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Okay, I saw this three days ago but I have been really behind on commenting and posting lately. This is what I wanted to write down, though. I saw the new Sweeney Todd, the one with Michael Cerveris and Patti Lupone. It's almost a concert version, with the actors playing all the instruments (Patti Lupone may not be able to do an English accent, but who cares when she's playing the tuba?) and everything very stylized--which worked just fine. The center of the back wall was covered with a high shelf full of Victorian knickknacks, some of which had to do with the show, some not. On two shelves were these little iron lanterns with grills. For the first scene, to suggest the docks where Anthony and Todd first arrive in London, these lanterns were lit. It was gorgeously spooky and it made me adore that shelf. It just kind of amazed me how it created just the right setting even better, I suspect, than a full stage tricked out to look like every scene.
The show was great--everyone in it was wonderful. I was going to single people out, but it included the whole cast, which is relatively small because the production was very paired down. I think the last time I wrote about Sweeney Todd I talked about Joanna (Todd's daughter) but this production made me
…start thinking about her again.
The main reason being, I think, that she was played very well. Lauren Molina was very funny and she played the cello--yay! But here's what it made me think about. I had written before, I remember, about her song "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" and how it's both just the type of song you'd expect the Victorian heroine to sing (a brainless soprano piece about birdies) and also a cry for help for a girl locked into Victorian conventions. This production made me even more impressed with the way this character is written in terms of what it does with her role.
In a nutshell: Joanna is Sweeney Todd's daughter. After her father was sent to Australia on a trumped-up charge by an evil judge and his beadle, her mother is raped by said judge and poisons herself. Judge Turpin then adopts Joanna and raises her as his own. Now that she's 16 or so, Turpin is lusting after her, and proposes to protect her from the wickedness of men by marrying her. He's surprised Joanna doesn't seem to like this plan, and the beadle suggests girls are just sensitive about looks and if the judge gets a good shave her heart will be all a flutter (as opposed to the truth, which is that the girl's horrified that her adopted father has just announced his attention to commit legal incestuous rape). Anthony happens to be walking by around this time and falls in love with Joanna on sight. The two plan to run away together, but are caught when Anthony rushes into Todd's parlor with the news while the judge is there getting that all-important shave. The judge locks Joanna (now a "conniving slut") in a madhouse. Anthony finally finds her and, with Todd's help, tries to break her out.
Anthony and Joanna are the traditional "young lovers" of the play and Sondheim plays on this in the score, having the two sing an incredibly ditzy duet ("Kiss Me") where they both confess to having loved each other forever and get each other's names straight. But I liked the way that the performances in this production emphasized the disconnect between them. Anthony is the traditional hero all the way. He loves Joanna for her yellow hair and vows to steal her away from those locking her up. Joanna, though, has a completely different agenda. She just wants to get away from the old pervert and correctly sees Anthony as an alternative (he only gets into the house because Joanna steals a key and throws it to him). In "Kiss Me" Joanna swings wildly back and forth between declaring her love for Anthony, standing her ground on girlish principles (taking her reticule when she runs away) and--mostly--making sure the judge isn't about to walk in and catch them. It immediately makes you root for her more, because she's not at all passive here. She knows exactly what kind of threat she's saving herself from. You don't question whether these two are really in love, because the point is escape.
When Anthony discovers her in Fogg's Asylum, the plan is that Anthony will pose as a wigmaker seeking hair the color of Joanna's and when she's brought to him he'll take off with her. Todd gives him a pistol in case he needs it to break her out. Todd, at this point, is already a serial killer. (In fact, he's planning to murder Anthony as soon as he brings Joanna to his barber shop--Joanna's fathers are all a little possessive.) Here's where it gets really interesting to me. What happens--and this is in the book, it's not just in this production--is that Anthony does pull the pistol on Fogg as Fogg is about to chop off Joanna's hair. "If you don't stop, I will shoot!" he declares. "If you shoot, I will stop," Fogg oddly replies back. Anthony hesitates, but can't pull the trigger. So Joanna takes matters into her own hands. In some productions she grabs the gun and shoots Fogg. In this production she grabs the shears Fogg is holding and stabs him before pulling Anthony out.
