its pompous solemnity and exaggerated portent. He launches into an atonal fugue as a chorus of dirty - looking town dwellers wanders out of the shadows to eye the audience suspiciously. Two men bring out a body wrapped in sackcloth as two workmen grab hold of the two lower corners of the 'beehive' diagram. As the organ music climaxes, and they toss the body in the grave, and they tear the cloth from the high ceiling all at once, a piercing strident whistle screams out, and so does half the audience."
[The stage at the Cobb Energy Center is much smaller than that of the Uris, and the stage lacked the flying iron walkways that animated the original stage, and the trap with elevator. They leave out the organ and business before the prologue; the drop of the smaller beehive had a smaller effect; the whistle, less piercing, gets a commensurate reaction.]
"The orchestra launches into 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd' with suitably uneasy harmonies, and the chorus sneers the melody with suitable violence. [Atlanta Opera, thank you for fielding a full orchestra to play Jonathan Tunick's original orchestrations: the details and inner workings of Sondheim's music work well with small bands, but the richness of an orchestra envelops the action.] At a critical moment in the song, they back away from the grave where we see Sweeney rising, staring straight ahead and snarling his lyrics. He's lit to be the only bright thing on stage, and even that's cold, cadaverous blue.
"[My friend Bess], who doesn't like musicals, said she was thrilled by every moment, 'there was so much to watch.'
[from my letter to Frank]
"The show is an opera, with three hours of music and only ten lines of dialogue. Unfortunately, all ten lines are bad, especially at the end of the 2nd act, before the final number saves the show."
[I suppose that I didn't count numerous lines spoken over accompaniment; the effect was of non-stop music. Sondheim does admit that he regrets not composing music for the final scene. The actor playing Toby, left high and dry by the orchestra's silence, has to recite a nursery rhyme and cheesy lines about cranking the meat grinder "slowly... slowly... slowly....]
"Some have criticized it for Brechtian social comment, an invalid criticism, unless one is distracted by the social comment in My Fair Lady as well."
[I was writing with a scrap of the NY Times' Richard Eder's "Critic's Notebook" in my collection. He lauded the music and lyrics, but asked what moral purpose motivated all this powerful storytelling? While director Harold Prince has said that he needs to find a social relevance to any show he does, the creative team was content to tell a ripping good story. But while we attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, the creative team underscores resonances between the world of the story and our own: maniacal obsession, class resentment, official corruption, sexual predation, dehumanization of industrialization, and serial violence.]
"[Angela] Lansbury is as funny as anyone could possibly be, especially in two of her songs 'The Worst Pies in London' and 'A Little Priest.' [Maria Zifchak nailed the comedy in Atlanta, too, with a stronger, richer voice across the range of her songs. Since 1979, I've learned to love "By the Sea" for operating on several levels: music hall pastiche, Mrs. Lovett's fatal attraction to a man she doesn't understand, word play, and comic business. "Oo, Mr. Todd" (kiss) "I'm so happy (kiss) I could eat you up...."]
"Len Cariou radiates dark energy and is attractively chilling in his madness." [Ditto, baritone Michael Mayes, who adds to the role his more imposing physical and vocal presence.]
"Victor Garber is likable as the young sailor." [But Joseph Lattanzi brings a superior voice and ease to his singing.]
"The villains were villainous, and Ken Jennings, blessed with a splendid voice, is wonderful as the comic and touching young Toby. His duet with Lansbury, 'Not While I'm Around,' is the one moment of affection and warmth in the show, and does indeed 'touch the heart.' After this calm - before - the - storm, there follows an operatic sequence that pulls Sweeney Todd to its horrifying melodramatic conclusion with breathtaking speed."
[See, I thought of "Beadle Banford","Judge Turpin", and "Signor Pirelli" as THE villains of the piece. That makes heroes of murderous Sweeney and amoral Mrs. Lovett. Forget about Brecht and social commentary: the real moral ambiguity is that we -- rooting for Sweeney's revenge, laughing at Mrs. Lovett's cheerful amorality -- are complicit in their crimes. In Atlanta Opera's production, Toby -- performed with innocent earnestness and sweet voice by Ian McEuen -- brought us back to our right minds. He vows to protect Mrs. Lovett, even while her face and a dissonant obligato tell us she's planning to kill him. We're not on team Sweeney after that. There's a similar effect in Sondheim / Weidman's Assassins, when the song "Something Just Broke" snaps us out of accepting the assassins as endearing misfits.]
"But the greatest thrill of the evening is unrelated to the plot. It is the ecstasy of discovering a superbly crafted and aggressively original work of art. That is a joy more profound and satisfying than any number of average happy endings." [Amen! I'm surprised to see that I saw things this way so early in my life. I had believed that art had to deliver a good message to be good.]
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