SWEENEY TODD 2005 Broadway revival?

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:20am

Just wondering, did anyone see the 2005 Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd? I listened to the cast recording and honestly, didn't seem to really enjoy it. Just wondering what peoples thoughts were of the show

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:23am

I saw the tour, and I absolutely loved it. It was truly a breathtaking production.

[MissAnneThrop]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:23am

i am not a fan of the actors/musicians concept but I did enjoy Michael Cerveris. I liked Patti more when she did it at Avery Fisher Hall with an orchestra.

[Kad]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:26am

See, I don't like her in the concert but thought she was great in the revival.

I thought it was a great production. It was chilling and the concept worked, for the most part. The "City on Fire" sequence was incredible.

I will say that I did not enjoy the production when I saw it again on tour.

[BwayLover]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:43am

I absolutely LOVED this production. It was unique, fascinating and the performances were incredible. Not just Cerveris and LuPone, who both blew me away - but really every single member of that cast did amazing work on that stage.

I still have very vivid memories of Patti LuPone playfully shaking her padded behind as she played that tuba. Priceless.

Updated On: 4/27/11 at 10:43 AM

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:47am

Extremely poorly directed and, in my experience, completely incomprehensible to anyone who was not thoroughly familiar with the show.

[madbrian]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:51am

Though Cerveris and Feliciano were good in their roles, I thought the entire production was a mess. And I am not a fan of either of LuPone's Lovetts.

[MissAnneThrop]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:22am

i didn't love patti in either production but i liked her more in 2000. i don't understand the actors as musicians thing.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:23am

It was very interesting and fun as a novelty approach to the piece, but hardly the best or clearest way to tell the story or represent the fullness of the score. It was more about the director's concept than the written piece.

The novelty wore off in the last 30 minutes or so, when it verged upon the tedious.
Updated On: 4/27/11 at 11:23 AM

[Eos]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:28am

I saw the revival and really appreciated the approach and most of the performances, but honestly missed the orchestra. I know bigger orchestras are giving way to smaller ones, but for a Sondheim show, I'm not a fan. And yeah Kad, "City on Fire" was pretty damn cool.

[scott68]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:30am

It was one of my favorite productions I've ever seen.

I will say, though, that the cast album is abominably produced. Even loving the show as much as I did, I think the recording is unlistenable.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:36am

Best musical I've ever seen. I've absolutely had that thought since I saw it in 2005. The various interpretations of it that could be made, the way it evolved on a nightly basis to add small actions such as the administration of pills to Toby during various scenes- only increased the genius of the piece. I think it was the most dynamic presentation of a Sondheim show I've ever seen. The audience was completely engaged, cringing and gasping throughout the entire thing. 'Not While I'm Around,' was near literally bone chilling. I really think one of the key reasons the piece worked so well, actually was the fleshing out of Toby as the haunted and damaged story teller.

Yeah, there were some 'what in the world' moments like the infamous 'baby coffin,' but overall the concept of inmates in an asylum totally played up to the strengths of the material. Even knowing the material going in, I think the only other show that's managed to so completely horrify me was 'The Pillowman.' So, yeah, saw it. Loved it beyond all explanation. I think John Doyle is a genius, and I'd follow him to any show. Especially with Sondheim, he manages to cut through some of the pomp that often shows up in stagings, and gets the real emotions, fear and desire out like no other director can.

Updated On: 4/27/11 at 11:36 AM

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:43am

Felciano and Molina were both terrific, which suprised me because I had worked with Felciano a few years earlier and didnt see him as Toby at all. I even liked Mark Jacoby who usually bores me.
Loved LuPone and Cerveris, the direction and lighting.
I agree that LuPOne was better in this production than the concert.
Favorite moment was LuPone's "By the Sea" which she sung while cleaning her "tools". Awesome!

[BroadwayBound062]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:51am

One of my favorite shows I have ever seen on Broadway to this day.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 12:08pm

Katurian has offered an acute and lovely exposition of her feelings on this incredible production, every word of which I agree with. But I also agree with scott -- I bought the album and played it through once. It has never darkened my iTunes again.

Posted: 4/27/11 at 12:17pm

I am trying to be accepting of differing opinions but can't help but wonder what you thought was brought to this show by this concept? Have you seen a straight staging of the work? At the very least, can we agree that the entire thing could have been improved by having the actors who were supposedly playing a scene together brought into general proximity and made to address their words to the person to whom they were being spoken?

