SWEENEY TODD 2005 Broadway revival?- Page 3

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 2:26am

I saw the tour. Judy Kaye was amazing and toby was great. They were the only redeeming qualities in a production that otherwise, quite frankly, blew donkey balls.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 12:20pm

Add me to the list of people who thought it was one of the most chilling, captivating, fascinating, heartbreaking and thrilling moments in all my years of theater-going. I know a lot of Sondheim fans were bitter that this wasn't a traditional staging, but I thought the brilliance lies in the fact that this show which demands a full production could be told in a completely different way. Setting it in an insane asylum with Toby telling the story almost made it feel as if it were a sequel to the original production retold through his fractured mind. Genius. Patti was wonderful, but she wasn't the standout performer. Truly it was an ensemble piece like I've never seen before, and Patti did take a backseat at times to the ensemble.

I can't remember the actress who played Pirelli, but she was one of Doyle's brushstrokes of genius. It was an utterly theatrical show, and almost every single choice he made was captivating.

Sweeney Todd is a masterpiece and we will always have productions of the show running somewhere. What makes Sweeney Todd a masterpiece is that it has proven it is a malleable work of art that can be tinkered with in staging and musical arrangements but it is the story and music that is true star of the show.

The cast recording isn't so great without watching the show and understanding why it's so sparse, but we have several full, lavish recordings of Sweeney Todd to enjoy, and this is just something different.




Updated On: 3/24/13 at 12:20 PM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 12:30pm

What an awful production of a perfect show this was. From Patti's inability to form a character outside a drag queen's Patti LuPone impression to Michael Cerveris' BOOOOORING portrayal of Sweeney to the set design and staging that confused even those extremely familiar with the material, this is one revival that should never have happened.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 12:39pm

Should have never happened? But it did happen, Jordan, and reading this thread it seems that more people thought it was great than hated it, so you're in the minority. You think very highly of yourself too, don't you?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 12:42pm

No honey, I'm giving an OPINION. Just like you did. But mine is different than yours. That happens in life sometimes, y'know.

[IronMan]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 12:44pm

I saw this twice on Broadway- I'm very familiar with the show, and I found it to be intelligent, moving, scary, and thrilling. There was a REASON for the actors to be playing the instruments that they did (at least there was in my mind), and the concept and staging were fascinating. And having the beginning of the show done without stopping for an applause break until after 'Johanna' built up so much tension that it put the whole audience on edge.

The image at the end of Toby being gagged with the red scarf knitted for him by Lovett still haunts me...

Loving this production so much, I bought a ticket for Doyle's "Company," and was also invited to the dress run. I HATED it. Now, I'm familiar with that score, but not the show itself, so perhaps that made a difference, but even on second viewing I just found it to be mediocre musicians marching in a square for 2 hours.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 2:04pm

I was mixed about the revival when I saw it. I knew the score very well and loved the Hearn/Lansbury DVD growing up, and took a friend who had never seen/heard the show before at all. The score, book, story, all were as strong as ever (Jordan called it perfect, I don't know that I'd ever call anything perfect but this is on the shortlist if I ever decide to make that leap.)

The production itself, struck me as equal parts genius and incomprehensible. My first criticism was that I saw it with Patti LuPone in it and I wished I had seen Mrs. Lovett instead. There are acolytes of Mrs. LuPone and there are critics of her; I can only go by what I've seen and what I saw that night was a diva with a tuba in the middle of my beloved Sweeney Todd where Mrs. Lovett should be.

I loved Cerveris, don't remember much about my impressions of the other actors, and honestly had forgotten the conceit of it being "all in Toby's head." Why? Making Toby into Tommy Westphall is a strong and deliberate choice. It simply need not be made to enjoy the show, though, so it's the kind of choice that either seeks to draw something new out of the material (which I didn't see) or excuses material with which the production is uncomfortable presenting on its own merit (should never be the case with something as brilliant as Sweeney.) The actor/muso aspect worked occasionally (I liked the romantic idea of Johanna and Anthony doubling each other, but man did she look awkward as an ingenue with a cello; the less said about the tuba the better)

That said, I loved the design of the show. The lighting design, especially, took my breath away when the lights embedded in between the floorboards and walls illuminated. That they flooded the house red when the Judge was killed was an image I'll likely never forget. The coffins were a great touch. The (literal!) use of buckets of blood was chilling symbolism, not to mention the single most sickening and disturbing *sound* I've ever heard produced in a theater.

So I have mixed memories of the production. A missed opportunity, perhaps. Fleeting moments of brilliance elevating a frustrating evening into a worthwhile-but-hardly-definitive revival? My perspective on it shifts depending on which responses I had I recall most.

[CJ N2N]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 4:24pm

Can anyone describe what happened during City on Fire for me please? You all said it was so cool and now I'm really curious.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 4:57pm

It's not really something you can really get the full effect from simply by describing. It was just remarkable staging, doing a lot with what little elements they had and great lighting. It was thrilling and dramatic- the perfect lead up to the climax.

[east side story]

Posted: 3/24/13 at 6:29pm

I saw it three or four times over the course of it's run, from first preview to the week before the Tony's. I really liked it the first time, but loved it more with each visit following.

I thought the whole shebang was genius.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:19am

"No honey, I'm giving an OPINION. Just like you did. But mine is different than yours. That happens in life sometimes, y'know.That happens in life sometimes, y'know."

Bravo, Jordan Catalano!

