The best Sweeney?

Who do you think has been the best Sweeney Todd? I saw the original Sweeney, Len Cariou, in 1979 and also George Hearn in the production taped for television. Both were wonderful, but I thought Hearn brought more character to the role. I didn't see the Broadway revival with Bob Gunton nor the regional production Brian Stokes Mitchell. Your opinion, please.

Len Cariou, hands down. Cariou made Sweeney into a real person turned into a murderous machine by the injustice of others. Hearn's Sweeney was a raving looney when he got off the boat, and he was a raving looney all the way through the show, screaming every song. A tiresome one note bore of a performance.

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I think the SWEENEY to watch is Bryn Terfel. I saw him twice at the Lyric Opera Of Chicago. It was his first time in the role, and as he is a singer first his acting has a ways to go, but boy, he is gonna be the SWEENEY of his generation.

I thought Hearn was a great Sweeney.

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Of the Sweeneys I've seen - Len Cariou, George Hearn, Bob Gunton, Timothy Nolen and several (very good) amateur Sweeneys - my favorite is still Cariou. Cariou was on a slow boil throughout Act One. He was quiet, intense and frightening - much like the lyrics describe Sweeney in "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd". When he finally exploded into "Epiphany," I wanted to crawl under my seat. I could see him as a man who was methodically plotting his revenge for 15 years. I like Hearn in the role too, and he sings it beautifully, but with all the screaming he does, he seems unhinged from the very beginning. That's a valid choice, but Cariou, for me had a bigger payoff by playing it cool. The York production with Gunton and Beth Fowler had a Sweeney and Lovett that really played up the twisted desperate love affair between those two characters, and while they didn't strive for the huge effects of their Broadway counterparts, the intimate scale of the production and the performances paid off in making the piece even more emotionally devastating at the end. I remember leaving that production a blubbering wreck. Nolen had done Sweeney at City Opera and I later caught him in a regional production. His Sweeney was too gloomy for my taste...I wanted him to at least lighten up a little. Plus, there were some directorial choices in that production that marred the material in my opinion, which may also have been why he wasn't my particular favorite in the role.

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