Sweeney Todd - Appreciation

WEEKLY FEATURE

To encourage feedback and to build community, I am going to feature a musical each week for APPRECIATION. It is open for POSITIVE comments where people to share their memories of the show and special experiences! This will serve as a FRIENDLY FORUM.

WEEK #2: SWEENEY TODD

I owe a lot to "Sweeney" and Sondheim. This musical opened the door to me... rather... kicked my door down! You see, I was a senior in high school and had just been cast in "Bye Bye Birdie" and I didn't have any knowledge about musical theatre other than I really liked "Moulin Rouge" and "Chicago" movies... and I'd gone to some really awesome plays in my childhood.

Then one night I was home alone on one of those lonely Fridays and flipped on PBS right when "Sweeney Todd in Concert" in San Francisco (with George Hearn & Patti LuPone) was being aired.

And my jaw dropped. For all 2.5 hours I was entranced. This musical was nothing/something/everything I'd ever seen/dreamed! I fell in love with "Sweeney". I fell in love with Sondheim.

But most importantly, I had been hooked by the heart... and had fallen in love with musical theatre. The door swung open and swallowed me up. Before I knew it, I was filling my every being with Broadway.

"Sweeney" -- to this day -- remains in my Top 5 list and I appreciate this show unlike anything. I'm very anxious for the revival.

So what's your story? First memories of "Sweeney"?

PS: This Week #1: Titanic
https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=868946

Updated On: 10/4/05 at 09:33 PM

My first Sweeney memory was also from watching it on PBS. However, I was in middle school and was sort of confused and bored...and now I really, really enjoy this show! Its not a show that I dwell on or think about with great passion, but it was truly an eye-opener to me for theatre beyond what I knew.

I think what got me into Sweeney was listening to it on British theatre radio. I have since seen the DVD many more times. I love the music and the staging itself is so magnificent. I am dying to see this new production at some point. Maybe this weekend!!

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I like how you touched on the staging, neocomposer.

I was sooo fascinated by the set design of the Kennedy Center presentation (with Brian Stokes Mitchell). It's so genius, and eerie.

I'm curious to see how they do the seat and chute with this up-coming version. I always got such a kick thinking how much fun it must have been for the actors who were dumped from the barber chair into the slide that led to the oven doors.

My Favorite Song is "God That's Good"...

But I loooove the musical interlude (scene change) in between "Barber and His Wife" and "Worst Pies"... it's like 30 seconds of boom-bee-doom-boom-bee-doom that makes my hair stand on edge!

Updated On: 10/4/05 at 09:44 PM

Saw it in May, '79, and went in not knowing a thing. I was intrigued by the cutesy-grotesque logo, but not being a big theatre fan at the time, I wasn't aware the show had opened to mostly across the board raves, after fairly galvanizing the theatre industry into pro and con camps during previews.

When you went up to the bar level at the Uris, the walls were covered in Victorian pen and ink drawings. Very eerie, and I think they are very similar to what you see during the title sequence on the video.

Walking into the theatre, I was stunned and startled by the set. Those that have only seen the scaled back set for the national tour on the video, or have gazed at the murky production photos in the cast recording, I cannot even begin to convey the scale of the Broadway set. It wasn't just a set resembling a factory, it was an actual factory. I remember some steel girders that were moving around at the top of the set, above the dirty glass paned roof, and there were, I believe, two or three levels on both sides of the stage, with all sorts of murky, sinister looking machinery barely visible in the crevices and corners. They rarely, if ever used those playing areas during the production. It was mostly for atmosphere, but highly effective.

There was a pipe organ, somewhat down front and on the side of the orchestra level, with an inscription, "His blood cleans our sins," or something to the effect. And the grave diggers were at work, digging actual piles of dirt. All that atmosphere made a huge impression, even before that factory whistle went off and I practically jumped into the row behind me.

Certain things remain indelible about that performance for me... the spotlight on Len Cariou's ghostlike white face as he rose from the grave in the opening number...Merle Louise grabbing Victor Garber's crotch...Lansbury's entrance, and her comic delivery of "Worst Pies in London", the creepy dumbshow during "Poor Thing," the tooth-pulling sequence (unnecessary for the show, but funny), that grotesque moment when Edmund Lyndeck leered at Sarah Rice ("How sweet you look in that light muslin gown") and the panic, terror and revulsion conveyed by Rice at that moment, Cariou roving that big stage during "Epiphany" with so much volcanic anger that despite the gargantuan theatre, you still wanted to hide under your seat, and I'm not even through the first act.

Really firmly etched on my mind was Mrs. Lovett's death. Unlike the staging for the national tour, I remember Cariou grabbing her by the legs and flipping her into the oven, so her death was somewhat more shocking and startling. Might just be my foggy recollection, but that's what I remember of that moment (as well as Lansbury's blood-curdling scream, and the intense, loud blast and reverberation from the orchestra). It haunted my dreams for days thereafter.

As a novice musical fan, Sweeney was almost too much visually and aurally to process. I eagerly awaited the cast recording (which I think was released in July or August, '79), and after replaying the recording over and over, was firmly hooked, both on the show and on musical theatre itself. Sweeney is the show that did it for me, and I will always look back fondly on my memories of that original production.

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