[Katurian2]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 12:37pm

Joe- I think that issue of the actors being separated plays into how you feel about Doyle's concept(s) in general. For this show in particular, the concept, as I recall was agreed upon at the time, was inmates (with the exception possibly of the attendants in Pirelli and Fogg) in an asylum acting out the story as narrated by Toby. Thus, the only 'real' actor who experienced the events WAS actually Toby. Johanna and Antony were inmates 'playing' those characters, so they were playing them as through their own veil of interpretation, disconnect and mental rehabilitation. There was little joyful connection, because it was all through a screen of acting and people that were haunted by their own mental illnesses.

But what connection there was, I think was quite profound in its own way. The moment of Johanna and Antoney dueting on cellos was quite amazing, in my opinion.

Again, that is one interpretation of the concept. As I recall, some people thought the whole thing was a nightmare by Toby, and thus the characters would not have been 'acting,' but actual dream representations.

And yes, I've seen a straight staging of the work, and while I will always enjoy the score, I do this Sweeney is most effective when the comedy is somewhat suppressed, and true fear is worked with.

[sondheimfan2]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 12:40pm

"Extremely poorly directed and, in my experience, completely incomprehensible to anyone who was not thoroughly familiar with the show."

I couldn't agree more.

[Horton]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 12:59pm

The concept of the show was based around Toby. At the end of a standard production of Sweeney Todd, Toby is dragged off to an insane asylum. This production took place years later, with Toby telling Donna Lynn Champlin's character about what he saw. This explains why actors didn't face each other: because Toby was just seeing flashes of them in his mind.

[mallardo]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 1:18pm

I too saw the tour and loved it. Judy Kaye was a sensational Mrs. Lovett.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 1:42pm

I absolutely loved the production. I love the concept of having actors play the instruments because it puts all of the storytelling in the hands of the actors--there's nothing going on that you can't see. I think Katurian2 did a good job explaining how this production worked, so I just want to say that the cast album is nowhere near what the actual show was like. When you can't see the actors with their instruments, you just hear an orchestra that's just too small, and the concept loses all of its power. The cast album is a very poor representation of what the show was actually like.

[Jake01]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 2:02pm

I know I'm in the EXTREME minority on this, but I actually prefer the revival recording to the original. Not being a huge fan of the score, the melodies just seem so much stronger to me without the full orchestrations overpowering them. The reduced orchestrations really bring the music out beautifully, and make me appreciate it more.
Updated On: 4/27/11 at 02:02 PM

[newintown]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 2:09pm

"...the melodies just seem so much stronger to me without full orchestrations overpowering them" is the kind of comment that makes a musician want to take up bookkeeping.

[Christoph]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 2:13pm

People on this board and Broadway critics were inventing new superlatives to describe it, but it was utter garbage. I saw the original version with Lansbury and convinced a gaggle of people to go see this show. Out of more than a dozen of us, not one of us liked it, and the older viewers around us were especially annoyed by it. It came off like a show put on in the high school gym. Other than a strait-jacket, it looked like the actors wandered in off the street wearing their regular clothes. Actors functioned as the musicians and the stage hands, which meant when a song finished and they had to hit a mark, they clumsily clunked their instruments down and rocketed across the stage to start their dialog, then would need to rocket back to where they left their instruments at the start of a new number. The whole set-up was very awkward and did nothing but take the viewer out of the show. I thought maybe stars like LuPone and Cerveris would elevate it, but they seemed instead to lower themselves to it. LuPone especially looked bored to death and rushed through her numbers like she was late for a dinner date. Of the cast, I only remember Manoel Felciano and Lauren Molina being stand-outs. If the ticket price had been $20.00, I might have been complimentary and said it was barely mediocre, but at full ticket price it was inexcusable. Hands down the worst production of Sweeney Todd, one of the worst Broadway productions I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot) and one of my worst memories of Broadway. My mother still refers scathingly to this night as the evening I dragged everyone off to a bargain basement side-show or Broadway as envisioned by Walmart. And the worst part was that she was right.

Posted: 4/27/11 at 2:16pm

I certainly understand the concept- Toby is in an asylum "Telling" the story. What I don't understand is how that improves the show. He's not really a very important character in the scheme of things. Why make him the focus of this tale?

I watched the production with two people who had varying knowledge of the show. One had heard the score and seen the movie, one had no prior knowledge of it. Neither of them could follow the action. At all. Actor "A" would be talking with actor "B" but were looking away from each other and separated by several yards- were they talking to each other? People sang while moving objects and building or deconstructing things. Was that really happening? What was it? Did it relate to the action? (Call me old fashioned, but if a prop or action does not relate to the story being told, get rid of it. If you bring a gun onstage, it must be fired, etc.)

And when a plot hinges on people knowing (or not knowing) pertinent facts, it makes it extremely hard to follow when you can't tell if there is interaction between two characters.