Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

the conclusion of Sweeney Todd demonstrates an impressive use of earlier songs, mostly from the first act, whether as fragments or relatively extended segments, underscoring, or in combination with other modules.

The Final Sequence (Vocal Score No. 25-No. 29B), framed by “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” includes one brief interjection of the Ballad’s refrain after Sweeney’s failed attempt to kill Johanna at the end of No. 28. According to the stage direction, following a chorus of the Ballad (No. 25), the Company “transform themselves into the inmates of Fogg’s Asylum, which is now revealed.” In the early portion of the sequence these lunatics on the loose use and repeat the frantic new “City on Fire!” music no less than four times.55 In addition to the “Ballad,” Sondheim inserts significant returns of no less than eleven songs listed below (see “Thematic Reminiscences in Sweeney Todd” in the online website for a more detailed outline of thematic returns during this exciting finale).56

ACT I: “No Place like London” (including Beggar Woman’s music), “Poor Thing,” “My Friends,” “Ah, Miss,” “Johanna” (Judge’s version), “Kiss Me,” “Pretty Women,” “Epiphany,” “A Little Priest”

ACT II: “By the Sea,” “Not While I’m Around”

Each one of these reprises contains significant dramatic meaning and contributes to the propulsion of the final scene toward its tragic conclusion while at the same time sonically summing up what has come before. For those who have not already perceived the musical connections between the Beggar Woman’s music (“Alms”) and “Epiphany,” in the final moments her identity as Sweeney’s beloved Lucy is unmistakably revealed. The main musical connection is the pronounced half step shared by both musical lines, both of which are ultimately connected with the Dies irae. The connection is especially pronounced in the orchestral passage that follows the death of the Beggar Woman with the return of the opening of “Epiphany” and the return of the half steps on the word “Lucy” (Vocal Score, p. 352) when Todd realizes the enormity of his action. As Todd acquires this tragic understanding, the audience can see his potential as a tragic figure, if not necessarily a sympathetic one. The collision of themes Sondheim referred to in his initial plan then returns in full force as Mrs. Lovett sings “Poor Thing” against Todd’s latest (and last) “Epiphany.” Most strikingly, just before the reprise of “A Little Priest”—and her own death at the hands of Sweeney—Mrs. Lovett herself starts singing a fragment of “Epiphany” in counterpoint to the demon barber of Fleet Street.

The Film

Sondheim, discussing Sweeney Todd with Mark Horowitz in 1997, spoke of possible plans for a film of this show directed by Tim Burton, who “fell in love with the show when he was in London in 1981 and saw it ten times.”57 Not only did the composer agree when Horowitz summarized Sondheim’s often stated position that “film musicals usually don’t work,” he commented specifically with the pessimistic prediction that a film of Sweeney wouldn’t “work for two seconds.”58

Despite his lifelong love for film, Sondheim admires very few film musicals; of those which he does like, none are adaptations.59 Unfortunately, among the adaptations he found unsatisfying were the four films based on his own shows, West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and A Little Night Music. In Sondheim’s view, the action in a film must “move forward constantly,” and this does not happen in these adaptations. For Sondheim, the theatrical convention of stationary singers, such as Tony and Maria singing “Tonight,” does not translate well into film. He also expressed some skepticism about whether a Sweeney Todd film would happen before the year 2099 since Burton needed time to finish Superman Twelve. Although it took another ten years (twenty-six you start from Burton’s initial binge on the London stage version), the musical film of Sweeney Todd finally appeared shortly before Christmas 2007. It was directed by Burton and starred Johnny Depp.60

Sweeney Todd, 2007 film. Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) and Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) at the bloody conclusion of the film.

Like most of the musical films discussed in acts I and II beginning with the Show Boat adaptation of 1936, Sweeney Todd, and like most of the films with the exception of My Fair Lady and to a lesser extent West Side Story, the musical film Sweeney Todd does not attempt to present a faithful and complete version of its stage sources. In addition, for the most part, stage musicals exceed “the two hours’ traffic” announced by Chorus at the outset of Romeo and Juliet. Sweeney’s stage traffic is about three hours. Film musicals, whether original or adaptations from the musical stage, generally take Shakespeare’s estimated performance time more seriously. Burton’s film realization of Sweeney Todd contains even less than two hours of traffic congestion, 116 minutes to be exact.

In order to perform Sweeney Todd so succinctly, some material had to be cut, including some of the 80 percent that was taken up by music. Sondheim thus went into the Sweeney Todd project knowing that some songs would have to go, especially those songs that did not keep the action moving. For example, the Beadle’s “Parlor Songs” served the dual purpose of creating a diversion to keep this character from inspecting Todd’s basement and giving a tenor something substantial to sing in the course of an evening, but it slowed the action and could be slashed with impunity in order to “shave” close to four minutes. Since the lyrical middle section of “Ladies in Their Sensitivities” was also removed, the Beadle’s vocal contribution to the film is greatly reduced. We have earlier remarked that Sondheim for a long time regretted not adding music for this scene with Mrs. Lovett in the scene with the Beadle.

Another cut was Anthony’s “Ah, Miss,” which appeared on stage between Johanna’s solo song “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” and Anthony’s “Johanna,” the show’s great love ballad. To create greater plausibility as well as a few minutes of film time, the