Many thanks to Rami for persuading the electro-pixies to approve this article for uploading!

By the way, the only reason I haven't commented enthusiastically on this yet is because I have yet to find anything even remotely worthy of it. This is a *wonderful* article.

>thanks to Rami
You're very welcome! Unlike Kyra I haven't seen either the play or the film so I can't comment -- which is good because I don't think I could come up with something to follow this article.

Nooo! Bollocks. The ferret ate my comment, which was lengthy and *astoundingly* erudite. Indeed, it's like will never be seen again and this is but a poor replication.

I was just saying something about how interesting it is to observe the way the themes you explore in your article transfer from the stage play to the movie adaption. Obviously the film is (necessarily) a very different beast to the play and very enjoyable on its own terms but the (again, necessarily) compressed format of it means that that these ideas and themes seem to make it the screen, err, excuse the pun, half-baked.

Todd himself: you mention in your article that he's a rather iago-like figure in his revenge-scheming, as he manipulates and controls the events of the play itself. But in the movie I understand they made a conscious decision to cut most of his spoken dialogue - the consequence of which is that he's detached from action and also seems be acting almost entirely on impulse (cf. his sudden plan to entrap the Judge when Anthony tells him of Joanna's incarcaration in the asylum - it all comes off in a flurry, there's non of the careful planning depicted in the play). And because they cut A Little Priest so extensively we never get to see Todd really relishing the cleverness and neatness of the plan - it's a moment of rare playfulness from him, yes, but because it's so short and he soon degenerates back into soulful staring and mooping it seems almost out of character in the film. Because he does not linger in appreciation of the both the plan and the game, his complicity in both (although, of course, he is) doesn't feel real (at least, it didn't to me) - and because of that, the audience doesn't feel complicit *either*.

Joanna Reprises: In the film there's only the two given to Anthony and Todd, which creates, I think, a perhaps unhelpful correspondence betwene them and sets the Judge apart from them as an antagonist. Essentially Joanna becomes a sort of anthem to loss - as Anthony combs the streets in search of her and Todd alternatively slits throats and stares out of the window with melancholy eyes. But in the play because the Judge *also* sings a rendition of Joanna, then we draw correspondances between the three of them and intead of being an anthem of loss, as you so rightfully point out in your article it's an anthem of possession and objectification and they're all as bad as each other. Poor girl.

Toby: In the play, because he's a halfwit, Toby's credulity (in not noticing the massive murder and meatpie-ification business going on right under his nose) and his affection for Mrs Lovett both spring from his foolishness, and thus cannot be seen as positive markers within the context of the play. But in the movie because he's a small boy (albeit a gin-soaked one) the implication is that they spring from something as wholesome as innocence. I think in the play we tend to feel a bit contemptuous of Toby (because he is stupid and credulous and, therefore, deserves his madness-inducing disillusionment) but in the film I think perhaps we feel genuinely sorry for him.

Anyway, I'm babbling. Just some thoughts.

I don't know what to add to this article except that I totally loved reading it--and also Kyra's comment above mine. Particularly the comment about Toby...it made me think about the aesthetic choice of making Toby a young boy, for isn't a pale little boy more beautiful than a half-wit older one? And how does the boy soprano differ aesthetically from the usual tenor? Madness is of course something that runs throughout the play, and Toby's own madness is what leads to the "perfect" conclusion--when he's mad he can finally see the way Sweeney does and so see that just as Mrs. Lovett needed to be killed when she did, it's now right for Sweeney to have his own throat cut for killing others (especially the beggar woman, who Toby in the play singles out as exactly the person Sweeney *shouldn't* have killed, without knowing just how right he is).

The play also often has Toby's madness symbolized by an aesthetic change that gives him white hair, but even in the movie I think there's clearly something "beautiful" in Toby's transformation. In the play he of course begins reciting poetry and seemingly sees connections and patterns where he didn't before that send him into more poetry (the razor, the pie). And of course Sweeney's actions wind up unleashing many other madmen into the streets with their own beautiful but dark visions (city on fire, lunatics yelling at the moon, hunchbacks kissing...).

Heh. Looks like I did have more to say! I loved this article! Brilliant1

Aw, shucks, thanks all! I totally agree with your comments. One of the great things about Sondheim is that once you find a theme or an idea in one of his musicals you can think about it more and more and eventually just about every sentence (and probably, if one's musical knowledge is good enough, every musical phrase) turns out to link back to it. Like Shakespeare (though not always so effectively).