sweeneytoddst - Tumblr blog

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Hear me out: a short Sweeney with a strong, stocky build, and a slightly taller, plus-size Lovett with crazy curly red hair 👀 (or they're the same height)

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Send me Sweeney Todd things to doodle/sketch in the replies. I need some inspiration 🥺🩸💈🔪

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Ending Ballad Talk

DISCLAIMERS: Scroll away now if you don't want to read what I have to say about the Sweeney Todd Revival. I'm critiquing it.

I have loved Sweeney Todd for over a decade of my life. It is my special interest, and it literally means so much to me, so I have A LOT of thoughts involving the revival. These are some of those thoughts.

Literally this is my critique, my analysis, my observation, and my opinion on the choices made for the revival. So literally don't come at me if you can't handle someone critiquing (and not liking) the revival of Sweeney Todd.

With disclaimers out of the way now, I want to talk about the End Ballad in Sweeney Todd. Specifically, my issues with the choices made from the revival.

First, I can start off by saying that Gaten and Joe do a great job as Toby. I think out all the cast of characters, Tobias was the most well directed character. Not only do they sound great, but their voices do a killer job. That being said, the ensemble sound phenomenal, and I would be a fool to not say that.

However, the choreography in this show really kills it for me. While they do sound great, the choreo is incredibly distracting, and not to mention I just don't like this choreo at all. Some things are cool, but most times I'm left sitting there asking, "what the hell are they doing?". That's not me saying the dancers are bad. It's the choreo. I'm of the firm belief that Sweeney Todd doesn't need choreography to tell its story, and this version of the show is further proof of that because it is so distracting for what is needed to be said from the ensemble. As the victims of this story, the ensemble tells the tale of Sweeney to the audience in the style of a Greek Chorus. Just as the Goddesses from Hercules, for example. They're here to move along our story through narration. This is hard to follow most times with so much movement. Small uniform movements would work great but full-blown choreography while trying to tell us a story is... as I have said... distracting. The way Sondheim wrote this music was so you didn't need choreography to say something. The music does that for us. Now, specifically talking about the ending ballad in this case, for me, it just kills the mood. We just saw Sweeney have this gut-wrenching song of betrayal, and him clutching to his deceased wife in the end, Toby losing his mind and killing Sweeney, and proceeding to show us the extent of his newfound madness in this dead silence of the theater only for the mood to be shot with all this dancing. You're supposed to continue this feeling of dread from the moment Sweeney dies to when the ballad ends. For me, the choreography completely ruins this emotional build up.

Sweeney is a different kind of musical than the ones you see today. You don't need choreography, and in fact, adding choreography to it just makes it feel cheap and not like this intense tragedy with a few comedic moments thrown in. Not every musical requires choreo, and those who do require have reason for it. Could you imagine Newsies being told without choreography? It would be blasphemy. Sweeney WITH choreo makes it feel the same way. There's a reason it's not written in the script after all.

IDK, the TLDR; you're supposed to feel shaken by the end of Sweeney and to me the choreo ruins it.

Secondly, and this was my main point of talking about this, Sweeney and Lovett at the end of the End Ballad. Holding hands and jumping into "hell" together.

I gonna say it: why the hell did they direct it like that? So, because they're dead now, Sweeney is just cool with Lovett now and willingly accepts being with her in hell like a demonic couple or whatever? That is so far from what his character would do that seeing this part always makes me phyically cringe. Sweeney found out that Lovett literally lied and withheld information about his wife, encouraged him on this killing spree which inevitably led to him killing Lucy, and you (royal) think he's just cool with her in hell now? His character would not willingly take her hand and go with her. He'd be an angry and vengeful spirit in hell that would resent Lovett for all of eternity. And she is forced to forever live with her greed, selfishness, guilt, and heartbreak. I know it's the littlest thing for them to hold hands, but the smallest things have the biggest intentions. Like look at all the little things added in Coraline. Those little things were intentional and had meaning, so my point is that they would never do that for the End Ballad and changes the lesson the audience is left with! Their characters just wouldn't do that because he had no interest in her when he was alive, and hated her right before he killed her. He wouldn't then go and hold her hand to jump into hell with her. This isn't some kind of acceptance. This is a poor direction choice because this direction team really wanted to push the idea that they were possibly getting with each other, and I cannot explain to you how incredibly inaccurate that is to Sweeney and Lovett's characters.

Stage directions from the script: TODD and MRS. LOVETT are the last to leave. They look at each other, then exit in opposite directions, MRS. LOVETT into the wings, TODD upstage. He glares at us malevolently for a moment, then slams the iron door in our faces. Blackout.

