![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
My darling amazing wonderful Jason got me Sweeney tickets for the Sunday matinee. My brain is now wall-to-wall Sondheim, interspersed with happy squeeing sounds.
If any of you have big money for tickets at the 5th Avenue Theatre, it's there through November 13 and I can wholeheartedly recommend the production. The cast is all wonderful singers and reasonably expressive actors, the settings (including how they handle changes) are great, the sound levels are done right (yes, even the whistle), and costumers will admire the malice that went into designing Mrs. Lovett's dress for "More Hot Pies."
With something like Sweeney where I'm so familiar with a previously recorded version, there's always an apprehensive moment going in. As I sit staring at the backdrop (a political cartoon of the British social structure as a giant beehive), I'm wondering, will I spend the entire show muttering in my brain along the lines of "She's no Angela Lansbury", or will I manage to actually Watch The Show?
As soon as Sweeney came up through the floor, I was just watching. No think, just watch. He's a skinnier man than I've seen play the role before, but his energy's about four feet wide and ten feet tall. When he stands still, he's an overwound spring, and when he rages... well, he's Sweeney Todd. Mrs. Lovett, batty as always, has the comedic timing to flutter around him right along the edge of the disaster curve, and the romantic leads are dashing and charming of course.
The Judge and Beadle were enh, but this production cuts one of the Judge's bits that lets him really slime out, so they were obviously more interested in showcasing their incredibly wonderful Sweeney. I'm good with that. They didn't take any risks with this production. If you watched the video, there are no big surprises or new interpretations, though the ending in this production was more sensitively acted.
Go see. Come home humming about cannibalism.
If any of you have big money for tickets at the 5th Avenue Theatre, it's there through November 13 and I can wholeheartedly recommend the production. The cast is all wonderful singers and reasonably expressive actors, the settings (including how they handle changes) are great, the sound levels are done right (yes, even the whistle), and costumers will admire the malice that went into designing Mrs. Lovett's dress for "More Hot Pies."
With something like Sweeney where I'm so familiar with a previously recorded version, there's always an apprehensive moment going in. As I sit staring at the backdrop (a political cartoon of the British social structure as a giant beehive), I'm wondering, will I spend the entire show muttering in my brain along the lines of "She's no Angela Lansbury", or will I manage to actually Watch The Show?
As soon as Sweeney came up through the floor, I was just watching. No think, just watch. He's a skinnier man than I've seen play the role before, but his energy's about four feet wide and ten feet tall. When he stands still, he's an overwound spring, and when he rages... well, he's Sweeney Todd. Mrs. Lovett, batty as always, has the comedic timing to flutter around him right along the edge of the disaster curve, and the romantic leads are dashing and charming of course.
The Judge and Beadle were enh, but this production cuts one of the Judge's bits that lets him really slime out, so they were obviously more interested in showcasing their incredibly wonderful Sweeney. I'm good with that. They didn't take any risks with this production. If you watched the video, there are no big surprises or new interpretations, though the ending in this production was more sensitively acted.
Go see. Come home humming about cannibalism.