There was a barber and his wife...

Dan heard an interview on the way to work yesterday with Tim Burton. Burton said that he had seen a stage production of Sweeney Todd years ago, before his movie career was a career, and that his work had been profoundly influenced by the musical ever since. He said that he knew if he ever filmed a musical, it would have to be Sweeney Todd. For my part, on my way to the theater, I remarked to Daniel that if anyone should film Sweeney Todd, it needed to be Tim Burton. Thankfully, the Hollywood and Broadway stars aligned to make this pairing possible, because this combination is as devilishly delicious as Mrs. Lovett's famous meat pies.

Sweeney Todd in any incarnation is not for the faint of heart. It's a brutal look at the ways evil and revenge consume humanity, based on a gruesome legend that has been told in many bloody incarnations before.

I know Sondheim's stage version better than most, because I lived it for a few months when I was cast as part of the "company" about 8 years ago. I was one of the revelers at the masked ball, one of the people taken in by Pirelli's miracle elixir, one of the greedy commoners devouring Mrs. Lovett's pies and one of the inmates in the asylum. My costumes changed throughout the night, from the heavy bustled gown of a depraved socialite (a Hollywood rental -- the dress of a "lady of the night" used in the filming of Jekyll and Hyde), to the scratchy wool skirts of a London low-life. With the costume changes came a change in demeanor, as the story changed London from its grim sooty gray to a blood-drenched midnight black.

I remember a very heavy feeling after each performance over the course of a few weekends. The cast members quickly developed the habit of eating or drinking together after the show, not just out of the usual cast camaraderie, but as a way to sort of gently usher ourselves back into the someone less gruesome details of our everyday lives that went on between bloody shows. I don't think we could do that musical without being changed by it ourselves. Even though I knew full well that the patrons of our Mr. Todd's chair walked up and away to their families and the smoke from the oven was simply the result of a strawberry-smelling smoke machine (I had to know -- I operated it by remote while running about the stage singing in full voice), the thought of the Mr. Todds and Mrs. Lovetts of the world was sobering... even for (or perhaps especially for) those cast members who tried to push back the sobriety with substances licit and illicit.

Sondheim's music is very intricate, challenging and, in many respects, opera-derived. I managed to do two Sondheim musicals during my theater phase, and I have done little music since that has rivaled his score for complexity and challenge. Sondheim develops the characters through music and weaves their stories together in a tapestry of sound as brutal and heartbreaking as the story itself. Of course, the medium of film is much different from that of stagecraft, and I have to confess that while most of the musical bits that were cut from the film were those that had been mine to sing on stage, I think it was adapted beautifully. Among other things, I think this adaptation managed to help the viewer suspend the disbelief that springs from watching all of London spontaneously sing in one voice, by giving the lyrics to just a few characters. I don't think I really missed the company parts, because they were there in the music, unvoiced, but conveyed by the faces of the throngs.

Other bits were added, some dialog was smoothed out, other omissions were made, but the story and music retained their integrity. Would you believe that the thing that bothered me the most was the removal of one word from one of Judge Turpin's lines? "Ablutions." In the stage play he says, "Perhaps I have been too hasty with my morning ablutions." Of course, I loved that word. It's a good word... underutilized enough that our Judge Turpin couldn't say it correctly to save his life. Every night I would pronounce it correctly under my breath, and I looked forward to the way it would roll off of Alan Rickman's tongue. But, alas, that word received the axe as surely as Sweeney's patrons met his razor.

The fact that this little change bothers me most should say something to those of you who know me well. Yes... it really was that good. I wasn't sure about the voices of some of the leads, but what they lacked in vocal prowess they made up in presence. In the context of Burton's trademark visual artistry, the musical I loved took on a new, somewhat different life.

I cannot recommend it without reservation, but that is simply because I don't think the story of Sweeney Todd is for everyone. As one theater-goer behind me said at the end of the film, "That is messed up. That is seriously messed up." It is messed up. It is messed up as humanity is messed up. We devour each other as surely as did the starving Londoners of Sondheim and Burton's fantastical vision. We spread parasitic destruction by our hate and lust and greed in ways as hidden, if apparently less sinister, as those of Sweeney and his Mrs. Lovett.

In short, if you can stand to stare the evil in your own heart dead in its murderous face, and if you can laugh at the absurdity of what we do to one another, then this film may be for you. If not, perhaps you should stick with Alvin and the Chipmunks and the softer side of whimsy.

I've made my choice, as did Burton, and I cannot say I am sorry I did.

"There was a barber and his wife, and he was beautiful. A proper artist with a knife, but they transported him for life... and he was beautiful."