Sweeney Todd - Reviews from those of us who have seen it — Page 3

"Emma Thompson is the first sexual Mrs. Lovett that I've seen."

Thank you, Gotham (I felt the same way Friday night that you did on Sat.)! This is exactly how I feel about her performance and it's been odd to me that no one else seems to be expressing it. For me hers is not only a sexual Mrs. Lovett, but a very sexy one. I've loved her for decades, her vulnerability and intelligence consistently astonish me. But I have never really thought of her as sexy. I have never seen her bring anything even approaching this kind of unabashed joy and heat to her work on screen. She seemed to be having the time of her life playing Lovett and watching her was infectious.

This is one of the sexiest, most playful, most erotically inspired performances I have ever seen. On top of which, she not only played Nellie hot, she looks fantastic and moved beautifully.

May I ask where you were sitting? Because not having heard the same kind of response from others, I wonder if it was a product of my having sat very close to the stage with the energy reading differently back into the house and not having the same impact?

Updated On: 3/9/14 at 11:10 AM

Emma did seem like she was having the time of her life!! And for me, I was in the second tier, but for me Emma seemed sexual because of all the touching on Terfel. She was extremely expressive.

Pal Joey here's a couple of things that might add to your joy at this lovefest.

Fri. night after the show I along with a slew of other very happy people poured down into the train station. A saxophonist was playing Nothing's Gonna Harm You on the platform. Great moment.

I also had the good fortune of sitting just a few seats away from Barbara Cook. During intermission she struck up a conversation with her neighbors. She loved the performance. She had also been there Thursday night and decided to see it twice. "This is why I love living in New New York" she said. She couldn't have been more delightful.

I don't want to put words in the great lady's mouth but let me paraphrase as best I can. She expressed admiration and awe for everyone involved in the concert. In particular, she was blown away by Terfel's powerful Sweeney and by Armstrong Johnson's beautiful singing as Anthony. I mentioned to her that I loved Kyle Brenn's (Tobias) performance, her face lit up warmly in agreement. When I added that he is in the tenth grade at Norwalk High, her famous jaw dropped, she looked at me with those famous eyes, smiled her famous smile, and took a moment before reflecting in disbelief with a "WHAT?" I will cherish forever.

Updated On: 3/9/14 at 11:52 AM

"May I ask where you were sitting? Because not having heard the same kind of response from others, I wonder if it was a product of my having sat very close to the stage with the energy reading differently back into the house and not having the same impact?"

I was sitting in the orchestra level about 2/3 back from the stage. Your point of energy reading is a valid point. I've sat in huge theaters where the experience has been very different for people and sometimes we experience performances differently according to where we are sitting.

But let's examine why Emma's interpretation was so great. We've never seen a "human" Mrs. Lovett.

The original had Lansbury who played the role as dotty and borderline crazy. That's a valid take on the role and I think it was necessary to bring comic relief to such a grisly work. Had Lansbury played it differently it would have closed like Carrie.

Unfortunately the first revival nobody seems to remember other than it was a very scaled down production, no doubt helped by Forbidden Broadway's hilarious spoof using puppets instead of actors. Poor Beth Fowler's performance gets lost in the mist of time.

Coming into the Patti LuPone era, LuPone is very much like Ethel Merman, a trumpet performer but asexual. Of course LuPone was saddled with the instrument concept, so there wasn't room within the concept to be sexual. But even if there was, LuPone was a trumpet where audiences wanted to see a violin.

I haven't seen the movie version so I can't comment.

Enter Emma Thompson. Physically, Emma is a plain Jane. She isn't Vivien Leigh beautiful and she doesn't have the bone structure of Meryl Streep. And therein lies the beauty of her performance. Suddenly this Atlas of a man enters her life and she submits to him. She doesn't have to be Lansbury kooky and she doesn't have to be LuPone bulldozer. She has the room to play the role as a woman with physical needs who is willing to go along with Todd's plan because she craves his attention. Emma brought a real truth to the character without losing the comic tics that are needed to keep the show from being a bloody mess. The brilliance of this performance is she made Mrs. Lovett a woman.

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Updated On: 3/9/14 at 01:06 PM

With all of the praise for Thompson, I wonder if there's interest In building a full scale revival around her?

Updated On: 3/9/14 at 01:21 PM

"With all of the praise for Thompson, I wonder if there's interest In building a full scale revival around her?"

I think it depends on what she wants to do with her career. Does she want to take a year off from making movies to do Broadway?

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We disagree--fundamentally--about LuPone the way we disagree fundamentally about politics, but I am appreciative of your passion for the show as expressed in this thread.

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Pal Joey, I love reading your opinions on the original staging and reactions, so this is not meant to come across as antagonistic, but...

"I remember many people disliking the original production. The Brechtian staging, the environmental set, the celebration of murder and some loud sounds from the orchestra made it a challenging experience."

What exactly was Brechtian about Prince's staging?

The original staging wasn't EXTREMELY Brechtian other than the constant fourth-wall breaking of the ensemble Ballad Singers. Rather, the staging EVOKED Brecht through its explicit Marxist overtones, the opening infographic about distribution of wealth and power among social classes, and extremely dingy and destitute chorus of "The Poor."

Wasn't that opening infographic on the front "curtain" that gets pulled down or am I thinking of another show?

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Gotham--it was and you're not

I don't have the authority to give a definition but this Wiki sums up pretty much what I personally think of when something is called Brechtian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_theatre

To sum up, it is a distancing effect to cause audiences to not get too involved or wrapped up in the characters and their plight--or emotionally invested, but rather to be aware of the message being presented and to immediately see that in the greater sense of the individual audience member's own world.

The biggest example of Epic Theatre to hit the mainstream for a while has been (and it's a stretch, because pure Epic theatre is almost impossible) the broadway production of "Urinetown." Constant breaking of the fourth wall by narrator figures describing the action that is about to occur, signs and graphics that stand in for action and location, intentionally stilted dialogue among certain characters who stand for ideals and are not three-dimensional, and shoutouts to the fact that it is a musical. Plus, the final "Hail Malthus" is a pretty Brechtian moment- calling in a philosopher whose works impact the show and who the audience should educate themselves about.