In Sweeney, why is the Beggar Woman so obsessed with the Beadle?

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 10:46am

Why does she keep talking about the Beadle and what's with the whole 'beadle deedle deedle dumpling ...' at the end?

[Wynbish]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 10:50am

Spoiler alert (kinda):

I don't know about the first part of the question, but the second part... well, she's crazy. I wanna say that she's even doing some sort of nursery rhyme lullaby for an invisible baby Johanna, even though Johanna is actually in the room.

That part always gets me: Benjamin Barker kills Lucy while Johanna is in the room.



Updated On: 7/8/12 at 10:50 AM

[dreaming]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 10:57am

Uh I could explain but that would require spoilers....

[Just_John]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:05am

Since the Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone productions were filmed and with the recent Tim Burton film, I don't think there's any excuse for anyone reading these boards to have not seen Sweeney Todd. Explain away!

Updated On: 7/8/12 at 11:05 AM

[sabrelady]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:22am

Mrs. Lovett explains early on what happened to Sweeney's' wife. The Judge AND the Beedle figure prominently. "something "not very nice"- which had a profound effect on her mind.
I'm TRYING to be discreet.

Did u ever hear of the Sabine Women?

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:32am

Sabine Women's a good way to put it, methinks.

[dreaming]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:33am

sabre-that was what I was going for too. She's implicating him (and we all know who she really is at the end) and foreshadowing who she is (the big reveal). It's noteworthy that she only implicates the Beadle and not Judge Turpin.

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:51am

Come on spoil away stop speaking in code, explain it to me!! explain to all of us. Everyone knows what happens in Sweeney ****ing Todd, we wouldn't be on this board if we didn't!!

[theaterfan862]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 11:52am

I think that Judge Turpin has Beadle do a lot of his dirty work for him and therefore it might have been the Beadle that physically took Johanna away from her. That might be the reason she harps on Beadle.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 12:36pm

Y'all are forgetting that the Beggar Woman is the only one who knows something is going on with the pies. I think it has more to do with that that anything else. She saw the Beadle head into Mrs. Lovett's but never come out again. No one is there to shoo her away this time.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/8/12 at 12:37pm

I'm sure it was the Beadle who brought her to Judge Turpin's house. It's in Mrs. Lovett's song about the incident and the accompanying pantomime:

"Well, Beadle calls on her all polite
Poor thing, poor thing
The judge, he tells her, is all contrite
He blames himself for her dreadful plight
She must come straight to his house tonight
Poor thing, poor thing"

Moreover, the Beadle stand in for all law enforcement in the play. He's often seen lurking about even when he isn't in an actual scene.

***

ETA but Kad is also right that at the end of the play, Lucy has seen the Beadle enter the shop and not come out again. Which is probably the reason for the final "beadle deadle dumpling". Updated On: 7/8/12 at 12:37 PM

[WickedCompany]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 1:22pm

Lucy has been homeless and filled with delusions for many years. I think that, out of guilt, the Beadle has been as kind as the police can be to the homeless and deranged. Because of this and her very vague memory of him, she has learned that he is a protective aspect of her life, probably the only one. She fears for the Beadle as one would a parent, to "get [Lovett], but watch it", to save her from the "Devil's wife", but to be careful when he does.

Updated On: 5/22/15 at 01:22 PM

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 1:32pm

 

I've always felt that the reason is what WickedCompany wrote. 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 2:39pm

She suffers from prolonged Stockholm Syndrome.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 3:32pm

"I think that, out of guilt, the Beadle has been as kind as the police can be to the homeless and deranged."

I'm not sure I've EVER seen that implied on stage...

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 5:26pm

One could argue that the Beadle and the Judge are foils just as Sweeney and Lovett are. Sweeney and the Judge, though one is antihero and one villain, are men warped from the inside out until their perversion- be it lust or vengeance- is all they care for, and the veneer of "normality" over it is decidedly thin. Lovett and Beadle are less insane and more amoral, to a sociopathic extent. They are perfectly nice, friendly, peaceful people- until given a reason not to be. 

Every time we see the Beadle, he is friendly and polite almost to the extent of being mealy-mouthed. Of course, this falls away as soon as he has orders from the Judge, or in the Judge's best interest. Then he's a threat. But then immediately he goes back to the friendly neighborhood figure he likes to present. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/22/15 at 5:32pm

Well said, and I agree.  It's not like he actually has little asides to the audience like "Oh, I really think they treat people badly at this insane asylum--I must try to do something about that..."  He gets what he gets in life by putting on a show of being, slightly anyway, kind and understanding to, well, everyone--but he certainly doesn't do so out of guilt.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 12:02am

Judge Turpin doesn't tell the Beadle to take Antony's bird and wring its neck. I don't know what production some people are watching. The Beadle is "kind and polite" like Peter Lorre used to be.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 8:44am

It's more about veneer- he's there with the Judge as his catspaw. Walking down the street without a message to send on improper conduct, he probably wpuodnt kill the bird. His is a strictly business kind of nastiness, which is one of the foulest kinds.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 9:00am

The Beadle is the one who betrayed her trust and led her to the judge.

It's understandable that (in her condition) Lucy would not only be obsessed with him, but warp the obsession into a childish nursery rhyme, attempting to pacify the betrayal and fear.

It's her damaged mind, trying to cope with what happened.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 7:51pm

Also, weren't all the guests at the Judge's ball masked? (Mrs. Lovett says they were, though I have no idea how she would know.) Does Lucy even know the identity of her rapist?

The person whose identity she DOES know is the beadle who brought her to her "ruin" (in the thinking of the time).

Updated On: 5/24/15 at 07:51 PM

[Smaxie]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 12:05pm

Couple of thoughts to add.  Most of Sweeney's victims (excepting Pirelli) are "strangers who won't be missed" as Lovett describes them.  The Beadle is the first prominent authority figure killed by Sweeney.  The Beggar Woman is already suspicious of the goings on at the pie shop for most of Act 2, and when the Beadle arrives and never comes out, she grows increasingly alarmed, even while it collides with her memories of the past.  It's very much the "crazy" character being the only one who sees everything clearly.

Adding to the "beedle deedle dumpling" moment is that it's the same melody as the minuet.  (The minuet is often somewhere in the underscoring when the Beggar Woman appears).   I think all the "beedle deedle dumpling" business is both for the Beggar Woman's addled mind and the way people sometimes sing nonsense words to wordless melodies.