Is Mrs. Lovett the truly evil one?- Page 2

[jasonf]

Posted: 8/15/05 at 4:31pm

It's a tricky discussion, since evil IS in the eye of the beholder. I would hope no one thinks Judge Turpin is a good guy. In fact, I'd say he's the most one dimensional character in the whole thing because his motivation IS completely evil. While our modern views certainly condemn what Sweeney, Lovett, and Charles Manson did, honestly, who's to say what's right and what's wrong? There are no set rules for how people are supposed to behave -- people created the rules of society and most of us (me included, don't think I'm an anarchist here, just playing devil's advocate) follow those rules BECAUSE we see them as being fair and necessary for life to continue as free as it can be. If you grew up believing cannibalism was acceptable, as long you weren't the one being chewed on, I doubt you would really find Sweeney Todd or Mrs. Lovett all that bad. Our sensibilities, however, are obviously directly against this. By that logic, we have to look at good and evil through our own societal beliefs - what else do we have? Through that particular lens, is ANYONE in the play "good"? Tobias commits murder at the end - not through self defense, either, but through a combination of anger, revenge, and madness, much like Sweeney. Anthony and Johanna, while the most wholesome characters, are really not very well developed. What do we actually KNOW about either of them other than that they are in love with each other, and really Johanna, if she was intelligent enough to realize it, was just using Anthony as an escape more than anything else.

I don't know where that takes us, and I'm tired, so maybe no where. But I thought I'd add those thoughts.

[Urban]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 4:23am

Wow [b]Calvin[/b], [b]Jasonf[/b] and [b]JayKid[/b], bloody fantastics posts. You have really given me some food for thought. I will add some more of my own thoughts later when I am less tired.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 10:01am

I'm surprised no one has said this yet...there is no evil character in Sweeney Todd. All the characters do both acts of charity and acts of evil.

More often than not, the acts of good have alterior motives, but...since when was presumed "goodness" anything but egoism?

The thing that makes this show work is that we can all identify with the characters to some level -- even if we wouldn't eat people, we would love, hate, wish for revenge, be innocent, be a victim, and mourn. The universality of the show makes it scary...and it makes it artful.

So, there is no one hero and there is no one villian -- like in life, we are all heroes and all villians.

[nystateomind04]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 10:18am

I too am surprised at how many people are passing judgement on these characters. The thing that makes Sweeney such a strong piece of theater is that each character has such a passionate NEED driving them, and will to anything to get it.

Is Lovett evil? Absolutly not. She sees no distinction between carving someone up into a meat pie and say, taking care of Toby. As someone mentioned earlier, the society is really what is to blame here. In fact, in the original production, Harold Prince used this idea to make his take on the show more concept-driven; he set it in a giant factory even though there is no mention of a factory in the show. When someone asked him what is the purpose of the factory, or what is made in it he would reply "they make Sweeney Todds".

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 11:39am

I have to agree with those who said that really no one is good in the entire show, not wholly. This is excepting Anthony and Johanna, although, depending on how she's played, you may want her to die more than anyone else. (See the Sweeney Todd DVD with George Hearn. I HATE the woman who plays her! I mean, hoenstly, why would Judge Turping want to marry that?)

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 11:47am

Anthony and Johanna both make some horrible mistakes -- Johanna shoots and kills a man (not particularly ethical), and Anthony aids Sweeney in revenge. Either one in any other show would be enough to create a villian. In Sweeney, that makes them the most good people on stage.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 11:54am

Wait, who does Johanna shoot? And I could totally be wrong in this, but does Anthony ever know that Johanna is Sweeney's daughter? I thought that he just thought that Sweeney was trying to help him, since he pulled Sweeney out of the ocean/sea. I always just figured Anthony was the nice, dumb, pretty boy who likes the nice, slightly smarter, pretty girl.

