Meat pies for one and all.
Hello everyone. I am still here. I did not disappear into an eternity of orgasmic ecstasy after seeing the artistic definition of my life Sweeney Todd the Divinely Wonderful Masterpiece Jaw-Dropping WOW Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
The eternity, alas, only lasted into the middle of the second week of Spring Semester.
Well I suppose, since I've been salivating over this tale of the homicidal barber and his cannibalistic conniving landlady since, oh, bloody fucking JULY, that I should get around to telling you dear patient readers what, exactly, I thought of John Doyle's production.
MY VIEWS OF MUSICAL THEATRE HAVE CHANGED.
Well. Not changed. A slight alteration has certainly occurred, one that enables me to realize that musical theatre--indeed, theatre itself--can be so much more than anyone ever anticipates. That a complex narrative can be convincingly told and sung by ten actors with no sets, minimal costuming, and a myriad of instruments (and talent!). That this can be done outside the dismal constraints of improvisational theatre.
This was not "Sweeney Todd Lite," as so many might assume. This was "Sweeney Todd Right." It inspired such horror, such suspense, such edge-of-the-seat-clinging tension that it completely obliterated any reality other than that which existed on the stage. And what on earth was that reality anyhow? Was it really a bunch of inmates in a mad house staging a show? Tobias certainly thought so, as he pranced about in his little ward nighties playing the violin AND the piano AND the clarinet while singing AMAZINGLY and acting insane and being the only character in the cast given the privilege of watching all the events with a rapt gaze. Certainly the actors portraying Jonas Fogg and Pirelli, who doubled as insane asylum attendants while playing the classical bass AND the accordion AND the flute, would have to agree with this interpretation.
Where do Johanna and Anthony fit in this equation, however? They were spectacular too, as was the Old Beggar Woman with her little clarinet.
But Sweeney. And Mrs. Lovett. OHMYGOD. Patti Lupone is a big fucking whore and she pranced about in a miniskirt and wedge-heels (for the second act she had SEQUINED WEDGE HEELS) and this sinister little Weimar bob and bright red lips and oh, she was terrifying. There was nothing maternal, nothing Angela Lansbury about her. She took a role that had been immortalized by the divine Angel and she owned it, and that is not an easy feat.
And Michael Ceveris is a god. He really is. His Sweeney was so wrought, so pain-filled, so agonized that the audience could feel, could sympathize with his maniacal need for revenge. I was lucky enough to see the production twice while I was in New York City, and I still cannot fathom what this man has within him to enable such a storm onstage. He owns the stage--he jumps around the stage, the sings, he plays the guitar, he is tormented and I loved every minute of his agony.
By the way...the ten-piece orchestra does not harm Sondheim's masterpiece at all. It magnifies it, intensifies it--the reorchestrations bring a new and different and chilling clarity to the music. It personalizes the music. It demonizes the music.
The staging is minimalistic. Metatheatrical. Marvelous. I have to agree with the NYTimes review that the little white coffin Sweeney hauls around during the second act is strangely pretentious but the rest of the staging was magnificent. The blood splattered lab coats, the silent deaths accompanied by the pouring of blood, Sweeney's bone-chilling death-rattle, that terrifying instant at the end--Tobias alone in the light, in the madhouse, in his mind...I was there, in his mind. Reality, with its calming pseudo-sanity, was light years away.
Nobody should miss this production. It redefines theatre. It reaffirms theatre.
But back to reality--and I am back in reality. Classes are here, classes are fine, I would gladly be back at the Eugene O'Neill having the living daylights scared out of me, however.
I pinch myself. Ouch.
The eternity, alas, only lasted into the middle of the second week of Spring Semester.
Well I suppose, since I've been salivating over this tale of the homicidal barber and his cannibalistic conniving landlady since, oh, bloody fucking JULY, that I should get around to telling you dear patient readers what, exactly, I thought of John Doyle's production.
MY VIEWS OF MUSICAL THEATRE HAVE CHANGED.
Well. Not changed. A slight alteration has certainly occurred, one that enables me to realize that musical theatre--indeed, theatre itself--can be so much more than anyone ever anticipates. That a complex narrative can be convincingly told and sung by ten actors with no sets, minimal costuming, and a myriad of instruments (and talent!). That this can be done outside the dismal constraints of improvisational theatre.
This was not "Sweeney Todd Lite," as so many might assume. This was "Sweeney Todd Right." It inspired such horror, such suspense, such edge-of-the-seat-clinging tension that it completely obliterated any reality other than that which existed on the stage. And what on earth was that reality anyhow? Was it really a bunch of inmates in a mad house staging a show? Tobias certainly thought so, as he pranced about in his little ward nighties playing the violin AND the piano AND the clarinet while singing AMAZINGLY and acting insane and being the only character in the cast given the privilege of watching all the events with a rapt gaze. Certainly the actors portraying Jonas Fogg and Pirelli, who doubled as insane asylum attendants while playing the classical bass AND the accordion AND the flute, would have to agree with this interpretation.
Where do Johanna and Anthony fit in this equation, however? They were spectacular too, as was the Old Beggar Woman with her little clarinet.
But Sweeney. And Mrs. Lovett. OHMYGOD. Patti Lupone is a big fucking whore and she pranced about in a miniskirt and wedge-heels (for the second act she had SEQUINED WEDGE HEELS) and this sinister little Weimar bob and bright red lips and oh, she was terrifying. There was nothing maternal, nothing Angela Lansbury about her. She took a role that had been immortalized by the divine Angel and she owned it, and that is not an easy feat.
And Michael Ceveris is a god. He really is. His Sweeney was so wrought, so pain-filled, so agonized that the audience could feel, could sympathize with his maniacal need for revenge. I was lucky enough to see the production twice while I was in New York City, and I still cannot fathom what this man has within him to enable such a storm onstage. He owns the stage--he jumps around the stage, the sings, he plays the guitar, he is tormented and I loved every minute of his agony.
By the way...the ten-piece orchestra does not harm Sondheim's masterpiece at all. It magnifies it, intensifies it--the reorchestrations bring a new and different and chilling clarity to the music. It personalizes the music. It demonizes the music.
The staging is minimalistic. Metatheatrical. Marvelous. I have to agree with the NYTimes review that the little white coffin Sweeney hauls around during the second act is strangely pretentious but the rest of the staging was magnificent. The blood splattered lab coats, the silent deaths accompanied by the pouring of blood, Sweeney's bone-chilling death-rattle, that terrifying instant at the end--Tobias alone in the light, in the madhouse, in his mind...I was there, in his mind. Reality, with its calming pseudo-sanity, was light years away.
Nobody should miss this production. It redefines theatre. It reaffirms theatre.
But back to reality--and I am back in reality. Classes are here, classes are fine, I would gladly be back at the Eugene O'Neill having the living daylights scared out of me, however.
I pinch myself. Ouch.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home