Sweeney Todd questions (WARNING: Possible spoilers!)- Page 2

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/9/06 at 10:38pm

Hey freeadmission,

you said: "When the story is the focus, the rest of it comes naturally."

Can you be more specific about "it"? A lot of writers just focus on story, (see most one hour tv dramas.) What makes Sondheim's stories so dense and full?

Just wondering...

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 4:46am

InTheRed, great analysis!

I still maintain that the show is really a product of Toby's mind. Here's how I like to think of it: Every single person onstage IS a mental patient. What Toby is doing is using the images from the insane asylum he's in right now, and blending it with the memories he has. In many cases, he's completely making up the story, since he never witnessed the Johanna/Anthony/Judge Turpin storyline. He's like an artist who takes what he sees, and creates new images with it. He constructs a story, and is constantly reliving it in his head.
But the idea that they're all patients who are ACTING out the story as Toby has told it, is also completely valid. (It is, if I'm not mistaken, the way Patti Lupone describes the show).

As for the audience. Again, many ways to interpret this. I like to think of the audience as being "society" - we are witnesses to these crimes, and because we do nothing about it, we are also to blame (which is why Sweeney points at us, saying Sweeney is there, and there) I've never taken that to mean that there's a little Sweeney in all of us (which is true, if terrifying). But rather, that WE are all responsible for Sweeney's actions. We're part of the disgraceful human race- with all its evils and corruptions, and thus, can't be excempted from any guilt.

A more literal interpretation would be that we're all inmates in the asylum - we're all crazy, we're all mad. We're all victims and victimizers. So, what we're watching is not merely an entertaining show, from which we can escape our dreary lives. We're implicated in the horrors, we're PART of the story.

It's late, I won't go on anymore. I love talking about this show (could ya tell!) :p

[neocomposer]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 5:01am

To go along with what freeadmission said, since Doyle's version is much more of an abstract staging, although the original is sometimes a little abstract, you can really focus on the actual story. There is nothing for you to concentrate on besides the actual symbols and the storyline. Ok...so the instruments can be distracting, but honestly they make this show so amazing.

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 5:04am

"A more literal interpretation would be that we're all inmates in the asylum - we're all crazy, we're all mad. We're all victims and victimizers. So, what we're watching is not merely an entertaining show, from which we can escape our dreary lives. We're implicated in the horrors, we're PART of the story."

I agree in the sense that this show is pointing out an aspect of humankind's condition. It shows us what can happen to a human-being-wronged! (Like Sweeney, they may turn into a vengeful murderer blind with rage or, like poor Tobias they may go mad mad crazy.) It seems to ask us to be aware, awake, and responsible for one another somehow, which is a pretty great philosophy - and timely too!
It's like a super sophisticated "Scared Straight"!! LOL

[James2]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 7:40am

This is the most philosophical thread on the whole website!

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 8:00am

I don't think the instruments are distracting at all. Rather, they're central and pivotal to Doyle's vision of the world Sondheim has created. They serve not only to enhance the production's aesthetic presentation, but also serve as tools in the storytelling.

Manoel Felciano offers an excellent example in an interview on Broadway.com. About "Not While I'm Around", he says :

"In any production of Sweeney Todd that you will see...You will hear when [Patti Lupone is] singing to me, this weird, eerie kind of dissonant countermelody in the music. But in this production, and only in this kind of production, does that actually become an acting choice because I get to play that line on the violin. My friend who came said, ‘It's like there's dialogue there where there normally isn't. It's like she's saying, ‘Nothing's gonna harm you,' and you're saying, ‘Uh uh! Something is–and it's upstairs and it's a mass murderer with a razor!'"

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=520333


If this thread is philosophical, it's because "Sweeney Todd" is the kind of piece that allows for these sorts of discussions. And because, from my experience, Sweeney Todd (and Sondheim in general) fans tend to be really smart, well read people.

[Nothatsmrt]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 9:19am

What a fabulous thread!!!

I think that everyone picks up on the fact that Sondheim intended to make a "scary show", and that sentiment really plays into the many interpretations of the premise of the show and its storytelling.
For example, when I was in a community theater production of the show, everyone (except Anthony and Johanna) were in pale makeup with dark circles under their eyes. We had many discussions on what that could mean to audiences, and how that helped our performances. Were we ghosts? Were we people of London, tormented and terrorized by the legacy of Sweeney Todd? Were we all patients at Fogg's asylum?

That's one of the reasons I think this show is so much fun...the role of the chorus alone lends itself to so many different interpretations of the show itself.

