#miss sweeney

[esmes]

that wouldn't be too painful, would it? 🎥 @theriddletrades

[atimburtonfan]

The women in Tim Burton's films.

[ashleyslorens]

Lucy... Oh, my God... What have I done?…

[queenmakings]

SCHMIGADOON / SCHMICAGO RESIDENTS AND THE MUSICAL THEATER CHARACTERS THEY’RE BASED ON

[morangodigital]

♡♡♡♡♡♡ pretty when i cry ♡♡♡♡♡♡

[bunbunpa]

I'm griev,,ing,, guys give me.. jus,,,t just give me,,,. a,,, a secornd..,,. plea,,se. :,(

[timegays]

Drawing for a doodle trade with @xcspy 😋😋

[iambecomeahamburger]

[entrelombreetlame]

When is a monster not a monster? 

Oh, when you love it.

[happyyft]

The others...(just 4 fun)

Why is the cherry bitter :(

@ev4ikcasswife

[heartshapelocket]

“I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like plague”

[esmes]

ANNALEIGH ASHFORD as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd (2023)

[forevermore1389]

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

ROLES I WANT DAVID TENNANT TO PLAY IN MUSICALS: THE MASTERLIST

Okay so I've divided this into three categories, which you shall see below!

Roles I Think David Could/Should Play NOW:

Charlie Guiteau in Assassins

someone in Brigadoon bc it would be funny

The Emcee in Cabaret

Ryuk in Death Note

The Man In The Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone

The Dysquith Family in A Gentleman's Guide to Love And Murder

Herbie in Gypsy

Hades in Hadestown

Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame (okay give him like five years)

The Baker in Into The Woods

Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe

Albin or Georges in La Cage Aux Folles (either one as long as the other is played by Michael Sheen)

Trunchbull in Matilda OKAY HEAR ME OUT (he could also do Mr Wormwood)

Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady

Fagin in Oliver

Tateh in Ragtime

Riff Raff OR Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror

Shakespeare in Something Rotten

Squidward in SpongeBob (im so serious)

Sweeney Todd (utterly delusional but I need it to happen)

The Wizard in Wicked

Roles I Think David Would Have Nailed When He Was Younger

The Balladeer in Assassins

anyone in Cats please it would be so funny (especially Munkustrap)

Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen (like Campbell era come ON)

Motel in Fiddler on the Roof

Marvin in Falsettos (he MIGHT get away with that now not sure)

Monty in Gentleman's Guide

J.P. Finch in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman

Emmet in Legally Blonde

Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors

Edgar Allan Poe in Nevermore

Leo Frank in Parade

Narrator/Cat in the Hat in Seussical

Georg in She Loves Me

any character Christian Borle played in Spamalot

Tobias Ragg in Sweeney Todd

Roles David Quite Doesn't Have The Instrument For But I Would Watch Him Do Them Anyway Bc He Would Act The Hell Out Of Them:

Any Elder in The Book of Mormon (Younger)

Robert in Bridges of Madison County

Bobby in Company (Younger)

Jervis in Daddy Long Legs (Younger)

Lucheni in Elisabeth (Younger)

or death. Rudolph too tbh

Bruce Bechdel in Fun Home

Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre

Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde (younger)

Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar (younger)

Javert in Les Miserables

Christian in Moulin Rouge (Younger)

Pierre in Great Comet (this one actually kills me bc he and Phileas are so similar)

OR ANATOLE HOLY CRAP

Gabe in Next to Normal (Younger)

Erik in Phantom of the Opera

Mark Cohen in Rent (younger)

Noel Gruber or Ricky Potts in Ride the Cyclone (younger)

Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden

Joe/Josephine in Some Like It Hot

BURRS IN THE WILD PARTY OH I WISH THIS WERE REALISTIC IT WOULD BE SO GOOD

GOD this is long please spill the opinions so this was worth it

[demonbarbers]

so high rn so sorry if this doesn’t make any sense i’m just so emotional about josh and annaleigh and this production so i’m gonna ramble a bit about what i love about it and them. ok. enjoy.

the thing about sweeney todd is that it’s mean. it’s a mean show. it ends on the cruel irony of 2 officers bursting in on toby slitting sweeney’s throat, surrounded by 2 other bodies and one in the oven; on johanna watching her father die holding her mother and not even knowing it. everyone is an abuser or abused, and there is no hope or redemption to be found. and it fucking rules! it just rules. it’s so fun to indulge in our basest pleasures for nearly 3 hours, delicately served to us by one of the greatest composers who’s ever lived.

and every major production takes the bile and cruelty inherent to the material and runs away with it. like- just look at this swedish production from 2006, directed by vernon mound. or the last time it was on broadway, directed by john doyle:

productions tend go smaller and nastier, more intimate, in keeping with the spirit of how sondheim originally conceived the piece. (side note: i LOVE when they do that. my ideal sweeney has buckets of blood and visera right in your face)

the original production of sweeney was MASSIVE, but that came from hal prince. hal couldn’t really get an emotional foothold on the material until he found within sweeney an extended metaphor for capitalism and the industrial revolution; people literally eating people and the machine of capitalism grinding everyone up. revivals also tend to seize on the brechtian class elements, like this absolutely gorgeous korean production from 2019 directed by eric schaeffer:

sondheim, meanwhile, always objected to readings of sweeney as brechtian- it was all a farce to him, just a good, nasty time at the theatre. he approached it as a horror fan who wanted to write some fucked up stuff, which is maybe now some of the best art is created. but hal made it into epic theatre.

