This was the last weekend for a live production of Sweeney Todd, so I took advantage of Portland's Arts-for-All program and entered on a discount.
I've seen Tim Burton's movie version, which I enjoyed, but never a live theatre showing. It was dark and gritty and purely sumptuous! I was surprised at how much it resembled the movie, but there were differences as well. For example, with the judge shirtless and whipping himself in punishment, I got a taste of his character I didn't quite get in the movie.
The settings were well done, as were the costumes, and the acting I felt was great all around. Such powerful voices. And yes, a spray of fake blood accompanied several of those graceful swipes -- just enough to fit a tale so gruesome, yet not excessive in my opinion. What was (and is) always a masterpiece was the musical score, which frolicks and flashes, growls and shrills. The high-pitched, dissonant scream of a whistle made the sudden presence of death that much more realistic and terrible.
But my mind is far from easy...
No mere thriller, Sweeney Todd speaks also of a world where corrupt systems drive people to take extreme measures. These systems are at fault as much as any one person. Then, add a specific case of acute personal suffering to the pressures from an already volatile economy, and a recipe for disaster is brewing...
I got to appreciate the lyrics of the musical far more this time around. Next day, I looked them up. What wit! What delightful commentary, on the darkest aspects of human reality! There are horrors in this world, after all. If we cannot laugh at them, we will surely go insane. If we're not already, that is! I've always liked the musical quality of words, so I found it both a treat and very instructive to read the lyrics after hearing them on stage. They inspire my own writing.
Razor! Razor! cut cut cut
Deny it though we may try, we humans are a cannibalistic species, in thought if not in action. Just look at the economics magazines for business techniques! Even the vast majority of people who don't indulge in such things are fascinated by the few examples who do -- by that dark "edge" of our being.
I'm enjoying an exploration of this in my writing. Isaac is more like Edward Scissorhands, in his more benign yet still dangerous nature, than the purposefully murderous Sweeney. But the question remains: What do we do with a person who "cuts"? And depending on how that person behaves and why, if we kill them, has justice been done -- or are we in fact worse than they are?
It's all great fun to think about. And write about, and paint, too.
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