Looking at Angela Lansbury and George Hearn with this scene, for example, as Lovett exits, she looks back woefully and guiltily at Sweeney, while Sweeney has nothing but hatred and fire in his expression. They go their separate ways in "hell" leaving us with Sweeney left glaring at us and slamming the door to his "hell" in our face. This alone tells us that Sweeney's spirit will remain angry and vengeful as per what his character is all about. He is still angry and vengeful towards Lovett when he finds out the truth, even in death. And now because of her, he will never see his Lucy even in Heaven because of the path he took and all with Lovett's encouragement and selfishness. This is the message we are supposed to be left with as an audience by the end of the show. We're supposed to feel sorrow and dread. That's how this story moves us. Having Sweeney and Lovett come together, holding hands, and going into hell together severs this message. This is telling the audience that though they weren't going to be together in life, they will be in death. A sort of "they deserve each other" message which is not at all what Sweeney Todd is about!! As someone who adores this story with every fiber of my being, this being the direction the revival took with Sweeney and Lovett's characters feels like salt in a fresh wound. Even in the Burton film where we don't get the End Ballad, we're still left with Sweeney's anger and sorrow as the film comes to a close.

All in all, I'm very disheartened by this take on Sweeney and Lovett from the revival period. And it really is the icing on the cake for me to say how much I am disappointed in this take when the final image is them holding hands and jumping into hell together. They would never do that.

I can write a book on why certain things from the revival do not work, but this is again, just my opinion. I recognize that so many people like this version, which while I do not understand or agree with it, at least people are becoming more recognized with ST in one way or another.

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I've watched Act I of the revival. I plan on making a review about it after watching Act II.

Spoiler: It's not looking to be a positive review.

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Production photos from the OBC of Sweeney Todd

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“I was in rehearsal for Equus, and I read it [Sweeney Todd], and I go, “Holy shit. They’ve lost their minds.” I re-read it and thought that if Steve writes a romantic score, it might work. They’re going to go into rehearsal at the end of November, so I had no work for like six or seven months. I got an offer to do a film and shoot it in Alberta and that would mean me missing the first week of rehearsal. I went to Hal … and asked, “Do you think Steve would give me music so that I’m not behind the eight ball when I get there, and I can work on it while I’m in Canada?” Steve agreed. So I go to Steve’s home, and I’d been there before but only at parties. I’d never been in the composing room. There we are in the composing room and he’s nervous. I’m the one who’s supposed to be nervous. He was just nervous, fidgety. He said, “Excuse me,” and he leaves the room. He comes back with a joint, and he lights it, takes a couple of tokes, offers some to me. Then he says “You know the Catholic Mass for the Dead?” I said, “Steve, I’m a Catholic, French Irish, (singing ‘Dies Irae’).” He says, “Listen to this.” [hums]. “I don’t get it.” He says, “That’s “Dies Irae” backwards.” I said, “Oh, you’re a sick fuck; aren’t you?” He laughed. So he plays that for me and “Barber and His Wife.” I was in tears. It took me about two weeks to not cry when I sang that. It still does that to me. And then he hands me what I thought was a New York phone book. It’s “A Little Priest,” and I’m on the floor. That was some afternoon.”

— Len Cariou in Eddie Shapiro, A Wonderful Guy: Conversations with the Great Men of Musical Theater (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)

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Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou "My Friends" Sweeney Todd

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The original Broadway cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, photographed by Martha Swope. Photos courtesy of Museum of the City of New York. 

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Auditioning for Sweeney Todd in August!!! I'm so so ready 💈🔪🩸 keeping my fingers crossed to get Sweeney obvi, but I'd be happy to get a part at all.

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He's coming along!! 🥰

My Sweeney Todd costume is slowly coming together!! I just sewed on the sleeves today so all that is left is hand sewing the cuffs and then sewing on buttons and buttonholes. So excited for it to be done. It's nice and billowy; just how I wanted it. I'll post pictures when I'm finished, but yay!!

[sweeneytoddst]

My Sweeney Todd costume is slowly coming together!! I just sewed on the sleeves today so all that is left is hand sewing the cuffs and then sewing on buttons and buttonholes. So excited for it to be done. It's nice and billowy; just how I wanted it. I'll post pictures when I'm finished, but yay!!

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March 1, 1979: Sweeney Todd opens at the Uris.

