"Sweeney Todd" Tobias: Man vs. Child?- Page 2

[sjewell88]

Posted: 5/29/11 at 4:41pm

I played this role last year (I'm 33) and the way I chose to play it was as an adolescent, maybe 14-16, whose voice has changed but who is not quite an adult. Toby is obviously naive and innocent at the beginning of the show but I never considered playing him as mentally challenged. I just thought that he led a very sheltered life and had had a lot of hard knocks and thought he found someone who was good to him in Mrs. Lovett and that inspires great loyalty in him. He's a pawn of Pirelli in the first act and then of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney in the second. My big philosophical question about the show was how did Lovett feel about Toby? Did she ever truly care for him but he gets in the way or does she only use him similarly to how Pirelli uses him in the first act until he knows too much and has to be disposed of? We chose the first option in my show but I think the second would be interesting and darker also.
Another thing to consider is logistically all of those songs are written for a tenor. I'm not sure how a young boy could sing them without massive transposing and most theaters I know what to do the score as written. I'm sure that goes into the decision of how to cast it too.