Sweeney Reaction
Sep. 5th, 2006 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolevalanLovely New York power outages. So this is a bit delayed, but better late than never, I suppose. I've had several days to reflect on the Doyle production, and I have commentary. Fic forthcoming (as I've been saying since July. Yes, I know.)
First, and perhaps most strikingly, the cast. I had heard how marvelous this cast was since the production opened, but after seeing it for myself, I am just in awe of the talent of these ten people, musically and as actors. Manoel Felciano and Donna Lynne Champlin were the two I'd heard most about in the supporting cast, and deservedly so, as both were just fabulous. But the three supporting cast members who blew me away? Alexander Gemignani, Benjamin Magnuson, and Lauren Molina. I absolutely love the choice to take the Beadle in a less fawning, more detached direction; I think it's perfect for the staging, especially. Magnuson's Anthony not only had a gorgeous, lyric voice, but was actually much more sympathetic than I expected him to be. Usually, Anthony seems like such an outsider because of his youth and his optimism, but here it struck me that the tragedy is just as much his and Johanna's as it is everyone else's. Which brings me to Lauren Molina, who I adored. Usually Johanna just annoys me, or at the least, is harmlessly crazy. But the venom in "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" was just so perfect, that I can't imagine the song being performed otherwise anymore. She moves so perfectly from frustrated to horrified to traumatized, and it's much more believable and sympathetic than I ever expected. In fact, the next fic you'll get from me will probably be a Johanna fic, because Molina kindled a whole new interest in the character for me.
And, of course, there is Michael Cerveris' Sweeney. I adored his interpretation of the character (without abandoning my George Hearn roots, mind you), because he was so surprisingly emotional, especially in Act I. "Poor Thing" nearly broke my heart. And what, for me, is so utterly brilliant about his performance is that, throughout, the audience never forgets that this is Benjamin Barker, who was once as kind and hopeful and head-over-heels in love as Anthony. This is a man with as great a capacity for love as for hatred; after all, he is not avenging his own wrongful transportation. They are paying for what they did to Lucy (and Johanna). And though I don't think Hearn or Cariou's interpretations missed it completely, the pathos that Cerveris creates is just amazing. You almost forget to be horrified, because there are times at which you just want to hug the man and tell him that it will somehow be all right, even if you know it won't. That's why I think the staging right before Lucy's murder was a stroke of genius. The tentative "...don't I...know you...mister...?" borne of him embracing her that way was painful and beautiful and lovely. And I adore the direction he and Mark Jacoby took with "Pretty Women." Instead of savoring his victory and subtly trying to dig at Turpin, Sweeney suddenly gets lost in remembering his wife and imagining his daughter; it's indicative of the difference in Cerveris' take on the character that, instead of bloodlust, it is his love of his wife that is his undoing, both here and ultimately.
Which leads me to the staging. On the whole, I liked it. The idea that the audience is seeing one of any number of repetitions of the story, from Toby's point of view, I found very affecting. The buckets were a lovely stroke, and the way in which Sweeney held the razor was beautiful, both aesthetically and thematically. The lighting was very moody, and fit the whole production like a glove. I feel a bit of the staging was at times oblique - the smaller white coffin and the sheets clearly had meaning, but were almost distracting in a "look at the metaphor!" kind of way. I attended with a friend who had never heard or seen the show before, and she found it occasionally hard to follow which characters where physically present in which scene. On the whole, though, I'm sorry I won't be able to see it again, as there are too many places to look at once, and everywhere you look, there's something compelling going on.
The musical arrangements were incredibly well done - I didn't even miss the bigger sound, for the most part, though I am sad they had to cut part of "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir." (Also, on a note about cutting, what was up with cutting the Beggar Woman's lullaby right before her death? I missed that. The tooth-pulling would have been nice, but it wasn't as important, at least to me.) I really loved the way it worked in "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," with the sort of call and response between Johanna, the flute and the violin. And "Not While I'm Around" was lovely as well. The fact Anthony and Johanna both played cello was a brilliant touch, linking them together when the rest of the show is about alienation. And, honestly, the Act II "Johanna" quartet nearly made me cry, from a musical standpoint as well as an emotional one.