[freeadmission]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 11:58am

The greatest thing about this show is how you find yourself both sympathizing with and being repulsed by Sweeney. Sweeney WANTS to be good, but he can't. The world he lives in is one without justice, so he reverts to revenge. Ms. Lovett is a little more conniving. Very manipulative. I'd certainly call her more evil than our strange-ly loveable title character.

Anthony and Johanna are more niave than anything else. They don't reall know what's going on around them. Anthony isn't aware of what Sweeney is ACTUALLY doing and cannot be considered evil for aiding him. Johanna's shooting the man in the insane asylum was justfiable in that she shouldn't have been there in the first place and it was more of an accident anyway.

Turpin certainly epitomizes evil in this show. No one in the show even comes near the disgusting level of depravity we see in Turpin (and his goons).

Posted: 8/16/05 at 11:59am

I think Mrs. Lovett's lowest point comes when Tobias sings "Not While I'm Around" to her. In several productions I've seen, you know that is when she decides that the boy has got to go! Not nice, not nice at all.

Posted: 8/16/05 at 2:15pm

Lovett is certainly the most complicated character. Sweeney is consumed by revenge: His entire life was taken from him, through no fault of his own. He is willing to do anything to "get" the judge.

Lovett is driven by her desires. She is obsessed with Sweeney, but she's also a slave to her creature comforts. When Sweeney lays out his plans, her only concerns are how he will support himself while he slaighters his way to the Judge. While Sweeney would live in the sewers if it advanced his plot, Mrs. Lovett wants a nice home & lifestyle at all times.

Mrs. Lovett falls into all her evil doings because of her lust for Todd. She conceals Lucy's identity so she has a shot witl Todd. She comes up with the idea to make the meat pies to help him conceal his murders AND to provide the lifestyle she covets. I think if Todd had returned as a priest, devoted to the religious life, she would have become a nun if she thought it would keep her close. All of her malice (even realizing that Toby has to die) comes from her desire to protect & be close to Todd. I think in a twisted way, she even thinks lying about Lucy is protecting Todd from hearing the painful truth about his beloved wife. That's one of the things that makes the ending so sad to me: Till the last, she thinks that she's done the right thing. Anything is justified to protect her man.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 2:31pm

I should mention this as way of a correction:

Mrs. Lovett does not necessarily have to know that Tobias is going to be killed. She just knows he will ruin her plans if he is allowed to stay above on the big day. So, she takes him to grind meat. She can do this in a sort of "we'll deal with this later" sort of way -- without thinking of killing him.

I also don't think Mrs. Lovett is into material things -- why would she boast about the worst pies in london, and making no money that way? I think her role is very simple -- it is all about claiming her love -- and the second act song "By the Sea" is a sales pitch, not a revelation of her internal state.

All that to say it could be played any number of ways -- but I wanted to mention this alternative.

[JayKid]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 3:39pm

To add to my post on the first page...

A lot of people have said this, and I have to agree, evil is only evil when comparing it to what is good in the society.

In the beginnin of my other post I did say you can't really rate "evilness" and you can't... everyone has a different idea of what is evil and it's all being compared to different ideas. Mainly, it's going to be compared to what majority of society considers good is.

The reason these characters are evil is because we grew up knowing the difference between right and wrong, or what we think is right and wrong. We know all these morals and grew up with a conscience. So right away, we feel guilty, bad or just get hurt if something is wrong. If you kill someone, you'll feel so horrible... and whether or not this is because you grew up knowing it was against your morals or because it's truly how you were born and IS WRONG.... it is still just the opposite of what we learned to do, so to us it's evil.

So everything is compared to what we've learned and really... since we've been on earth I think it's been this way. Or at least, that's my opinion. I mean, sure we grow up a certain way, but I think we have naturally good and bad sides to all of us and when we are born we alreyad have a conscience and guilt, etc, we know what is right and wrong... it's then taught to us, but I personally believe if it weren't taught, we'd still be this way.

Anyway, just wanted to add that....

