Edward Copeland's Tangents

I haven't seen this in at least ten or fifteen years, but I still think it's one of the best musicals ever produced in any medium. While I have some faith in Tim Burton's visual abilities, I, too, wonder if the movie will be near as good. I'm still really looking forward to it.

Still, I wish they'd do these live audience TV versions more often. Television/video is a better analog for theater than movies. I'm sure a TV version like this of "The Producers," for example, taped/filmed in front of an audience, would have been vastly superior to the unimaginatively stagy film version. I can think of lots of others...

Anyhow, just added "Sweeney" to my Greencine queue. Can't wait to hear how it sounds in 5.1 Dolby. (Stereo?)
 

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If I were you, I'd be more afraid of Burton's casting choices than the fact he's directing it. I think the subject matter fits Burton perfectly; what's scary is him doing a Brian DePalma and casting his wife in an unsuitable role.

I haven't seen the version Ed reviewed. I did, however, see Lansbury's performance on Broadway, as well as the revival with Patti LuPone. I don't think anyone can approach Lansbury's performance, but I'm not so in love with the material that I'll fall to pieces if Burton's version sucks. (Aside: I did have this problem with Sunset Blvd., but my hatred of Andrew Lloyd Webber was alive and well long before he massacred my second favorite movie of all time. Props to Glenn Close, though, for trying to save it.)

Sondheim is feast or famine for me. Every time I remember he wrote the lyrics to my favorite Broadway musical, I'm reminded he also wrote Send in the Clowns, a song they will be playing on endless loop in Hell when I get there. He also wrote that catchy Madonna song, More, which was the best thing about Dick Tracy. I know Sondheim fans don't like being reminded that he wrote songs (and won an Oscar) for Dick Tracy, but that's just too damn bad. He did.

Angela Lansbury will make an appearance in Burton's Todd version, playing Jessica Fletcher. She'll sing a new Sondheim ditty about how the Cabot Cove folks she murdered were made into lobster bisque. Sondheim will find a clever way to put "Bisquick" and "bisque" into the same lyric.
 

My concerns about Burton's version is primarily about the casting. When they were bragging in the EW fall movie preview how none of their leads sang before starting the film, that got me worried. As for "Send in the Clowns," Judy Collins' awful version ruined the song, but when you hear it in context by real musical theater performers, it's a great song. I have never had a chance to see a stage version of "A Little Night Music" but I've always wanted to since I do love the score, even though it's based on one of my favorite Bergman films Smiles of a Summer Night.
 

Bob: Still, I wish they'd do these live audience TV versions more often. Television/video is a better analog for theater than movies.

I agree.I recall watching several of them over the years on PBS. The last one I can recall was, oddly enough, Sondheim's Into the Woods.
 

As for "Send in the Clowns," Judy Collins' awful version ruined the song

What about Liz Taylor's version? I've never heard it sung by theater folks, but I've heard it plenty of times by Ms. Collins. Unless the theater folks changed all the lyrics, it's not going to get any better.

Remember when they had Judy Collins singing it on The Muppet Show? It made my skin crawl.
 

Thankfully, I've avoided the Liz Taylor movie and version, but Judy Collins was my first exposure and I hated it. It was only later when I heard it in the context of the cast recording that the lyrics and the song's greatness became crystal clear to me.
 

I saw this version in a high school drama class, along with a couple other Sondheim musicals (Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park w/George). Since then, it's been one of my favorites, and my boyfriend was equally impressed when I made him watch it a few years back.

I'm equally reticent about the upcoming Burton adaptation. He can definitely handle the visual and atmospheric aspects; my real worry is the singing. When I first heard about this and saw the casting, I assumed maybe it would be based on the earlier non-musical play.

I'm actually a fan of Burton's work, but most of his choices since Ed Wood have been questionable at best.
 

Like you, I regard Sweeney Todd as Sondheim's crowning achievement, and a near-perfect work of musical theater. The best production I ever saw was the 1989 York Theater Company revival, starring Bob Gunton (best know as the hypocritical warden in The Shawshank Redemption) and Beth Fowler - I was fortunate enough to see it performed in a gothic cathedral, the deliciously named Church of the Heavenly Rest (morbid and apropropos) before the production transferred to Circle-in-the-Square on Broadway. Susan Schulman's expert staging illustrated just how wonderfully creepy Sweeney could be when done on an intimate scale, as a chamber musical - perhaps something that suits the show better than the epic approach favored by Harold Prince. The televised version is a wonderful resource, particularly since it preserves Lansbury's iconic performance from the Broadway original, but the physical production is prosaic and the quality of the acting variable, to say the least (Betsy Joslyn's aggressive trilling, florrid gestures and bulging eyes make for one of more truly bizarre "ingenue" performances I can recall having seen). John Doyle's recent production, which favored austerity over excess as a means of creating tension and dread, represented an intriguing re-interpretation of the material, although the element of humor that distinguished pervious productions was sorely lacking. Patti LuPone, sad to say, was a major liability - I'm not sure how it's even possible to drain all the funny out of "The Worst Pies in London", but somehow she got it done.