Finally, and tell me if I'm forgetting something obvious, but I think it's incredibly important that every murder in the show is done with a blade, including Fogg and Mrs. Lovett. So much of the show is about being alone, about being unable to connect (thus the looking at the audience rather than each other, with the notable exception of Anthony and Johanna). But the act of killing someone is, in this production, the only kind of intimacy most characters can hope for. Sweeney is always lovingly careful as he wraps the sheets around each victim, even with Turpin. Johanna is forced to face Fogg as she stabs him with the shears, and her murder of the asylum owner is all the more vivid and brutal because there isn't the distance allowed by a pistol. With Lucy, as noted earlier, he's practically cradling her as he slits her throat. Which made me wonder, as I was watching, how they would do the final two murders of the show. Clearly, Sweeney can't kill Mrs. Lovett the same way he killed Lucy, but I was sure it wouldn' t be by shoving her into an oven either. The vertical, brutal slashes were an important choice; she is the first person that Sweeney murders in a rage (Turpin and the Beadle, though he hates them, he kills with calculation and a certain level of sang-froid). It also sets Lovett apart and perhaps, in a sick way, is a perversion of the sexual relationship that either existed or was Mrs. Lovett's desire (that's another debate for another day), as he literally rips her stomach open. Toby's re-entrance, in contrast, is almost gentle, somewhat playful. Todd's total detachment, physically exemplified, implies that he is effectively dead long before Toby actually pulls the razor across his throat. The nurse/Pirelli taking the blade away from Toby before he can kill himself is the clearest sign that, not only is the story finished, but that Toby is doomed to keep retelling the same events over and over again. He is powerless, bladeless, and left with nothing but his story; even that is silenced, ultimately.
Attend the tale, indeed.
ETA: As of Friday, they were still selling tickets through September, and yet it closed on the 3rd. What is up with that? Silly website.
First, and perhaps most strikingly, the cast. I had heard how marvelous this cast was since the production opened, but after seeing it for myself, I am just in awe of the talent of these ten people, musically and as actors. Manoel Felciano and Donna Lynne Champlin were the two I'd heard most about in the supporting cast, and deservedly so, as both were just fabulous. But the three supporting cast members who blew me away? Alexander Gemignani, Benjamin Magnuson, and Lauren Molina. I absolutely love the choice to take the Beadle in a less fawning, more detached direction; I think it's perfect for the staging, especially. Magnuson's Anthony not only had a gorgeous, lyric voice, but was actually much more sympathetic than I expected him to be. Usually, Anthony seems like such an outsider because of his youth and his optimism, but here it struck me that the tragedy is just as much his and Johanna's as it is everyone else's. Which brings me to Lauren Molina, who I adored. Usually Johanna just annoys me, or at the least, is harmlessly crazy. But the venom in "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" was just so perfect, that I can't imagine the song being performed otherwise anymore. She moves so perfectly from frustrated to horrified to traumatized, and it's much more believable and sympathetic than I ever expected. In fact, the next fic you'll get from me will probably be a Johanna fic, because Molina kindled a whole new interest in the character for me.
And, of course, there is Michael Cerveris' Sweeney. I adored his interpretation of the character (without abandoning my George Hearn roots, mind you), because he was so surprisingly emotional, especially in Act I. "Poor Thing" nearly broke my heart. And what, for me, is so utterly brilliant about his performance is that, throughout, the audience never forgets that this is Benjamin Barker, who was once as kind and hopeful and head-over-heels in love as Anthony. This is a man with as great a capacity for love as for hatred; after all, he is not avenging his own wrongful transportation. They are paying for what they did to Lucy (and Johanna). And though I don't think Hearn or Cariou's interpretations missed it completely, the pathos that Cerveris creates is just amazing. You almost forget to be horrified, because there are times at which you just want to hug the man and tell him that it will somehow be all right, even if you know it won't. That's why I think the staging right before Lucy's murder was a stroke of genius. The tentative "...don't I...know you...mister...?" borne of him embracing her that way was painful and beautiful and lovely. And I adore the direction he and Mark Jacoby took with "Pretty Women." Instead of savoring his victory and subtly trying to dig at Turpin, Sweeney suddenly gets lost in remembering his wife and imagining his daughter; it's indicative of the difference in Cerveris' take on the character that, instead of bloodlust, it is his love of his wife that is his undoing, both here and ultimately.
Which leads me to the staging. On the whole, I liked it. The idea that the audience is seeing one of any number of repetitions of the story, from Toby's point of view, I found very affecting. The buckets were a lovely stroke, and the way in which Sweeney held the razor was beautiful, both aesthetically and thematically. The lighting was very moody, and fit the whole production like a glove. I feel a bit of the staging was at times oblique - the smaller white coffin and the sheets clearly had meaning, but were almost distracting in a "look at the metaphor!" kind of way. I attended with a friend who had never heard or seen the show before, and she found it occasionally hard to follow which characters where physically present in which scene. On the whole, though, I'm sorry I won't be able to see it again, as there are too many places to look at once, and everywhere you look, there's something compelling going on.
