Sweeney Todd

Jenna and I went to see Sweeney Todd last night. It's not a book, but I'll call it a text, since I want to write about it.

When we got back from the show, we looked up some info about it on the 'net (and, in the process found some people write Sweeney Todd fan fiction, a scary thought). One article quotes Harold Prince (director of the original Broadway production), who said that at first he didn't want to direct a melodrama, but then he read the script and realized that it's not really a melodrama.

And yet it seems to me that, not only is S.T. a melodrama, but that it only works as a melodrama. Sweeney's motivation (he hates the judge, but the judge is unreachable, so he decides to kill the rest of the world) doesn't really make sense as a realistic psychological portrait. At the same time, he's not a pure symbol of, say, capitalistic villainy, or whatever--we're supposed to be somewhat drawn into feeling something for him. Mrs. Lovett is similar--she makes no sense as a realistic portrait, but she doesn't really work well as a symbol of pure capitalism. (After all, her motivation is that she loves Sweeney and wants to marry him; greed is only a small part of what she does).

So, S.T. exists in a space between serious psychological drama and allegory, and with all its ups and downs and grand guignol theatrics, I think it's fair to call it a melodrama.

On another note, Sondheim talks about how S.T. is not a Brechtian play (although the critics at the time called it one) -- he's trying to draw the audience in, not distance them. I don't know to what extent that's true of the original production, which I've never seen, but John Doyle definitely turns in a Brechtian direction. His trick of having the actors double as the orchestra (see photos here) serves very much as a distancing device, as does his minimalist set, where a coffin doubles as a table, a bed, etc. I wonder what Sondheim's reaction is to that...

I guess it'll be interesting to see the movie (which will almost certainly be more "realistic") and see how that affects the emotional kick of the show.