This is never remarked upon afterwards. When they get to Todd's parlor Anthony heroically tells Joanna to stay there because there is no safety for her on the street--this to a girl who just killed a man. Did he just not comprehend what she did because it goes against his image of her as a young lady? Because it's hard to think that however much he may agree that it was necessary to kill Fogg, it's hard to believe he wouldn't be prepared for his love to be able to kill when he could not. Whatever the reason, why did Hugh Wheeler (the book writer) have Joanna instead of Anthony kill Fogg, if Fogg needed to be killed at all?
I think it's related to her being Todd's daughter. Sweeney and Joanna have only one brief scene together. After Todd finally kills Judge Turpin, he discovers Joanna (dressed as a sailor) in his parlor and moves to kill her as a witness--not realizing who she is, since she's dressed as a boy and he hasn't seen her since she was one year old anyway--though Joanna offers not to tell anyone what she's seen. Luckily there's a distraction and Joanna slips away. Another writer might have played up the differences between Todd and his daughter, leaving innocent Joanna with two monstrous fathers who's finally saved by her virtuous if slightly dim-witted husband. Instead I think Sondheim and Wheeler are proudly making a connection between Joanna and Todd in showing that Joanna has inherited her father's spirit in dealing with trouble. It's not as crude as saying that she's a murderer like her father, it goes more to other areas of their personalities.
Todd's first line in the story is to Anthony. The two have just agreed there is "No place like London." Anthony means this in a positive way, but notices Todd sounds bitter about it. Todd's explains this to Anthony by saying, "You are young. Life has been kind to you. You will learn." At the end of the play, Anthony probably hasn't learned. Life has still been relatively kind to him: he got the girl, he hasn't killed anyoneso hasn't torn his soul in two. We don't know how he deals with the knowledge that his good friend Todd was a serial killer whose victims have been made into meat pies. Perhaps it just doesn't really sink in and he never mentions it, as he didn't mention Joanna's murder of Fogg. Joanna, otoh, has certainly learned. In her first song she's already recognized that her privileged life is like being in a cage, that she has no freedom. She understands the evil intentions her "dear father" the judge has for her. When she tries to escape she sees the man who's claimed to love her as a father call her a whore and lock her in a madhouse for months. When she sees her chance of escape slipping away because of Anthony's reluctance to kill, she's quick to murder Fogg herself.
I can't help but think that although we don't get as clear a view into Joanna's character as we do into Todd's, that during those months locked in the madhouse her mind went along the same paths as Todd's did when he was in the penal colony. Really, Joanna finds herself with two clear paths in front of her in the play: her mother's or her father's. Her mother became Turpin's victim, went mad and destroyed herself, internalizing Turpin's treatment of her and making it her identity. Todd named himself the victim who deserved revenge and this kept him alive. The one thing we know about Joanna's time in the madhouse is that she "sings all day and night" and keeps the other inmates awake--a direct reference to her first song where she asks her birds how they manage to sing when caged and wishes for the strength to do so herself. Obviously she found it, singing defiantly when locked up until she gets her chance to get out.
The difference between Joanna and her father is that he is ultimately swallowed up by his need for revenge. Todd transfers his anger at Turpin and the Beadle to the whole world. He eventually winds up destroying himself in a truly tragic way. Joanna manages to stay on the right side of justice, killing to win freedom for herself without getting bogged down in revenge. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Joanna did ultimately understand her connection to Todd, if she didn't feel she owed him something for taking care of the Judge for her since the entire family was tormented by him. Either way, it may be a good thing that Anthony never seems likely to think deeply about things like this, or his new pretty wife might make him a little nervous.
Go Joanna!
