I went to see Sweeney Todd this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don’t know a lot about musical theatre but my other half is a bit of a connoisseur. There’s something that has been bugging me about Sweeney Todd:
When they sing “The demon barber of Fleet Street” there is almost always a beat between “fleet” and “street” - sometimes it’s an extended pause and sometimes it’s just half a beat. Is there a reason - musical/theatrical/whatever - for this?
I realise that part of it is the enunciation - in order not to run the two words together and end up with fleestree - but I can’t help feeling there might be more to the deliberate pause. Or maybe not. Any ideas or am I reading too much into it?
That’s actually typical of a lot of stage musicals. Listen to Bernstein for example, and he uses that technique a lot — he adds a meaure or two, sometimes of mixed meter, to keep it from becoming a perfect boxed square of 4/4 time. Maybe they got inspired by Frank Sinatra or something…
[armchair art critic]
The words fleet and street are both hard and percussive. By separating them, that hard percussive element is given more prominence.
[/armchair art critic]
Hijack . . . I read a book a couple of years ago, an investigation into the true story behind Sweeney Todd. It was fascinating: the author laid out the “real life” of the people on whom Todd and Mrs. Lovitt were based. But he didn’t footnote any of his sources!! So there’s really no telling how accurate his investigation was.
Eonwe - that makes sense to me. It makes the words sound harsher and more striking.
Eve - was it by Peter Haining? I spent the last hour or so doing a bit of research and his book gets mention quite a lot as a source. A sources without sources. Damn them! The Crime Library has an interesting section on the “real” story of Sweeney Todd and seems very confident of knowing exactly who he was, who his parents were, where his shop was and so on. It’s cague on sources for his early life, but there is a quote purported to come from Gentleman’s Magazine from 1853: “There was also something very sinister about him with his pale face and reddish hair. At times he was like some hobgoblin, his strange, dark eyes agleam with greed and cunning.” Poetic license if ever I heard it. And from the Daily courant, a daily broadsheet of the time, a report that is taken to be about one of Sweeney’ victims: "A horrid murder has been committed in Fleet Street on the person of a young gentleman from the country while on a visit to relatives in London.
“During the course of a walk through the city, he happened to stop to admire the striking clock of St. Dunstan’s Church and there fell into a conversation with a man in the clothing of a barber.
“The two men came to an argument, and of a sudden, the barber took from his clothing a razor and slit the throat of the young man, thereafter disappearing into the alleys of Hen and Chicken Court and was seen no more.”
The Crime Library says: Records indicate only one barbershop between St. Dunstan’s and Hen and Chicken Court – that of Sweeney Todd. How he was ever able to escape justice is almost unimaginable; not even the Keystone Cops could have been this ignorant, but somehow, Sweeney Todd evaded the apparently short arm of London Law.
The article also references Peter Haines and Colin Wilson (perhaps he wrote a book on the story, or it was incorporated into one of his True Crime compendiums). I remember reading you’re a True Crime fan - if you do find writing on it by Colin Wilson, do let me know.
Yes, the book I read was Sweeney Todd, the Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1993), by Peter Haining. Fascinating book, pretty well-written, and he seemed to have a lot of intricate material at his fingertips. But the fact that none of his sources were either mentioned in the text, nor footnoted at the end, makes me highly suspicious. He might well have gotten it all from 19th-century broadsides handed out on the street, for all we know!
That beat between “fleet” and “street” is purely an artistic choice; there’s no “reason” for it. It’s a moment of suspense, purely mechanical almost nonsensical suspense; it’s a funny little moment.
I wore out my vhs tape of Sweeny Todd and bought a second one. It is indeed great, though I’d call it second to “Into the Woods”. We really need Sweeny Todd on DVD.
We also watched the video of the Angela Lansbury production at the weekend and I loved that. I know Mrs Lovitt was written for her. Alex B, my other half, knows it very well and is a huge Sondheim fan so I have a good guide in learning about musical theatre. I have yet to see Company, Into The Woods or A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum - hurrah for things yet to come!
[sub]Is it a faux-pas if I admit my favourite musical is Oliver?[/sub]
My SO was in that- it was a film of the first national tour, which she was in. About 4 years ago she got a residual check for it when they started showing it on tv. You don’t get a good view of her in the video, though. JDM
Slight hijack: In Sondheim’s classic song “Send in the Clowns,” the line “Don’t you love farce” has a tendency to be sung and heard as “Don’t you love farts.” (and people think theatre is so stuffy). Some singers changed it to “Don’t you love the farce” simply to avoice the problem
Ah, yes: Don’t you love farts. My fart, I fear. I think that you smelt what I dealt. Sorry, my dear.
I have this entire musical memorized. I wonder if my friends work about my mental stability. My stepmother (a theater major and a huge Sondheim fan) introduced it to me when I was in 3rd grade!
That’s the one. But you never really get a good enough look at her for me to describe her- she was in the chorus and you just see her swirling around occasionally. We’re good friends with the actors who played Pirelli and the Beadle. Sweeney Todd was her very first Equity audition. She says when she wasn’t onstage she would just stand in the wings and watch Angela Lansbury and George Hearn and feel really really lucky. JDM
p.s.- every time she runs into Hal Prince, he gives her a big hug.
I recently watched Sweeney Todd in Concert on TV. I didn’t really like Patti LuPone as Mrs. Lovett, but I guess it would be hard for anyone to follow Angela Lansbury in the role.
The thing is, I’ve watched the video an unhealthy amount of times, so I probably would recognise her. If you point me in the direction of a picture, I have very little doubt I’ll recognise her.
Francesca, that particular way of singing the phrase ‘Fleet Street’ is Sondheim’s musical equivalent of what a poet would call a ‘spondee’. A brilliant, cultured woman such as yourself does not need telling that a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two consecutive stressed syllables. Poets often use spondees at the end of lines to add an extra sense of finality or conclusion, or to mark an especailly emphatic caesura (break in the line or meaning).
The chorus are singing about a man who despatched people with a particularly efficient ‘finality’, swish-swish, and so it is fitting to sing about him in this way.
And now, for your special delectation and pleasure, may I point out (hopefully for the first time) that it is no surprise you find Sondheim gives you great pleasure since his name is an anagram of hedonism.
Thank you Ianzin. I do indeed know what spondees and caesurae are, being a bit of a classicist. Ovid used them quite a lot. And yes, the “Fleet… Street” does sound like a swish swish. I approve of this theory.
I am very pleased at the anagram although musical theatre, even those examples which include gruesome murder, does not really fit into my concept of a hedonistic lifestyle. Maybe if they served free champayne at the intervals. Perhaps I should write a letter.