Sweeney Todd PBS — Page 8

I enjoyed the production. Was really glad that I was able to see it - thank you PBS.

Thought Terfel and Thompson did an adequate job. I wasn't reflecting how they weren't "other" Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett that we equate with these roles. That is an achievement in my book.

Although I enjoy Audra in many of her performances I am not an OMG throw a Tony at her because she opens her mouth. Her performance as the Beggar Woman was fantastic! Loved her! As for a previous comment about colorblind casting for this role and the younger white Mrs. Todd. Oh please...it was completely fine. I did not even give it a second thought. It didn't distract from the performance.

Borle...really don't like him. Think I just don't like he expressions and the attitude he tries to give off. They don't seem genuine to me. When I see him appear on stage I am immediately turned off.

Actually enjoyed Kyle Brenn as Toby. He was sweet but not as naive as I might have liked.

Really thought it was effective when the lunatics broke out of the asylum, jumped off the stage and ran through the audience. Reminded me of years back when the Circle in the Square did Sweeney Todd. That performance was SO intimate that you felt as if Sweeney were going to reach out to slash your throat. The performers ran up the aisles. It does add that little bit of fear when you are close for this show.

All in all - thanks everyone for the reminder to grab it on my DVR. Will watch it at least one more time.

>> Has anyone solved the riddle of what that was supposed to be on the side of Toby's head?

He grows up to become the Phantom?

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I took it as Pirelli is not just an awful barber, but possibly a dangerously awful one.

But I also wondered if it was some indication of Toby having been a workhouse boy. I tried digging around on that, and it seems that children's heads were often shaved for lice, but their entire heads would have been shaved, not just a portion.

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"I took the scar on Toby's head as an indication of the rough life this homeless kid has had. A sort of visual backstory."

"I took it as Pirelli is not just an awful barber, but possibly a dangerously awful one."

Yeah but this is a concert version where a blonde girl has a black mother and a dark haired Welsh father and when people die they get slapped in the face with a handful of blood. When did realism enter into this version?

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Updated On: 9/30/14 at 03:03 PM

Well, then what the f0ck kind of answer did you want to your question, Goth?

Okay. A wizard did it. Is that better?

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I thought that it was some sort of head injury. A similar idea was used in the John Doyle revival except it was a bandage.

I think many of the tempos were too slow.

Oh, God. That airhorn was so silly. I laughed so hard when Alan Gilbert had to use it at one point. Looked like he was a PE teacher trying to get control of an unruly class of preteens.

"Did anyone else find the NY Phil surprisingly lacking? I thought they often sounded sluggish and even anemic compared to the original pit band."

This!! Yes!!

Yes agree re the mixing.

Oh....the Anthony was really good as well! And, I actually enjoyed Christian Borle's performance!

I have a very different take on it. CORRECTION: I have a friendly amendment to Gaveston's take:

JULIET
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale.

In Joanna's room, even the bird that greets the morning in song doesn't sing. This emphasizes Joanna's loneliness, despair, lack of optimism.

Why? Because of her wretched captivity. She cannot sing (even though, of course, she is singing about not being able to sing... quintessentially Sondheim.)

The analogy is not just the allusion to the lark. This is about to be a very R&J like scene. A sheltered young woman at her window, greeting her new lover (it is, after all, love at first sight; Antony is already enraptured by Joanna before she even sees him.... yes, just like Romeo when he sees Juliet at the ball), who is in awe of her below, and whom will be forbidden her because her "father" will not accept him and intends her to marry someone else; moreover, the young woman will face the father's wrath in resisting this match. When Joanna meets Antony she has the beginning of optimism. Not yet in the song which precedes, or half-precedes, their meeting.

Updated On: 10/2/14 at 10:34 PM

I just have to say: GavestonPS, henrikegerman, and mysteriousgrowl, it's conversations like these that make me love BWW!