[Mistress]

My exposure to Sweeny Todd has so far been limited to the 82 movie and various Youtube clips, so I still haven't heard this song, which everyone here seems to love...can someone please give me a link to it so I can hear it for myself. Thank you.

[Salome]

i cant check you tube from work but its on the obc and the dvd of the concert. plus the revival recording.

[Vertigo50]

I would suggest watching the Sweeney Todd In Concert DVD, as he does a really scary version of this, and the actor has SUCH a great voice for the part. Also, if you can get a hold of the script, you'll understand what's going on exactly. Basically, the Judge is watching Johanna through a keyhole and whipping himself for lusting after her. At one point he gets really....shall we say....excited.....and that convinces him that he can never let her go.

He's a real sleazebag.

I love the way this show works. Sweeney would normally be the villain UNLESS there is someone even worse than him, and suddenly he's the hero. And boy, is the Judge ever worse!

[Ghost]

[Vertigo50]

Well, I'm not suggesting Sweeney is a role model for children or anything.

But it's your typical revenge play plot. You take a guy who used to be really nice, and now he's going to do a bunch of terrible things, but you still have to like him, so you make it be revenge for all the things that have already been done to him, and you make the guy who did those terrible things to him be really despicable. Not only that, but you introduce the idea that this despicable villain will continue to do more terrible things to more people if our "hero" doesn't stop him (marrying Johanna, and potentially worse) and suddenly you're rooting for your hero to go murder people!

Of course, Sweeney has an added twist, because we DO root for him to get the Judge, but then he starts killing innocent people as well, and rationalizing that they deserve it. All of a sudden we're not so sure he's our hero anymore. But this is where the Shakespearean tragedy elements come into play. We can't help feeling sorry for Sweeney at the end, when his lust for blood has taken away things he didn't even know he could lose. It's the same way we feel about Hamlet, or Macbeth. Sure, they were mad by the end, but we can't help feeling sorry for them.

If a tragedy is well-written, there's always an element of where you could see how if circumstances were very different, you could see yourself making the same mistakes.

[Sweeney Hyde]

Since no one actually took the time to find a link to the song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFjqQ9qQL6Y

It starts about halfway through...which is actually fun because you get to see the scene leading up to it as well and how perfectly it fits into the show...also the man playing Pirelli is very enjoyable to watch, imo.

[Xack]

[Mistress]

Thank you so much...I listen to it as soon as I can...and I'll definatley rent the in concert version.

[Jennifer Lynn]

I was listening to this song again on my way back to work from dinner and thinking about the show with it vs. without it. (The first production I saw, the Circle in the Square revival, had the song but not the short scene afterward where the Judge actually proposes. Unless my memory's faulty.)

Though the show is still excellent without it, I think it works better with the song in it.

Firstly, if the show doesn't have it, the Judge's announcement to the Beadle that he will marry Johanna seems rather abrupt. We do get a hint of his lust during Anthony's "Johanna", but this song really brings it out.

Secondly, by showing the Judge as genuinely conflicted, it makes him more three-dimensional than just a mwa-ha-ha villain. He lusts, but knows it's wrong. And there's no reason to disbelieve him when he cries out, "I treasured you in innocence and loved you like a daughter." It shows that he really DID feel some degree of remorse for what happened to Lucy and really DID want to make amends. (He says as much in the similar scene in the Bond play.) Without this scene, we might get the impression that marrying Johanna was his plan all along...that he was actually raising her to be his wife as a "do-over" of what happened with Lucy.

Thirdly, by showing this conflict, it gives the Judge a choice. We actually see the moment where he has the choice...let Johanna go for her own sake and therefore truly prove his repentance, or hold onto her for his own pleasure? And he chooses...and it dooms him, no less than Sweeney's choices lead to his own downfall. In that way, it's a parallel to "Epiphany".

[TychoBrahe]

I agree with you one hundred percent.

[Orestes Fasting]

Agreed, and it also casts yet more doubt on who is the real villain of the show.

[Salome]

we all know the true villian is Lovett.