Groban, "Sweeney Todd": Reviewed

"Sweeney Todd" became the soundtrack of my freshman year of college; I couldn't stop listening to it.

I believe--and Sondheim would trash this idea--SS was writing about his mother. He loved the figure of the damaged victim who unleashes horror on the world. He invented this monster for "Gypsy," and then he made some edits, and he brought out the monster again for "Sweeney." Sondheim's mother was shallow and cold; she told Sondheim that her great regret in life was having given birth. She tried to sexually seduce her son. I believe that Sondheim felt a mix of sympathy and repulsion--and I think this interesting mix became his inspiration; he can't reject Sweeney, because he understands and loves Sweeney. We are all Sweeney. "Perhaps, today, you gave a nod to Sweeney Todd...."

If Sweeney is Mom, then Sweeney is also a self-portrait. Sondheim explicitly mentions that Sweeney is "a proper artist with a knife." Many lines of writing are devoted just to the artist's tools: "a lavabo and a fancy chair, a mug of suds, a leather strop, an apron, a towel, a pail, and a mop." "Your shine was merely silver, but soon, you shall drip rubies." "Is that a chair fit for a king? A wondrous, neat, and most particular chair!" As Sweeney fills his canvas, he can be gregarious and suave, just like Sondheim's next great artist-hero (George, in "Sunday in the Park"). Sweeney sharpens his knife while singing sweetly of "pretty women, sipping coffee, letter-writing, silhouetted, dancing...." As he lures Mrs. Lovett toward the furnace, he praises her: "So charming and eminently practical, as always....How I've lived without you all these years I'll never know!"

Sweeney breaks our heart because the memory of his trauma is never far from the surface; it bubbles up, pushing past the rage:

And my Lucy lies in ashes....

And I'll never hug my girl to me....

Even in the midst of his Act Two killing spree, Sweeney is singing crazily to a version of his daughter who exists only in his mind:

And though I'll think of you, I guess, until the day I die....

I think I'll miss you less and less? As everyday goes by?

Johanna......

Josh Groban can't carry this show. The role belongs to Raul Esparza or Christian Borle--two actors who can be as cunning and intense as Sondheim himself. (Sweeney Todd is Stephen Sondheim by another name.) It's actually not a crisis that Groban's acting leaves something to be desired, because he is sharing the stage with Annaleigh Ashford, who really knows what she is doing. Ashford seems delighted every time she walks onto the stage, and she makes bizarre choices that simply "work." She is almost continuously humping Sweeney or stroking his biceps; at the end of Act One, she works herself into a frenzy and begins (literally) spinning on her side, like a top. I think her greatest moment is the deadpan exchange when she learns that Sweeney has murdered Pirelli. Lovett expresses horror, then discovers that Pirelli was about to spill details of Sweeney's secret past. With a straight face, Ashford says, "NOW I get it. Perfectly understandable." This moment of reptilian, Machiavellian thinking makes your blood run cold--and it's very funny.

I had worried about the new choreography, but my fears were misguided. The stylized depictions of retching, titling, and stumbling are all enchanting.

Finally, I was so moved by the tremendous furnace (in the basement). We don't really spend time with the furnace until the final minutes, when the three central characters, Sweeney, Lovett, and Toby, have descended into a (figurative) hell. The setting made me think of the end of "The Grifters," when Anjelica Huston murders her son and plunges down, in the "lift," to some kind of underworld. Once Sweeney has hoisted Lovett into the fires, the entire stage seems to explode; the lights turn to "full blast," and the trombones become "tools of assault."

What a treat to see this show with a full orchestra and a large cast; I think this was Sondheim's real intention, even if he also authorized the "tiny Todd." I'd go back (although I'm holding my breath for an announcement about Raul Esparza).

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