A Hollywood studio, Dreamworks, has announced that it will produce a movie adaptation of the musical comedy, "Sweeney Todd," by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim. Johnny Depp will play the title role (who will play Mrs. Lovatt?); Tim Burton will direct.
The "book" of the musical shows the return of barber Sweeney Todd to London from a sentence of transportation to Australia, for a crime he did not commit. Todd has returned to take revenge on the men who sent him down. He opens a barber shop in Fleet Street, and begins slitting the throats of his victims, while shaving them. The bodies are sent to the tavern below the barber shop, where the bodies are made into meat pies, by the proprietor, Mrs. Lovatt.
It has already been adapted for the screen three times, twice as silent films in 1926, 1928; and as a very good sound film in 1936.
Two things were extraordinary about the Harold Prince's original Broadway production -- which I attended twice -- first, the extreme crazy rage of the protagonist. Sweeney Todd -- in the role created by Len Cariou and carried on by George Hearn -- was scary and mean and his anger was ugly and monstrous -- not the usual leading man in a Broadway musical; more like something in opera. The other thing was the violence -- the bloodshed on stage was so frequent and so realistic that the audiences in the first few weeks of performance complained that it was too frightening, and the staging had to be changed.
Johnny Depp seems to have made a specialty of comedic, fantastic roles. I wonder whether his interpretation of the role of Sweeney Todd would have the range and depth -- the gravitas -- of the Broadway production, or whether it will be essayed as something essentially eccentric and comic.
The "book" of the musical shows the return of barber Sweeney Todd to London from a sentence of transportation to Australia, for a crime he did not commit. Todd has returned to take revenge on the men who sent him down. He opens a barber shop in Fleet Street, and begins slitting the throats of his victims, while shaving them. The bodies are sent to the tavern below the barber shop, where the bodies are made into meat pies, by the proprietor, Mrs. Lovatt.
It has already been adapted for the screen three times, twice as silent films in 1926, 1928; and as a very good sound film in 1936.
Two things were extraordinary about the Harold Prince's original Broadway production -- which I attended twice -- first, the extreme crazy rage of the protagonist. Sweeney Todd -- in the role created by Len Cariou and carried on by George Hearn -- was scary and mean and his anger was ugly and monstrous -- not the usual leading man in a Broadway musical; more like something in opera. The other thing was the violence -- the bloodshed on stage was so frequent and so realistic that the audiences in the first few weeks of performance complained that it was too frightening, and the staging had to be changed.
Johnny Depp seems to have made a specialty of comedic, fantastic roles. I wonder whether his interpretation of the role of Sweeney Todd would have the range and depth -- the gravitas -- of the Broadway production, or whether it will be essayed as something essentially eccentric and comic.
Comments