Also, I'm so glad I got a chance to see the exhibit at the Met on Spirit Photography (with good company too!). The pictures were presented just saying what they were, leaving you to just try to imagine exactly how people reacted to them back then. Some of them are just beautiful or strange to look at--one picture seemed to be a man with his Patronus, actually. There were a lot of pictures of people producing "ectoplasm" that was just...okay, people put cheesecloth in their mouth or between their legs or on their nipples and took a picture. I was surprised at how many naked pictures there were, just because...who knew? But there they were. There was one picture of this naked medium opening a curtain to reveal a ghost. The commentary at the time said how it was amazing seeing this woman naked because it proved she didn't have anything hidden on her that was causing the ghost to appear. Meanwhile the ghost was just obviously a cut out, like the kind they use in video stores to promote a movie (like a big Arnold Schwarzenegger used to advertise "Jingle All the Way."). I guess the "experts" just weren't looking at the ghost that closely with the naked woman right next to it. Good planning on the Medium's part.
Finally, happy birthday![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleeplessmarea
The show was great--everyone in it was wonderful. I was going to single people out, but it included the whole cast, which is relatively small because the production was very paired down. I think the last time I wrote about Sweeney Todd I talked about Joanna (Todd's daughter) but this production made me
…start thinking about her again.
The main reason being, I think, that she was played very well. Lauren Molina was very funny and she played the cello--yay! But here's what it made me think about. I had written before, I remember, about her song "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" and how it's both just the type of song you'd expect the Victorian heroine to sing (a brainless soprano piece about birdies) and also a cry for help for a girl locked into Victorian conventions. This production made me even more impressed with the way this character is written in terms of what it does with her role.
In a nutshell: Joanna is Sweeney Todd's daughter. After her father was sent to Australia on a trumped-up charge by an evil judge and his beadle, her mother is raped by said judge and poisons herself. Judge Turpin then adopts Joanna and raises her as his own. Now that she's 16 or so, Turpin is lusting after her, and proposes to protect her from the wickedness of men by marrying her. He's surprised Joanna doesn't seem to like this plan, and the beadle suggests girls are just sensitive about looks and if the judge gets a good shave her heart will be all a flutter (as opposed to the truth, which is that the girl's horrified that her adopted father has just announced his attention to commit legal incestuous rape). Anthony happens to be walking by around this time and falls in love with Joanna on sight. The two plan to run away together, but are caught when Anthony rushes into Todd's parlor with the news while the judge is there getting that all-important shave. The judge locks Joanna (now a "conniving slut") in a madhouse. Anthony finally finds her and, with Todd's help, tries to break her out.
Anthony and Joanna are the traditional "young lovers" of the play and Sondheim plays on this in the score, having the two sing an incredibly ditzy duet ("Kiss Me") where they both confess to having loved each other forever and get each other's names straight. But I liked the way that the performances in this production emphasized the disconnect between them. Anthony is the traditional hero all the way. He loves Joanna for her yellow hair and vows to steal her away from those locking her up. Joanna, though, has a completely different agenda. She just wants to get away from the old pervert and correctly sees Anthony as an alternative (he only gets into the house because Joanna steals a key and throws it to him). In "Kiss Me" Joanna swings wildly back and forth between declaring her love for Anthony, standing her ground on girlish principles (taking her reticule when she runs away) and--mostly--making sure the judge isn't about to walk in and catch them. It immediately makes you root for her more, because she's not at all passive here. She knows exactly what kind of threat she's saving herself from. You don't question whether these two are really in love, because the point is escape.
When Anthony discovers her in Fogg's Asylum, the plan is that Anthony will pose as a wigmaker seeking hair the color of Joanna's and when she's brought to him he'll take off with her. Todd gives him a pistol in case he needs it to break her out. Todd, at this point, is already a serial killer. (In fact, he's planning to murder Anthony as soon as he brings Joanna to his barber shop--Joanna's fathers are all a little possessive.) Here's where it gets really interesting to me. What happens--and this is in the book, it's not just in this production--is that Anthony does pull the pistol on Fogg as Fogg is about to chop off Joanna's hair. "If you don't stop, I will shoot!" he declares. "If you shoot, I will stop," Fogg oddly replies back. Anthony hesitates, but can't pull the trigger. So Joanna takes matters into her own hands. In some productions she grabs the gun and shoots Fogg. In this production she grabs the shears Fogg is holding and stabs him before pulling Anthony out.