[Johnnytoc]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 10:10am

This really is a wonderful thread.
A thought, to add on to the idea that "we're all mad, vicims/victimizers..."; during the final ballad, when Sweeney is there "pointing out" Sweeney with "There, There, There There, There..." he's pointing throughout the audience. I know in other versions, Sweeney is not out yet (for this song) so therefore people are pointing to where he could be, in this case, you have him pointing at us, possibly saying we're all mad, etc (?)
Hope that made Some sense...

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 10:22am

Johnnytoc, that made perfect sense. I completely agree. I think I said this earlier, but I don't think that Sweeney points at the audience as a means to state that we all have a serial murder lurking within us. Rather, it's like you said: we're all Sweeney Todd in the sense that we're all victims, we're all victimizers, we've all suffered and caused suffering. We've all seeked revenge (though not in such extremes), and we're all responsible for the darkness and horrors in the world. In this show, Sweeney Todd (or Mrs Lovett, or Judge Turpin, etc) isn't the real mosnter. It's that "hole in the world" Sweeney speaks of. The world we've made, which is dank, dark, full of evil and corruption...People are "full of ****". We are vermin. It's a very dark notion, but chillingly true.

ETA: I really need to take a break from posting on this and all Sweeney threads, lol. I just LOVE talking about this show, and discussing it with all you guys.
Updated On: 2/10/06 at 10:22 AM

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 6:27pm

Holla Chica, James2 et al!

What a great thrill to have an outlet of like-minded peeps.
Pre internet, I would have wound up boring my friends in coffee shops with tales of all of this, going on about this great man who wrote this great show, directed by another great man! (I don't know many Sondheim fans, and I'm not sure that my friends would have understood or even been interested in the issues raised in this thread, despite my graphic, impassioned, encouraging descriptions!) :)

Happy to have someplace to wax on.

Y'all rock!


Updated On: 2/10/06 at 06:27 PM

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 6:38pm

"Happy to have someplace to wax on.

Y'all rock! "

Ditto! :)

[mint0621]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 7:02pm

thanks so much for all your insight; i was definitely puzzled when i started this thread, and now i'm a bit disturbed that the musical was insinuating that we are all insane patients!!! I do remember Michael Cerveris pointing to the audience, just the memory of Michael's face pointing into the audience...with this new understanding, is just plain creepy.

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 7:17pm

hey mint -
I think the play is insinuating that we all, PEOPLE all have the potential to wind up insane. Life circumstances, unfortunately, drive some people there sooner than others... (see Beggar Woman, Sweeney, Tobias.)
But don't worry - luckilly most folks never wind up in those positions/situations -
That's why there are so many "happy" musicals!

Forgive me if this is was super obvious!


Updated On: 2/10/06 at 07:17 PM

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 7:21pm

hey mint round 2!

It's a testament to Cerveris' performance that he convinced you so!
He really does such a great job, terriying everybody!

[mint0621]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 9:49pm

Inthered, Michael Cerveris would have seriously given me nightmares that night except when I met him at the stage door; he laughed when i told him he scared me and is such a nice man! A sexy speaking voice too

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 10:16pm

r.e. Cerveris:
I love how they light him on stage!
His eyes appear so hollowed out, you swear he's looking right at you through much of the show - especially when he's hanging off the back wall near the piano, looking mournfully out into the crowd... of course it's impossible to tell where he's really looking, but that part always has such pathos, IMO.
Scary sad.
I'm glad to hear he's nice.

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 10:25pm

BTW:

His choice for most romantic song from a play being, "The Internet Is For Porn" from Avenue Q is beyond hysterical!
That was the most refreshing/interesting selection on that list IMO, although I love that Patti rebelled and picked a Joni Mitchell song. She's so cool - desrcibing it as "besotted".
Fantastic.


https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=886382&dt=42

[Prettylittlepicture2]

Posted: 2/10/06 at 11:58pm

Ah, I am loving this thread! Felt the need to bring up another bit about the varying views on the asylum patients and Toby's story. I had a friend who went to see the show and came back later and asked how we could be certain that the entire show isn't a mere figment of Toby's imagination. None of it really happened, it's simply all in his mind. I absolutely don't think that's the case, because of the re-appearance of the 'lovely muffler' in the ending. It's just sort of testifies that although we're unsure of exactly what happened - because as mentioned before, Toby was not present in many of the scenes acted out - something did happen, and the story isn't just the product of an insane boy's mind. I'm sort of partial to the theory that Toby is retelling his story in the confines of the asylum, and making parallels between patients in the asylum and their Fleet-street counterparts. For example, there is the way in which he relates the aslym proprietress to Pirelli. It's fascinating to speculate why.

