Sweeney - Original Staging — Page 3

Semi-unrelated: Did anyone see the Jane Havoc tour? I was going to see it but it shut down before it made to Memphis where I was living at the time. I have always wondered what is was like.

I saw the original twice and hated the set and the costumes and Hal Prince's heavy-handed attempt to make the show about the Evils of the Industrial Revolution, all the while directing the actors to perform in his umpteenth pale imitation of the Berliner Ensemble: warmed-over Brecht that came out more like bleccch.

Stephen Sondheim wanted to take Christopher Bond's wonderful, SMALL adaptation of 1890's Paris and London Grand Guignol. Prince said he would only do it with his CONCEPT, which was just as much a descration of the score as was Doyle's reductio ad absurdum.

Honestly, I think the movie is the first version to ever do Sondheim justice. Thank you, Tim Burton.

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Joey & Tom - well i dont know much about the original, just the clips i've seen on youtube of the tour... so i dont know if i truly would have loved it as much as the film... but coming from the perspective of the revival, which i did see, i was just so incredible impressed with the original show... because i hated the revival so much.

after watching the show on youtube a few times i still enjoy the film more. the ending, particularly the scene you pointed out, about the blood dripping onto sweeneys wife's face... that was way way way better than the ending in the show i saw on youtube... much more effective and impressive. its bizarre how the scene itself is so violent and bloody, but i thought it was insanely beautiful in some weird way... morbid i know, but it took my breath away and left me silent and speechless with a knot in my throat...

i do wish i could have seen the original, and i am sure many hardcore fans will always say the original was the best... all i know is i loved this film so much that the score has now become the most played album on my ipod! and i cant wait to rent the dvd of the old tour version... which i know i'll love...

just as long as i never have to sit thru anything like that revival again!!! :)

brody - had i known anything about sweeney before seeing the revival i think i genuinely would have enjoyed it more. or atleast have been able to follow the story better. i wasnt 100% completely lost while watching the revival, i think we followed it OK, but there were parts where we really were confused... why the heck are they doing a barber contest? wait isnt that barber lady the one who was singing alms a second ago... huh.... wait wha??? so is pirelli a man or a woman?? who is pirelli again?? why did he / she just show up??

but i knew nothing of the show at all. absolutely nothing. all i knew was that sweeney was a barber who killed people. lol. so i think i have to fault myself to a certain degree as well for atleast not having read a bit of the synopsis beforehand. which would have helped.

that being said, i still say a great deal of why i didnt enjoy the revival was simply the staging and john doyle's approach to the whole show. it was just boring... it was a concert with costumes. and thats not what i had expected. but of course thats just my opinion...

movie > revival
just my taste i guess...

my hope is that people going to see the revival on tour will see the film beforehand so they'll be able to follow it better... i think that'll help alot and people will enjoy it more that way.

that being said, after seeing the magnificent film people might be really turned off at how drastically simple the revival is. but who knows really...

Updated On: 12/27/07 at 11:04 AM

I saw the original and loved it, mainly because of the incredible performances by Cariou (oh my, major crush there!) and Lansbury, but the production itself was overwhelming. The orchestration was wonderful but the production made everything human seem insignificant. Part of the message I suppose but it ate up and spit out all the supporting characters, and even the chorus. I then saw the revival several times and also loved it. You didn't have to know the story beforehand; you had to pay close attention to everything that was said and who said it - kind of like watching unfamiliar Shakespeare. I understood lyrics in a way I had not done before, and the passionate, touching and occasionally funny Anthony/Joanna love story became important as a balance to the Sweeney/Lovett/wife triangle. I thought the re-orchestrations were subtle and effective - the dissonance was eerie and memorable. The idea of actors playing instruments didn't seem to bother me as much as some audience members - after the initial consciousness of it, I didn't really focus on it. Because all of the actors were on stage the whole time, the sense of a group experience was unique. That is why the idea of an asylum made sense - the ultimate group therapy to hear Toby's story and become players in it.

Here's Eugene Lee's sketch for the original set on Broadway.

This photo provides an idea of how the original Broadway set dwarfed the show.

My biggest problem with Doyle's concept is that Toby doesn't know that much about the story. At least, he didn't witness it all. He comes into the middle of it. If memory serves, he never even meets Anthony or Joanna. How does he find out the rest? Does he visit Wuthering Heights and the kindly housekeeper fills him in to the rest of the story before he goes to the asylum?

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Prince's entire concept was the dwarfing of man by machine. That's what the Industrial Revolution was all about. Mankind, which had basically been an agrarian society suddenly became industrialized. People swarmed into the cities to work in the factories and for the first time, to have their own monies, no matter how meager, only be devoured by the machinery of life and the rampant sexuality - had to meet many "fallen women" on the farm and, of course, the drugs.

Family ties were broken, human bonds were severed. People like Beadle and Judge Turpin flourished, treating the poor as disposable cogs in the machine.

But every now and then, peasants like Sweeney and Mrs L. came along to upset the apple cart. They killed and used the machinery of the age - cogs, levers, trapdoors, ovens to facilitate their crimes/revenge.

That was the greatest fear the rich had during the Industrial Revolution - that the people would turn their machinery against them. And eventually, in many countries, they did.

There were huge riots by workers in England, France, Italy - Germany was in a constant state of upheaval - and, of course, Russia, where the workers took over.

Dwarfing the man with the set was a brilliant move on Prince's part. I'm sorry Steve thinks his music was dwarfed, but personally, I felt the outcome at the time was marvelous and I don't remember our greatest living composer whining too much at the opening....

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Updated On: 12/27/07 at 02:42 PM

It still doesn't quite convey the full impact but if you go to "that site" and search for "SWEENEY TODD TV commercial Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou," you can see the glass paned roof of the original Broadway set in one shot of the two stars.

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