Thoughts on Sweeney Todd
Reflections on theme, music, and performance
General spoilers regarding the main themes of Sweeney Todd up ahead, if you have been living under a rock. No judgement - I hadn’t emerged from underneath mine until this last Saturday.
I recently had the pleasure of seeing “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” on Broadway. Though some die-hard fans of the musical have not had great things to say about this particular production, I thoroughly enjoyed my first real encounter with this masterpiece.
THE STORY
Revenge stories always fall a little flat for me in the end, though I love the intensity of emotion that occurs over the course of telling them. Revenge is a combination of hurt and drive that can be quite alluring and intoxicating. It’s not a pain that leads someone to cry alone in their room, but a pain that over-motivates. This show follows the formula of the tragic hero in a Greek tragedy. By the end, the protagonist “gets what they want” but is totally annihilated. This is realistic, in the sense that revenge is one of those unsatisfiable emotions. It demands more and more from the bearer, until they are completely broken. To me, it seems like the “catharsis” of revenge stories lies in how exhausting they are to be a part of and watch. After witnessing a violent yet futile struggle, it’s a mercy to go home and rest, just as the story mercifully grants eternal rest to the revenge-taking protagonist.
For all its bleakness, though, I still felt invigorated by the themes and the elements that supported them. In this age of nuanced and complicated storytelling, where we expect layered characters and multi-part twists, older musicals in particular can feel a little “simple.” We might see it as superficial that Sweeney Todd’s only real attachment to his wife is based on the fact that “she was beautiful.” Judge Turpin, who embodies the corruption of lust, values Sweeney Todd’s wife (and later, Todd’s daughter) for the same reason. Since this is a musical, though, I find it more fair to interpret these characters as representing certain dimensions of a theme.
One theme that stuck out to me in this context was “being beautiful” versus “being disgusting.” The city of London and those who support the city’s power structures are responsible for turning anything beautiful and pure into something grotesque. This process ranges from a bird’s neck being snapped to Lucy’s disturbing fate. A disgusting undercurrent runs underneath the entire show. There is the beggar woman’s flashes of extreme vulgarity and her presence in the corner during the scene where everyone else is enjoying the meat pie, the ragged mental asylum patients thrashing around the stage, Todd’s repeated references to London as a vermin-filled pit, the idea that a supposed magical elixir is actually just urine, numerous throats being slit, and, of course, cannibalism.
“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” as an art piece, even, is a gorgeously composed musical that acts as a vehicle for the darkest and most disturbing aspects of humanity: assault, corruption, vengeance, betrayal, cannibalism, and murder. A lyric stuck out to me as a great encapsulation of this contrast: “[Sweeney Todd] served a dark and a vengeful god.” Serving a god is seen as virtuous, but when that god is one of darkness, the acts of devotion that god requires are nothing short of horrific. There is a dark irony in watching the life’s work of the barber turn from beautifying men to sacrificing them to the god of vengeance.
The storytelling is concise enough, sometimes confusingly so. Plot points would happen and time would jump without much transition, people would lose their minds and make extreme decisions so suddenly that it was hard to fully believe. The real draw, though, is the musical composition, and anyone who is into musicals probably already knows that. I’m just late to the game.
THE MUSIC (!!!)
I’ve always had “horrible” music taste. Music has been something to sing along to, dance to, and jam out to - not to analyze or learn about. That’s why some of my most played artists are Ashnikko, Kesha, and Yung Gravy. Given this, I’m rarely able to grasp and appreciate the intricacies of jazz, classical music, or opera. Sweeney Todd was so musically powerful, though, that it has piqued my interest in musical composition.
Every second of that musical was purposefully composed to make the listener feel something. One of the most notable moments in the show was during “Kiss Me (Part 2)” where Johanna and Anthony were singing together. As a committed fan of song lyrics, I was irritated at the fact that they were singing over each other, the lyrics overlapping so heavily that I couldn’t understand a word of them. Every once in a while, through the flurry of words, they’d come together and repeat “kiss me” to each other in tandem. Eventually, I was so frustrated that I stopped trying to understand the lyrics at all. Then, the magic happened. I experienced the music for what it was, listening with the body instead of the verbal mind, and I realized that the sound created by the instruments and their voices perfectly captured the feeling of falling in love. The frantic, rushed monologues from both parties, but the brief moments of connection when their thoughts align. That moment unlocked a new perception for the rest of the runtime.
From then on, I started first noticing the effect that the music had on me, and only after I’d let it settle with me, I then thought of why that effect was happening. During the first act when Sweeney Todd has the judge in his chair, Sweeney whistles and the judge is singing “bu bu bu bum” without a care in the world, I felt his naivety about Sweeney’s intentions for him, and realized it reminded me of a the mundanity of a bird hopping from tree to tree, unaware of a lurking predator. The music’s ability to evoke imagery and metaphor, even when one disregards the words, was something I hadn’t thought much of before this.
Even the vowels in the character names communicate musicality. “Johanna,” lends itself to a low, rounded sound when sung aloud. “Sweeney” sounded like nails-on-a-chalkboard (in the best way) when sung in a high vocal range, then “Todd” comes in like a butcher knife on a chopping block. The attention to every detail, even the sounds of individual words and names, is part of what makes this Sondheim’s masterpiece.
THE PERFORMERS
Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford were the draws for many audience members. Their entrances onstage were met with enthusiastic applause, and people reacted audibly to almost every single joke.
I didn’t know of Annaleigh Ashford before seeing this production, but the way she ramped her performance up in response to the audience’s appreciation made me feel a kinship with her. She hammed it up to the nth degree at some points, but my thoughts on that are as follows: she is an artist, an actress in particular. One privilege of that profession is that you should be allowed to have over-the-top fun at the idea of being in front of an audience. Sometimes it distracted from the story, yes, and I wonder if any of the other actors feel a bit annoyed at her “stealing the show.” Still, roles like this are the roles of a lifetime, so I don’t blame an actor for going all-out. Hoping for subtle acting in a musical theatre performance is a battle you’ll lose every time.
Josh Groban is someone I only knew from Glee, so I wasn’t sure what to expect here. Glee, for all its faults, always hired incredible vocalists, so I wasn’t surprised at Josh Groban’s vocal talents in Sweeney Todd. He played the titular character with such a pure bitterness that was palpable in every flawlessly executed note. His hyperfocused, just-rising-above-the-surface angst was a perfect counterpoint to Mrs. Lovett’s awkward and unfocused energy.
Those two artists have earned their fanfare, but I’d also like to shout out a few others in the cast. Jamie Jackson as Judge Turpin was so perfectly creepy that I couldn’t even look at him in some scenes. He took an already cartoonishly evil character and doubled down on the idea that his evil came from the irrepressibility of his desire for “pretty women,” at the cost of decency and morals. The physical comedy displayed by ensemble members Raymond J Lee and Timothy Hughes was also notable, especially in the shaving competition scene. I’d love to see the show again just to look closer at their little moments within the ensemble, which supported the show without overshadowing anyone else.
OTHER NOTES
I loved the simplicity of the choreography during the ensemble pieces, especially when they would get into a creepy clump of people and contort themselves in strange ways. Certain moments, such as the cast moving their bodies in ways that looked like heavy breathing and hyperventilation, really doubled down on the visceral humanity of the show.
The costumes were literally to die for. If I can find photos, I’m definitely going to do an appreciation post for them, because they’re all outfits that I would happily wear in real life. Maybe not everyone would feel the same way, but not everyone is in love with the fashions of the 1700s (I can’t possibly imagine why this would be the case).
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