I don't get the aversion of some on bww to different-than-mine opinions whether majority, minority, negative or positive. If you have no interest in discussing your thoughts about theater with people with similar as well as differing views, then what the hell are you doing here?

This is a perfect example. As someone who loved the 2005 revival of Sweeney, I may engage and challenge those who didn't, but I"m certainly not going to think ill of them for simply disagreeing with me. And I'm certainly not going to fault anyone whose view appears to me - rightly or wrongly - to be in the minority. I am in the minority about many things - does that make me wrong and the majority right?

If that were the case, CARMEN would remain an obscure bomb of the Opera-Comique's 1875 season; and woe be to anyone in 1982 who dares question whether CATS deserves its monumental popularity.

But any arguable time-will-tell vindications aside, the fact is we have different opinions. Shouldn't we celebrate that? Isn't that part of the joy of weighing in on shows?





Updated On: 3/26/13 at 10:19 AM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:29am

...staging that confused even those extremely familiar with the material...

While I liked the production more than you, Jordan, I couldn't agree more with this statement. I thought the staging was inventive but very confusing. I went with a bunch of family members who were not familiar with the plot and had no idea what was happening.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:30am

This is one of those I wish I had seen. It came out when I was first getting into theatre, and I thought the dark, stylized version was how Sweeney was always produced. It wasn't until I saw a high school production a few years later I realized how brilliant the source material is and how much I'd missed out.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:36am

I loved pretty much everything about it. There were individual moments I might have quibbled with, but I loved the concept, the design, and the performances. I particularly liked hearing the score reduced to its skeleton (without just giving it to a synth), as it were; I heard things I'd never heard before.

But I can certainly see why some folks thought it didn't work at all.

I was seeing it with my boyfriend, who didn't know the show at all, and he followed it perfectly. I was actually surprised (and relieved).

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:05am

Doyle was on a serious Sondheim kick in those days — there was talk about also reviving NIGHT MUSIC using this same technique, and some people — myself included— felt it was going to the well a bit too many times. Remember: he also tried to use this gimmick (and it is one) with BARNUM, and the casting call for that was, as we should all remember, a fiasco.

The whole "inmates putting on a show" was a bit too much like MARAT/SADE, and the instruments just got in the way a few times. Still, it wasnt as horrendous as his COMPANY, so I guess there's that.

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:06am

So if Toby is telling the story- how does he know Sweeney's back story? How does he know the beggar woman is Sweeney's wife or Johanna is Sweeney's daughter? There's huge chunks of the story he wasn't privy to, isn't there?

Updated On: 3/26/13 at 11:06 AM

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:08am

^^^ and there's a lot of the problem right there.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:08am

Saw it 7 times. Loved it more than I can explain. I actually didn't "get" it the first time I saw it, but I knew it was really special. I saw it again a few months later and was totally on board.

It was my first Sweeney Todd, so I was never able to compare it to a bigger production, or a less conceptual one. But the way everything, every tiny, tiny little thing clicked so perfectly from start to finish -- I was in college at the time and I learned a lot from that. More than I ever did in any class.

And that was when I still capable of being objective about this guy with the instruments. :)

[meyerd584]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:55am

As someone not familiar with the show, I was bored and confused throughout.

It was unclear (to a newbie) who was who and what was going on. Except that people were being killed and eaten. It looked lazy and cheap and was lost on me.

I finally saw a proper production some years later and fell in love with the show.
Would enjoy going back to watch and see if I appreciated the 2005 revival more, but at the time, it was clear to me that it was meant for fans.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 1:56pm

"So if Toby is telling the story- how does he know Sweeney's back story? How does he know the beggar woman is Sweeney's wife or Johanna is Sweeney's daughter? There's huge chunks of the story he wasn't privy to, isn't there?"

The concept was that the inmates of an asylum were telling the tale. In this respect somewhat similar to Marat/Sade.

Friends I was with who were less familiar with Sweeney didn't fully grasp the device, and to a certain extent that is a demerit..

But they still loved it. The framing device may have been oblique for them but the story being told within that conceit remained clear.

Frankly, though, the question of how Toby knew the story isn't all that different from that of how the entire cast knows the story in any production of Sweeney Todd; as the whole cast always functions as a chorus throughout the musical, most notably at the beginning and at the end (characters who don't survive included).




Updated On: 3/26/13 at 01:56 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 2:01pm

Right. I didn't necessarily think "Toby" was Toby, anymore than Glenda Jackson's somnabulist was Charlotte Corday.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 2:13pm

I mean, for what it's worth I saw this production with people who were mostly unfamiliar with the material and they both were able to follow the storyline. I adored the production and also saw the tour when it came through Boston (on a Halloween). I was surprised at how much I felt the energy changed with Judy Kaye as Lovett (on the tour). I really enjoyed her, but she was so different from LuPone.

(I also think Doyle should get credit for getting LuPone to do the closest thing to a consistent accent she's done in her entire career.)

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 2:19pm

I think he should get credit for that moment where she busted out of that doorway playing a tuba and shaking her ass.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 2:22pm

For some reason I feel like all ass shaking was her idea.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 2:28pm

"What an awful production of a perfect show this was. From Patti's inability to form a character outside a drag queen's Patti LuPone impression to Michael Cerveris' BOOOOORING portrayal of Sweeney to the set design and staging that confused even those extremely familiar with the material, this is one revival that should never have happened."

Yes...we know. You have made your feelings about this and several other revivals of Sondheim show abundantly clear....numerous times. CHANGE THE FREAKING RECORD!!!!!!