Favorite theatre villian?

Rico in Barry Manilow's Copacabana!

Also, Thénardier in Les Misérables.

I second the KQ choice :)

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Male: Sweeney Todd, Judd Fry, and Bill Sykes
Female: Mrs. Lovett, Miss Hannigan, and The Witch (Into the Woods)

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Julie Taymor

Any villain that can make me laugh but still despise.

Velma von Tussle
Madame Horrible
Mufasa
Thernadiers

I've always thought that Sweeney Todd's heroes as Anthony and Joanna, the two innocents of the piece. Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett I wouldn't call anti-heroes so much as protagonists. Anti-heroes have some redeeming qualities about them, but by the end of the show, Sweeney is too mired in his own revenge bent to have any love left in him, and Mrs. Lovett is the basic cause behind that, deceiving him the entire play. At least in the way that I learned literature though, anti-heroes just act contrary to the norms of heroic standards, but are still essentially good. I would absolutely never go so far as to call Sweeney (at least by the point we see him in the show) or Mrs. Lovett 'good.' Judge Turpin and the Beadle are antagonists to the protagonists of Sweeney/Lovett, with Anthony and Joanna as the romantic heroes.
ETA: Just remembered that in one passage of 'Finishing the Hat,' Sondheim explicitly called Mrs. Lovett 'the true villain of the piece.'

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Updated On: 4/2/11 at 09:42 PM

Pretty sure Hitler is the real villain in The Sound of Music...

There have been a lot of great villains in theatre. But has anyone seen Hrach Titizian's performance in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo! He's truly incredible as Uday Hussein. My favorite villain in theatre right now.

I would definitely agree that Mrs. Lovett is the real villain of Sweeney Todd. When Sweeney returns to London he is broken, yes, hellbent on revenge, yes, but she's the one who plants the idea in his head to start murdering people and cooking them into pies even though she knows that Lucy is still alive. She knows the truth the whole time and she manipulates everyone around her so that she can get what she wants, even though it backfires on her in the end. I find her fascinating as a character...I absolutely loved Patti LuPone's interpretation in the revival, and I adore Angela Lansbury's completely different take in the original. Both were arguably quite successful but wildly different, and I think it's interesting when one character can be played in such vastly different ways and still work.

re: Sweeney and Lovett

They're both serial killers, planning, plotting, and murdering together! They're not anti-heroes. They're VILLAINS.

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Updated On: 4/3/11 at 09:47 PM

Dr Sanson Carrasco in MOLM.

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The Mad Hatter - Wildhorn's WONDERLAND