Analyzing Sweeney Todd solely based on the original production — Page 3

How did Cariou portrayed his death?

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Also of note from the original tour...the Kennedy Center program lists 26 musicians in the pit. Those were the days.

Ah I wish I could see the TOFT filming--I'm damn happyw e even have the tour on DVD but I've never fully warmed to Hearns and the less said about Joanna the better (plus it would be cool tohave the full impact of the original set though I know most was used for the tour).

I knwo this is an old thread but someone called Prince surprisingly cowardly with some of his decisions (the meeskite line in Cabaret, the ending of Company and cutting Joanna specifically). In these cases I think that's an unfair word choice--I can't remember the full reasons but I know with Cabaret he went back and forth on the word choice a few times (and for 1967 so much of that original productionw as still so brave--it's easy to look back now on Cliff being straight, etc,a nd not feel it was right but...).

I distinctly remember reading somewhere Joanna was cut, indeed, because Prince said he just couldn't find a way to stage it where it didn't seem too grotesque (I loved how the number was sstaged in the Royal National Theater revival around 1992 which I think is my fave intimate version of the show--i even play the BBC audio recording of it a lot and noticed that that site we can't mention now hasa clip of Julia McKenzie performing Worst Pies in costume at the Olivier awards)

As for Company--i love Happily Ever After and as a teenager was obssessed with that's how the show should end. I've completely changed my mind on that--it just feels liek to END the show with that song now would sorta bring it to a "what was that??" conclusion. I'm pretty sure I've read Sondheim himself say that Prince's decision made sense in the end (though he also said, I believe, that the only time he saw the song and felt it worked was at a Circle in the Square production). Certainly Prince has never pretended not to be a *commercial* director and some concessions have to be made--(man another TOFT video I'd love to see--their B&W tape of the original Company tour)

(I have always hoped that they'd do a decent recording of Happily Ever After though with the Tunick orchestrations)

That BBC Making of Sweeney is a brilliant program though

Updated On: 1/23/07 at 03:47 AM

The first time I saw SWEENEY TODD was at the Wednesday matinee preview the day before it opened. It was also the first time I had ever seen a Sondheim musical. I cut school to go. I didn't quite know what I had seen but I knew that whatever it was it was brilliant and gave me new ways of looking at the world - a better learning experience than anything I was getting in art school. After that performance (in a half empty Uris/Gershwin) I saw Hal Prince just standing at the back of the theater. I spoke to him, and he was interested in what a teenager thought of the show. I don't remember what I said, I know I gushed as only an 18 year can do, but I do remember his reply; "Thank you. But I think it will close on Saturday."

I remain in awe of the work - it is a true masterpiece, not just in it's scope and it's vision, but also in that it can stand up to almost any interpretation and still retain it's brilliance.

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Wonderful thread here. Interesting Nobodyhome about the Brechtian thing. People often mistake Sondheim's material as expressing his own opinion. The same misinterpretation is common for Assassins where critics mistakenly believe that the ballad singer is expressing the beliefs or opinions of the writers rather than expressing commonly held views of the day.

In regard to the revival of Sweeney Todd--I really enjoyed it though I would not want to see it always performed like that as I really miss the chorus and orchestrations. I also think the revival got muddy in the narrative--especially in the second act and people who didn't know the story could easily get lost. When I saw it in London, after Johanna, disguised as the sailor, escapes I heard some people whispering "Did he kill her?" At that point in the show it's like a steam engine with so much happening that, as much as I enjoyed the style of the revival, I think the narrative gets lost.

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I don't know if it's still like this on the CD release, but I think a lot of people are probably unaware that when the Original Broadway Cast Album of SWEENEY was first released on LPs, in order to make the four LP sides roughly equal in length, the Judge's version of "Johanna" was placed out of sequence (in a different place than the song had occupied in the score on stage). When I first heard it placed back in its original position, I was impressed at the clever way the song transitioned into the following scene. As you may remember, the Judge's song ends with the words, "...Soft White Cool Virgin Palms ...." And the following scene picks up immediately with the Beggar Woman singing, "Alms ... alms ..." -- almost like an echo.

"The opening scene/set depicts the social order of nineteenth-century England. The shriek of the factory whistle serves not only to scare the audience, but to focus on the factory, where most of the workers were during the Industrial Revolution, and demonstrates the power of the owners."

I always thought it was there to signify the social order being broken. It was an addition by Hal Prince and has to do with the whole "those above serving those down below" aspect of Prince's direction. After all, the factory whistle is blown when the work day is over and the powers that be no longer have power over the little people.

When exactly did Sondheim say he disliked Cabaret? (i never found Cabaret truly Brechtian anyway--just using some Brechtian techniques but for a very different purpose)

"So if the whistle always goes off when Sweeney kills people, is it also serving as an example of the backwards-ness, "those above serving those down below"? God, you can never stop analyzing this show!"

Yea, if you look at the show, every time the whistle blows, the social chain has been broken. That was Prince's concept, beginning with the lowly gravediggers (the lowest on that beehive social-chart curtain at the beginning) yanking down the entire London social order. This concept and symoblism is not only in effect when it is after Sweeney murders someone, it is for each time the whistle is used.

I watched it again last night.. Loved it.

Except for Johanna. God, I forgot how awful that actress was, and she was so sharp it hurt my ears at times.


Question: What are the initial (J.I.P I belive) that are embroidered on the front of the Judges ascot for? What do they stand for?

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Updated On: 1/23/07 at 10:01 PM

She replaced Sarah Rice midway through the Broadway run of the show, and she was much better when she started in the show than she was by the time the show was filmed.

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AND if I'm not mistaken she was married to George Hearn at the time.. another tidbit!