Like everyone else, I'm not expecting too much from the Burton film version. Looking on the bright side, at least he cast actors who can actually act, even if they're not particularly well-suited to their roles. Bonham Carter certainly wouldn't have been my first choice, but Nicole Kidman or Gwyneth Paltrow as Mrs. Lovett would have sent me over the fucking edge.
 

Josh R.: but Nicole Kidman or Gwyneth Paltrow as Mrs. Lovett would have sent me over the fucking edge.

I heard a rumor that Jessica Lange was considered for the role, since she had worked with Burton on Big Fish. That would have sent you into the Earth's core, Josh, and then flying out of a volcano somewhere!

I thought Doyle's reimagining was interesting more from a staging and technical perspective than a performance one. I had fewer problems with LuPone than you did.

I'm sorry I missed the York Theater's Todd usage of a church, easily the second creepiest use of a church in NYC (the first is still The Limelight).
 

This was one of the first professional things I ever did (I was just one of the escaped lunatics...nothing big). I love Sweeney Todd, although I did have more than my fair share of nightmares during the rehearsal period. That's an awful lot of blood, you know.

I think the hammering of "Send in the Clowns" is a bit unfair; in the context of the show, when sung unsentimentally (if that's possible) it's quite moving. I do think that the mother's song "Liaisons" beats it hands down. I saw it sung by Phyllis Curtin, an old Met star, in her last ever performance. Well into her seventies, and crippled with arthritis, she delivered a masterful, moving performance.

I agree that Paltrow or Kidman as Mrs. Lovette would have been a horribleness to grim to contemplate, but I can't get excited about Bonham Carter either. Dawn French might be scary. Well, of course she's scary, but appropriately so in this role.

It's a shame Pirelli is not being done by a real singer. It has a scad of high C's and really requires a talented tenor. Which I don't think Borat is...
 

I can't remember where I heard the story but supposedly when Ingmar Bergman saw the original B'way production of A Little Night Music, after he saw Hermione Gingold perform "Liaisons," he reportedly turned to Sondheim and said, "Boy, she really knows how to fuck the audience, doesn't she?" He meant it as a compliment.
 

"Boy, she really knows how to fuck the audience, doesn't she?"

I'm glad you clarified that. It sounded like Bergman was implying that her singing was so bad that the audience was getting fucked by listening to it. Coincidentally, the exact same words were overheard during a Yoko Ono concert.

I think the hammering of "Send in the Clowns" is a bit unfair

I'm the one swinging Odell's Silver Hammer at Send In the Clowns. Ed just wants me to hit Judy Collins with it. I saw that Liz Taylor movie with her singing it. Was that in context? If so, the song still stinks. I'm with you on Liaisons though.
 

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Edward,
A fellow Sondheim fanatic-- hurrah! I actually prefer both "Follies" and "Sunday In the Park With George" to "Sweeney Todd," but I do like the show, and really enjoyed your post. Like you, I shudder at the thought of the Burton version (when i showed the Lansbury version to a class on musicals last spring, I said much the same thing you do here: "See it now, before it gets messsed up!" Some of the supporting roles (Anthony Stewart Head, Alan Rickman) are well-cast, but the leads? Yeesh. I would've cast Hugh Laurie as Sweeney-- I'm not sure how much better he can sing than Depp, but he's got the right gleam of madness and humor in his eyes. And maybe Cate Blanchett as Mrs. Lovett?

Actually, how about a film version of Follies? I know they just did an Encores revival in NYC with Donna Murphy and Victor Garber-- now there's a cast!
 

Follies might be my favorite Sondheim score, but I think the score is stronger than the book. I've only seen it performed once, at the Paper Mill Playhouse in N.J. in the 1990s and it was great. The cast even included Ann Miller and Eddie Bracken. I've never heard him sing, though I know he has a rock band, but I always wondered what kind of Sweeney that Russell Crowe would make.
 

Ah, Laurie and Blanchett would be wonderful in Sweeney Todd; they'd be able to hit the dark comic tones perfectly. Perhaps someday. Has Anthony Stewart Head ever played Sweeney? That, I'd love to see.

Regarding "Send in the Clowns," I don't think it was ever meant to be the standard it is today. As others have said, it really only works in context (and Liz Taylor's version doesn't count, as she's really not acting with anyone else in that movie) and doesn't stand on its own at all. There are several stronger songs in Night Music: "Liaisons," of course, but also "Every Day a Little Death", and the real eleven-o'clock number, "The Miller's Son."

A film version of Follies would be great, but it will never fly. Sadly, the demographics of both cast and audience are too old.
 

I'm not sure if he can sing, but I think Willem Dafoe would make an outstanding Sweeney. He just has that look and darkness to him.