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gonna play a little bit of devil's advocate here and say that Tim Burton's Sweeney is the most accessible one. not only is it easy to find on demand internationally, but also for someone like myself with audio processing issues and not native in english, the subtitles were absolutely crucial the first few times I watched the movie. I've tried to watch a recording of a stage version later, but there were so many I got overwhelmed about which one I should be watching, and obvs they were filmed with varying levels of video and audio quality, so in the end I gave up.

Oh yes! Absolutely! That's another thing I'd give the film, too. The accessibility of it. That's a great point and thank you for sending it ✨️ it's definitely the easiest to access and will for sure have subtitles in any format you find it while other versions are more difficult to have access to.

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I know this isn't your point, but I did want to chime in that I'm a fan of the 1982 AND 2023 versions - I can't succinctly describe *why* I like them both, but I'm asexual, so rest assured it's not because I find the 2023 production hot or anything

We need to unite against the true enemy: Tim Burton

Honestly, I give some lenience for the Burton film. Firstly, because it was the very first version I have ever seen of Sweeney Todd, and it got me into it, so I'm a little biased since it still holds something special to me. Secondly, considering it's a film adaptation I GUESS I understand why the Ballads and some of the songs were cut (not that I agree with all the cuts because omfg, Tim, why would you take out Kiss Me and the ensemble bits for God That's Good, but anyway). Thirdly, it's a lot more palatable for "normal" people or people who don't frequent musical theatre often. All I care about is if it gets you into Sweeney Todd. I just ask people who have only seen the Burton film, then to watch the Broadway production (more specifically the 1982 adaption). Honestly, the approach for darkness in the movie works well. Like I think Depp and Rickman are shining examples of good character rep that take different approaches. I think the movie gives you a good example of what this musical is supposed to be without steering too far away from the characters. It just suffers from a fan's POV because of the missing content that fleshes out this story we love.

I still am on the boat of that the revival doesn't give good rep for this show at all. Worse than the movie. Yes, it has the missing songs that the film lacked, but at least the movie wasn't shoving all of these sexual innuendos down our throats. Lovett's personality in the revival is just butchering her character. The film with Carter I could argue and say does the same thing because there is zero silliness and wackiness with Carter, but I would rather have dark, scary woman over whatever the revival is doing with Ashford and Foster.

That's MY opinion. I'm not saying anyone has to agree with me. Like what you like.

Just know that I am very upset with this revival. Period.

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could you please make a list of who all the sweeneys/lovetts are in the tier list? i want to use it but some of the actors are kind of hard to make out just on sight alone for me

Yeah! I thought it would tell you the names of the files, but I was incredibly wrong. Thank you for asking <3

Here they are!

Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury

George Hearn and Dorothy Loudon

Dennis Quilley and Sheila Hancock

Tod Slaughter and Stella Rho

Brian Mitchell and Christine Baranski

Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson

Norm Lewis and Carolee Carmello

Gregg Edelman and Liz McCartney

Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone

Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton

Ray Winstone and Essie Davis

Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter

Javier Ferriera and Ashley Braxton

Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford

Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster

Link to the Tier List: Rating Sweeneys and Lovetts

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I think some people forget the true meaning of the song My Friends in Sweeney Todd sometimes.

I see a very common mistake when I see different productions of Sweeney Todd, and that's in My Friends. My Friends is a very special song for Sweeney's character and to just not... add something to it is truly a waste in my opinion. It's not giving that inner look at the character that is needed. My Friends, ultimately, is a love song. It's a love song and a lullaby to his razors.

After just learning about his wife's undoing because of the Judge, his razors are what is going to help him complete his revenge. Dare I say he sees Lucy and Johanna in them, the man he once was, and the life he once had in these razors. The razors are a reflection of his past resurrected to avenge his wife. So, I think when performing this song, the actor should be showing that love. You can hear it in the music; it's very trance like, thus putting Sweeney in this trance. All of his focus is on these razors, singing about how he's been gone all these years and what his plan of action is with his "friends". This is when he's letting go of everything he had hoped to come home to, and succumbing to his revenge. Lucy is gone, Johanna just out of reach, but the Judge and Beadle? He'll have them, and he will kill them.

I see a lot of actors just stand there and sing. I don't see a lot of emotion poured into the song. I'm not expecting these big gigantic movements or anything, but I think pure happiness and love needs to be shown when they sing to those razor blades. Hold the razor, feel how well it fits (if you will), see your reflection in them, hold it to the skies (hehe again), feel the love he once had as a barber, feel the love he had for Lucy, feel that revenge boil in your skin, mourn Lucy, mourn Johanna, and better yet... mourn Benjamin Barker. There's so much potential to show these feelings in the song, and I just find it disappointing when our dear actor just stands there looking down at the razor, doing nothing.