This is never remarked upon afterwards. When they get to Todd's parlor Anthony heroically tells Joanna to stay there because there is no safety for her on the street--this to a girl who just killed a man. Did he just not comprehend what she did because it goes against his image of her as a young lady? Because it's hard to think that however much he may agree that it was necessary to kill Fogg, it's hard to believe he wouldn't be prepared for his love to be able to kill when he could not. Whatever the reason, why did Hugh Wheeler (the book writer) have Joanna instead of Anthony kill Fogg, if Fogg needed to be killed at all?
I think it's related to her being Todd's daughter. Sweeney and Joanna have only one brief scene together. After Todd finally kills Judge Turpin, he discovers Joanna (dressed as a sailor) in his parlor and moves to kill her as a witness--not realizing who she is, since she's dressed as a boy and he hasn't seen her since she was one year old anyway--though Joanna offers not to tell anyone what she's seen. Luckily there's a distraction and Joanna slips away. Another writer might have played up the differences between Todd and his daughter, leaving innocent Joanna with two monstrous fathers who's finally saved by her virtuous if slightly dim-witted husband. Instead I think Sondheim and Wheeler are proudly making a connection between Joanna and Todd in showing that Joanna has inherited her father's spirit in dealing with trouble. It's not as crude as saying that she's a murderer like her father, it goes more to other areas of their personalities.
Todd's first line in the story is to Anthony. The two have just agreed there is "No place like London." Anthony means this in a positive way, but notices Todd sounds bitter about it. Todd's explains this to Anthony by saying, "You are young. Life has been kind to you. You will learn." At the end of the play, Anthony probably hasn't learned. Life has still been relatively kind to him: he got the girl, he hasn't killed anyone
I can't help but think that although we don't get as clear a view into Joanna's character as we do into Todd's, that during those months locked in the madhouse her mind went along the same paths as Todd's did when he was in the penal colony. Really, Joanna finds herself with two clear paths in front of her in the play: her mother's or her father's. Her mother became Turpin's victim, went mad and destroyed herself, internalizing Turpin's treatment of her and making it her identity. Todd named himself the victim who deserved revenge and this kept him alive. The one thing we know about Joanna's time in the madhouse is that she "sings all day and night" and keeps the other inmates awake--a direct reference to her first song where she asks her birds how they manage to sing when caged and wishes for the strength to do so herself. Obviously she found it, singing defiantly when locked up until she gets her chance to get out.
The difference between Joanna and her father is that he is ultimately swallowed up by his need for revenge. Todd transfers his anger at Turpin and the Beadle to the whole world. He eventually winds up destroying himself in a truly tragic way. Joanna manages to stay on the right side of justice, killing to win freedom for herself without getting bogged down in revenge. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Joanna did ultimately understand her connection to Todd, if she didn't feel she owed him something for taking care of the Judge for her since the entire family was tormented by him. Either way, it may be a good thing that Anthony never seems likely to think deeply about things like this, or his new pretty wife might make him a little nervous.
Go Joanna!
Also, I'm so glad I got a chance to see the exhibit at the Met on Spirit Photography (with good company too!). The pictures were presented just saying what they were, leaving you to just try to imagine exactly how people reacted to them back then. Some of them are just beautiful or strange to look at--one picture seemed to be a man with his Patronus, actually. There were a lot of pictures of people producing "ectoplasm" that was just...okay, people put cheesecloth in their mouth or between their legs or on their nipples and took a picture. I was surprised at how many naked pictures there were, just because...who knew? But there they were. There was one picture of this naked medium opening a curtain to reveal a ghost. The commentary at the time said how it was amazing seeing this woman naked because it proved she didn't have anything hidden on her that was causing the ghost to appear. Meanwhile the ghost was just obviously a cut out, like the kind they use in video stores to promote a movie (like a big Arnold Schwarzenegger used to advertise "Jingle All the Way."). I guess the "experts" just weren't looking at the ghost that closely with the naked woman right next to it. Good planning on the Medium's part.