The musical arrangements were incredibly well done - I didn't even miss the bigger sound, for the most part, though I am sad they had to cut part of "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir." (Also, on a note about cutting, what was up with cutting the Beggar Woman's lullaby right before her death? I missed that. The tooth-pulling would have been nice, but it wasn't as important, at least to me.) I really loved the way it worked in "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," with the sort of call and response between Johanna, the flute and the violin. And "Not While I'm Around" was lovely as well. The fact Anthony and Johanna both played cello was a brilliant touch, linking them together when the rest of the show is about alienation. And, honestly, the Act II "Johanna" quartet nearly made me cry, from a musical standpoint as well as an emotional one.
Finally, and tell me if I'm forgetting something obvious, but I think it's incredibly important that every murder in the show is done with a blade, including Fogg and Mrs. Lovett. So much of the show is about being alone, about being unable to connect (thus the looking at the audience rather than each other, with the notable exception of Anthony and Johanna). But the act of killing someone is, in this production, the only kind of intimacy most characters can hope for. Sweeney is always lovingly careful as he wraps the sheets around each victim, even with Turpin. Johanna is forced to face Fogg as she stabs him with the shears, and her murder of the asylum owner is all the more vivid and brutal because there isn't the distance allowed by a pistol. With Lucy, as noted earlier, he's practically cradling her as he slits her throat. Which made me wonder, as I was watching, how they would do the final two murders of the show. Clearly, Sweeney can't kill Mrs. Lovett the same way he killed Lucy, but I was sure it wouldn' t be by shoving her into an oven either. The vertical, brutal slashes were an important choice; she is the first person that Sweeney murders in a rage (Turpin and the Beadle, though he hates them, he kills with calculation and a certain level of sang-froid). It also sets Lovett apart and perhaps, in a sick way, is a perversion of the sexual relationship that either existed or was Mrs. Lovett's desire (that's another debate for another day), as he literally rips her stomach open. Toby's re-entrance, in contrast, is almost gentle, somewhat playful. Todd's total detachment, physically exemplified, implies that he is effectively dead long before Toby actually pulls the razor across his throat. The nurse/Pirelli taking the blade away from Toby before he can kill himself is the clearest sign that, not only is the story finished, but that Toby is doomed to keep retelling the same events over and over again. He is powerless, bladeless, and left with nothing but his story; even that is silenced, ultimately.
Attend the tale, indeed.
ETA: As of Friday, they were still selling tickets through September, and yet it closed on the 3rd. What is up with that? Silly website.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 05:28 am (UTC)I could go on, but I'll leave it there for now.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 05:34 am (UTC)Just to bring up another discussion point - I adored the surprising humor Alexander Gemignani and Mark Jacoby brought to their respective roles. The Beadle's dead-pan delivery of lines such as his little speech about his "darling Annie" or being obliged to do anything for his "friends and neighbors" become hysterical. Mark Jacoby adds a WONDERFUL dry humor to a character that's so often taken so seriously. The way he takes no pause between "sentenced to hang by the neck until you are dead" and "court adjourned" and how he is constantly gazing at his watch throughought it is comical, and makes the judge more "real". More sympathetic. Of course it makes you dislike him more (as it should), but it makes him a human, not a monster, and it gives you a moment to laugh at the Judge instead of spite.
There's also this sense of a shift in the balance of power. It really appears, quite often, that The Beadle is running the show, so to speak. The Judge is powerful in his own right, but it's only because of his title. It's usually done that the Beadle is the one doing all the Judge's dirty work he can't be bothered with. Here that holds true -- but it seems like perhaps the Beadle has his own sly ways of making sure what needs to get done always gets done. He can subtly manipulate the Judge, and yet seems not to care about the Judge at all. It's brilliant.
And now -- because I have to ask EVERYONE who goes -- I need to hear your impressions of The Doctor, especially concerning her relationship with Toby. If you wouldn't mind.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 12:35 pm (UTC)I wish I had had more time to watch the Doctor, because when I did watch, it was always fascinating. The attention on Toby especially, crossed between professionalism and the sliver of human affection that can't be helped, was just astonishing, and it made the end that much more powerful. Beautiful device, beautifully executed.