But last thing, I don't think you can use this to compare it to the evil characters. Sure, evil is just relative to the society, but the majority of the world percieves evil as the same thing... and the characters in this play ARE evil, regardless IMO. So it's somethin to think about, but I don't think you can say these characters aren't evil because *what if* the world were cannibals, then they wouldn't be evil.

Well what the hell... the world isn't cannibals, so guess what? They are evil! lol... or at least bad people.

Go Sweeney Todd! I love this show so much, glad people are discussin this.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 3:53pm

I figured giving the timing of it closing, a lot more people are now acquainted with the show and may have wanted to read and contribute to this discussion. Props to Calvin for a) a great post, and b) pointing me to this thread on another one.

[StephenSondheimWHOO]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 6:19pm

This is a really difficult question, as i read through the thread i kept getting knew ideas then changing. I think that really they all have their evils (don't we all) by the way amazing post calvin. I think sort of every one has some evil in them and it depends how much you let it out. thought johanna is so angelic its sort of hard to find it in her. But really i agree that though he's not really front and center as much as lovett and sweeney the judge is sort of the most awful, I mean thought what he is doing is awfull i really sympathise (sp) with sweeney because he's not evil its not his nature he's driven into it, whereas turpin isn't really. all and all i think this is a great thread

[Calvin]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 6:22pm

thought johanna is so angelic

But is she? After all, she's the one who's able to kill Fogg after Anthony is unable to muster up the cajones to shoot him.

[StephenSondheimWHOO]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 6:37pm

"But is she? After all, she's the one who's able to kill Fogg after Anthony is unable to muster up the cajones to shoot him"

good point i guess that sort of backs up my theory

p.s.
sorry for the spelling mistakes

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 6:48pm

Any court these days would declare Johanna's actions innocent out of self-defense. Fogg had held her captive and abused her, so killing him was necessary for escape and self-preservation.

[Calvin]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 8:13pm

Oh, no doubt it was justified. But it's a pretty stark parallel -- she was unjustly imprisoned because she refused to submit to Judge Turpin, and as a result, she became a killer. There had to be a point in showing that Anthony was unable to shoot. I would imagine Sweeney had to kill a person or two to escape Botany Bay.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 8:48pm

Facinating, thought provoking thread...

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 9:35pm

Oh I think the Doyle production in particular demonstrated the like father, like daughter relationship that existed between Johanna and Sweeney. Little blockings where Lauren stood right in front of Michael, demonstrating how she is of his blood.

I have to give credit to other excellent Sweeney analysts who brought up some really interesting points that I've read recently that I'm going to bring up:

There's even a little bit of Johanna in Sweeney when Anthony busts in to tell him of the plan. Sweeney becomes extremely weak, cowering away, like Johanna does.

Others have also commented that there is a similarity in her relationship with Anthony and with Turbin. Anthony displays some of the controlling tendencies that Turbin does, which is also the only relationship Johanna has ever known. Again, there is some shadow blocking, as Anthony comes to the ladder over her right after the Judge has left it.

Johanna certainly is a tad mad at the end of the play, and her father went...well, certainly much madder. But there remains a strong possibility that Johanna could trod Sweeney's path.

(Back to my own thoughts) I think this production also changes some of the discussion a bit. In this production, Sweeney might have been Mrs. Lovett's #1 priority, but there is no question that she did covet money as well.

She was even a tad...vain...no, Calvin?

[bwayondabrain]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 9:39pm

Mrs. Mooney! that cracked me up :)
but i think Mrs Lovett is evil- she is in love and is desperate! she thought itd make Sweeney like her better if she gave him ideas which advanced his stuff...
yeah
:)

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 9/5/06 at 9:54pm

This might be a stretch, but you could put Anthony under the "vainity" category. Because, after all, the first thing he notices about Joanna is her lovely looks and "yellow hair."

Posted: 9/5/06 at 10:00pm

this is why i think something untoward happened to the former Mr Lovett...she's just a bit too ready with the idea of repurposing the corpses!