(if u don’t know what epic theatre is or what brechtian means google will explain it better to u than my ridiculously stoned ass can rn but im just focusing on one aspect of it rn: the distancing effect. basically, emotionally distancing the audience from the characters and the material so that everyone is engaging with the work on an intellectual level as opposed to an emotional one)

obc sweeney is an alienating show. it’s so fun and brutal and deeply felt, but these characters are grotesque. they’re cartoonish in their cruelty. just look at their makeup! john doyle also embraces the distancing effect; his revival is actor-muso, so we’re pretty aware at all times we’re watching a show. it’s all so cold, and the only warmth to be found is in the humor. and it rules. it’s nasty. i love it. this is the show i fell in love with.

all these things have become inherent to sweeney over time, all teased out of the greatest broadway show to ever exist; visceral horror, cruelty, coldness, and class commentary.

but this revival is just.. it’s warm! it’s lush! it’s romantic! and i don’t mean that in the sense of lovett and sweeney (tho this is the warmest they’ve ever been towards each other in any major production i’ve seen). i mean that it gestures at and plays with romanticism.

my biggest critique of this production is, in doing away with the brechtian elements (sondheim just cheered), it also does away with overt class commentary. it’s all still there in the text- turpin is a corrupt judge, beadle is effectively a sheriff, sweeney and lovett are working class, the beggar woman is homeless- but as a director tommy kail seems… uninterested in any biting political commentary, to put it generously lmfao. and i hate so much how little of it there is to be found in this revival, bc you can still Do It without invoking brecht. but i’ve long made my peace with that. i wanna talk about what i love.

and what i really love and what kept me returning to it (beyond the fact that it’s sondheim, and it’s sweeney, and josh groban is so stupid fucking hot) is how human everyone is. the entire production, from the ground up, is built around taking these characters and their pain seriously.

the ensemble all have incredibly period accurate costumes, unique to each character they’ve crafted (fun fact even the swings have their own unique costume that’s only seen when they perform). gone is toby as a mentally disabled man child with an oedipal fixation on lovett. in gaten’s hands he’s a young teenager, aging out of being a cute urchin and just looking for a mother. in daniel’s hands he’s beaten down young man with a limp and a genuine love for lovett.

ruthie’s beggar woman has developed DID after a brutal rape and the trauma of institutionalization and homelessness. she’s not played for laughs, even if sometimes the audience chuckles, and she makes u feel guilty if you ever did laugh at her situation. daniel yearwood leans so far into anthony as a sweet guy completely unaware of the story he’s actually in to the point of comedy. maria is just a revelation as johanna, all nerve and tension and bloody nails from years of self-harm. it’s easy to lean into johanna as a princess track, but ~crazy~. and maria plays jo as mentally ill and traumatized from years of incesteous abuse, but it’s not a pastiche or a praody of it. jo feels human in a way i’ve never seen her depicted before. i love it. maria bilbao u have my heart forever for this.

and then josh and annaleigh…. ugh!!! annaleigh really captures the avarice at the heart of lovett, but still brings in enough genuine moments of humanity and compassion that you find yourself (like sweeney and toby) endeared to her. lovett is always cruel and can only love through manipulation, but annaleigh’s lovett is a woman who makes small concessions. bit by bit, piece by piece, she erodes whatever goodness she had inside her until nothing but her desire for sweeney is left. she’s a woman who’s used seduction to get her way, and it’s easy to envision that when lucy returned from turpin’s, she shamed her for “giving it away” without getting benjamin back. she’s a monster! and yet, when she dreams of a better life, you feel it. when she holds toby in her arms and cried at her perfect little life unraveling, you feel it. annaleigh makes you laugh so hard she gets under your skin and stays there, exactly how lovett seduces sweeney in ALP. and there it is- identification! the complete opposite of alienation. we’re in it with them.

and then there’s josh and his sweeney… i really feel like his sweeney is undervalued. annaleigh steals the show. she won the drama desk for a reason. it’s a legendary performance. but josh…. man. i just. i keep returning to josh’s open wound of a sweeney over and over again. i think he’s probably had this take bouncing around in his head for years. they smartly leaned away from sweeney as this embodiment of rage and physical menace, which surprised a lot of people. but instead leaned into sweeney’s grief in a way i haven’t seen any major production do. josh’s sweeney feels like a man who was put on this earth to be a father and a husband. there’s a buried sweetness to him and you can still see benjamin barker in him until the very end. i keep calling him “kendall roy sweeney” bc it’s the closest way i can covey to other ppl what josh is doing here. he’s all big sad eyes and suicidal ideation, tragedy and twitchy hands. he’s so deeply pathetic he just endears himself to you. i want sweeney to succeed more than ever before. even though he spends all of act 2 killing people and being a shit father and thus killing benjamin barker, i still find myself wanting him and lovett to get away with it. and when the reveal comes, and even worse the betrayal hits- that this woman who he let into his life and body and who, in some odd way, became a friend, lied to him this entire time- it hits like never before for me.

i just love it all so much. i’m so happy it exists, so happy this revival does something so new! sondheim has said sweeney todd is a show about obsession, and it is. this revival supposes: what is the difference between love and obsession? what if the two look the same?

i think often of this quote from luca guadagnino’s suspiria (a masterpiece btw): “Love and manipulation, they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows.”

to me, that’s this revival in a nutshell- the thin line between love and obsession, and all the blood spilled in between.

[allloversinthenight]

Sydney Sweeney in Miss Sohee for the 2024 Met Gala