Finally, happy birthday
sleeplessmarea
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I have to say one thing I love about Sondheim's musicals is that they often make the "innocent young girl"-type of character much more interesting than she usually gets to be. I think I discovered this already at fifteen, when I found that Joanna was actually someone I wouldn't made playing. And you explain perfectly just why here.
I had written before, I remember, about her song "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" and how it's both just the type of song you'd expect the Victorian heroine to sing (a brainless soprano piece about birdies) and also a cry for help for a girl locked into Victorian conventions.
That's exactly what makes both the character and the song so interesting -another writer would only have the brainless soprano singing about birdies-bit, but Sondheim/Wheeler, problematises it, making it possible to actually relate to Joanna's character. Who wouldn't want to be able to "fly like the birds", especially if they spend their whole life locked up by the victorian female conventions?
I didn't remember that Joanna kills Fogg, though (it was a long time since I saw the show), but it makes perfect sense, and yeah, the connection between Joanna and her father must have been intentional. Anthony was always a more innocent and hopeful (even his name is "Hope") character than her, whereas she has had a taste of her father's bitterness already, not only from her time in the Asylum, but by losing her parents, growing up with Turpin, realising his creepy tendencies, etc. One can't help wonder what happens with these two lovers later, but I'm glad the show doesn't tell us, because that way at least there is a slight hope of some kind of happy ending.
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I was thinking about seeing the Patti Lupon version but I got tickets to another show instead. But I loved Sweeney Todd since I was a kid ( I was a crazy kid). But I never got to see the original show. My mom told me that I was too young to see it and they wouldn't let kids in(she was a shameless liar). But I got to see it in London for the first time. If someone had told me all this when I was a kid, I would never have believed it. Wow.
Anyway, you're in NY too? Did you know The Globe is taking their production of "Measure for Measure" to St Ann's Warehouse! Squee!!!! Another production I saw last year. I have to see it again and got tickets for Dec 28! Because I love Mark Rylance. Oh. Sigh.
Sorry for the Spamming. Hee
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Measure for Measure...ooh, I hope I get to see that!
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I find medium/spirit/ghost photos fascinating, mostly because of the photographic experimentation and skill that went into creating them. Most are obvious fakes, if not deliberately, then they’re just double exposures or positioning of light and shadows. They still show a lot of creativity.
On the other hand, some pictures have made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. There’s no discernible shape in them (certainly no-one dressed like a 19th century hooded Lady), but there’s … something … hovering in the background, making eye contact (if it has eyes) with the camera. Years ago when were visiting London for the first time I took a photo of Traitor’s Gate, and there is a quite distinct blur in it which I still can’t make sense of (And no, it wasn’t my thumb.)
The cheesecloth ectoplasm looks like it’s extremely uncomfortable to produce. Did the Met exhibition have the one featuring the return of Conan Doyle? Ever since ‘The Legend of Hell House’ terrified the life out of me I’ve thought of ectoplasm being slimy, messy stuff. At least cheesecloth is tidier!
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There was one picture that showed Arthur Conan Doyle in a collection of faces from beyond. He championed a lot of the Mediums on display--the fairy photos were there too, those famous ones the girls took that he made famous (and that they made a movie about pretending they were real).
I got the poster from the show because I loved it--it's a picture of a guy with a spirit attacking him. It's intentionally faked with double exposure but wow, what a great picture.
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How have I managed never to notice (well, presumably I noticed on stage, but I've forgotten) that Joanna kills Fogg? Interesting comments, thanks.
Did the production include the Judge's flagellation song? I won't say it makes him a more sympathetic character, quite the opposite, but it does make him a bit more complicated.
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This production did have the flaggelation song--yay. He wasn't actually flaggelating himself in this version, but you still get the idea. I like him being given that song to explain himself. It does make him a lot more interesting.
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This production did indeed include the flagellation song--I really like that being included because it makes a difference in the Judge's character, seeing that he did take Joanna in intending to be her father. His problem isn't that he's just a cardboard badguy but that he can always talk himself into believing he's still righteous while he's bad.
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You and me and reena and dinner Friday. What say you, my lady?