[Necromancer07707]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 12:09am

Was anyone here bothered by the loss of the theme of economic classism and its affects? I was at first but months after seeing the revival I'm now a little up in the air about it.

[InTheRed]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 1:30am

hey necromancer,

Interesting question! - I guess my first thought was that the characters on stage are already in an asylum, (and a rather bare bones one at that), therefore they are already part of the underclass, the discarded, the poor. That ties into my idea of the audience being seen as outsiders, i.e. other doctors or society donors or various types of folks in more well-off positions.
I was thinking if I were on the stage, I would see all the older, well-dressed people in the audience as well-off and consider them memebers of the upper class. I would be aware that they, unlike my character, would be free to leave at the end, and that this would be my one chance to reach them with my message - hence the urgency of the singing/acting/playing!
Just a theory, but I think it ties in w/ your question, because every character on that stage, except maybe the 2 doctors, is in a worse off position than most people watching, who are getting to see a Broadway musical.
So I think the class issue is addressed in that regard, as well as in way the set is designed, and how the piece is staged.

I hope this isn't too heady for y'all, but there seems to be some encouragement regarding this thread, so I'm puttin' it out there.

WOW! We've certainly roamed around to a lot of different areas in this thread - fun!


Updated On: 2/11/06 at 01:30 AM

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 6:07am

"I'm sort of partial to the theory that Toby is retelling his story in the confines of the asylum, and making parallels between patients in the asylum and their Fleet-street counterparts. For example, there is the way in which he relates the aslym proprietress to Pirelli. It's fascinating to speculate why. "

I agree. I really love the idea of Toby as the artist, who's trying to relive a traumatic experience, while filling in the narrative gaps in the story. He creates the images from his past using his surroundings, in an attempt to form a choesive narrative. It DID happen- but we're watching HIS perspective. But, again, it's open to many different interpretations.

As to the loss of the theme of economic classism, while it's certainly true that it's played down in this version, it's not altogether absent. Sondheim's lyrics are still there ("How gratifying for once to know that those above will serve those down below"). In fact, the whole "A Little Priest" song has always been a rundown/critique of the different privileged social positions. The toned down orchestrations in this production allow for the lyrics to be clearly understood, so this theme, I believe, really comes accross.

The beggar woman is still a strong prescence in this version. We tend to forget that she serves as more than just the final twist. She's a constant reminder of the economic and social disparity in this society. She begs for money, sells her body, and creates discomfort. She's the lowest of the low. Even though it's toned down in Doyle's version, it's still present.

I would also add that when Mrs Lovett's business becomes successful, her attire changes to reflect her "new" status.

And, like InTheRed stated, the insane aslyum backdrop certainly adds to the themes of social disparity. The inmates are of lower status, the rejected and no longer useful members of society.


Updated On: 2/11/06 at 06:07 AM

[Gypsy2]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 10:11am

Yea, BroadwayChica: Mrs. Lovett becomes "nouveau rïche" once she starts making money. She's all sparkly and glittery. It's so fun.

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 10:13am

Hey girl!! How are ya? "Noveau riche", I love it!! :p

[freeadmission]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 10:43am

"Hey freeadmission,

you said: "When the story is the focus, the rest of it comes naturally."

Can you be more specific about "it"? A lot of writers just focus on story, (see most one hour tv dramas.) What makes Sondheim's stories so dense and full?

Just wondering..."

Sorry to change the direction of the thread, but I forgot to check back on this one until just now. LOL

Anyway, I think the difference is Sondhiem wanted to create an excellent story, a story that had to be told, while TV dramas are very much a "how can we keep this going?" sort of thing. "What story can we write that will bring in the most viewers."

TV dramas are starting at the wrong point -- viewership and money -- and constructing a story around that, while Sondhiem, with Sweeney and many of his shows, starts with a concept that's speaks to him and a story that needs to be told and hopes that the viewership and money will follow. And look how popular he is in the theatre world. Yes, many of his shows are flops in the technical sense of the word, but they are well-loved and that's because they are excellent.

Sweeney Todd was a story Sondhiem had to tell and a story he told/tells masterfully. If we could only encourage more artists to write their hearts, I think the arts would be better off.

[/diatribe]

[Necromancer07707]

Posted: 2/11/06 at 12:54pm

Another question...

I notice that during certain scenes props on the back wall were lit up. Do any of you recall what exactly was lit up when and what the semiotics behind it was?