SO, YOU THINK YOU KNOW SWEENEY TODD… By Peter Filichia
What you don’t know – or don’t remember – about SWEENEY TODD could fill a book.
Rick Pender has proved that by writing Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: Behind the Bloody Musical Masterpiece.
Pender, a Cincinnati reviewer, has attended the tale of Sweeney Todd for 252 pages. To mark the musical’s 46-year history, here are 46 pieces of information that will either be brand-new to you or will bring back memories…
1) Some say that the story of a barber killing his customers and turning them into meat pies actually happened in Paris in 1206.
2) Another rumor says two Parisians collaborated: a barber who murdered and a pastry chef who cooked.
3) In 1844, a novel called Sawney Bean: The Maneater of Midlothian was published. Many say that inspired the name Sweeney Todd.
4) Charles Dickens’ 1843 novel Martin Chuzzlewit references a character who makes meat pies from people.
5) In 1846, an 18-part serialization was called The Barber of Fleet Street with an ironic subtitle: A Domestic Romance.
6) In the first stage version – A String of Pearls – George Dibdin Pitt’s originated the still-used phrase “polish him off” as a euphemism for murder.
7) The story reached the radio in 1925 – in Melbourne. Was Australia interested in the story because British convicts were sent there during the time that SWEENEY TODD is set?
8) A 1928 silent film had Sweeney at the end awaken to find that his murder and cannibalism were only a dream.
9) Actor Norman Carter Slaughter so often appeared as Sweeney on stage and in the 1936 film that he changed his first name to “Tod.” (Yes, with one “d”).
10) In 1946, one story had an actor who’d played Sweeney so often that he began to identify with him. Coming to his aid was no less than… Sherlock Holmes!
11) Warbling Alfred P. Doolittle’s songs in MY FAIR LADY wasn’t the only time Stanley Holloway sang; he once recorded a song called “Sweeney Todd, the Barber.”
12) A ballet version opened in 1959, choreographed by John Cranko, who had written book and lyrics for a 40-performance Broadway revue called CRANKS.
13) William Scott, Ken Appleby, Alan Collins and Mike Burke first musicalized the tale as THE WORLD OF SWEENEY TODD in 1962. (So, four writers created a forgotten version while only two were needed for a later masterpiece.)
14) Peter Haining wrote a version and arbitrarily decided that Sweeney was born on October 16, 1752. (Did he choose that date because it referenced another bloody event when, on that day in 1793, Marie Antoinette was guillotined?)
15) Sondheim and Wheeler’s musical was “based on a play by Christopher Bond” who was a mere 23 when he wrote it.
16) Bond’s play must have included a lot of stage business, because his entire script was a mere 46 pages long.
17) Bond called his young sailor Anthony Hope, which happens to be the name of the author of The Prisoner of Zenda.
18) Bond was also an actor and wrote Tobias Ragg for himself.
19) Bond’s drama played at a theater next to a pub, so many attendees were drunk when they came to the play and responded by not necessarily booing the villains and cheering the good guys.
20) There had never been a Judge Turpin until Bond created him.
21) After Sondheim saw Bond’s play and saw a musical in it, he sought the opinion of an established director: John Dexter. That’s a surprise, for he’d staged DO I HEAR A WALTZ? which Sondheim repeatedly said was his most miserable professional experience.
22) Richard Barr and Charles Woodward, co-producers of The Boys in the Band, optioned Bond’s play for Broadway. When Sondheim asked to musicalize it, they asked Bond if he was amenable. (You know he said yes.)
23) When Bond dealt with Sondheim’s agent, legendary no-nonsense Flora Roberts, he described her as “a cross between Mae West and Lady Bracknell.”
24) Sondheim admitted that Wheeler provided some of the great spoken jokes in “A Little Priest.”
25) Raising money wasn’t easy. Sondheim’s hits weren’t financial bonanzas, and his flops lost fortunes. So, Barr and Woodward placed an ad in The New York Times that said, “New Stephen Sondheim Musical Open for Investment.” One had to pony up at least $1,800 to be part of the show.
26) More than 1,500 people wrote checks. They provided $225,000 of the $900,000 budget.
27) Although Frank Verlizzo’s logo does show blood, there would have been more if The New York Times and other publications didn’t have a policy that limited the sight of blood in its pages.
28) Nine years before CARRIE had the walls of its theater painted black to create an eerie mood, Sondheim suggested the same idea for SWEENEY. Director Hal Prince talked him out of it.
29) Just before the first preview, costume designer Franne Lee decided that the pullover that Mrs. Lovett would wear on her first entrance wasn’t dirty enough. She threw a plate of nearby spaghetti on her leading lady. Lansbury wasn’t happy performing with the smell of cheese, tomato and meat wafting up to her nose.
30) Pender writes that the pullover “was eventually replaced.” (By the second preview, we assume.)
31) During another preview, two catwalks that hung above the stage fell and almost hit Lansbury, just as she was to sing the words “Nothing’s gonna harm you.”
32) Sarah Rice, playing Johanna, originally had a wig that reached the stage. It was changed after Sondheim noted that it made her into “a depraved Dolly Parton.”
33) Musical director Paul Gemignani said that at intermission, he was so exhausted by Sondheim’s music that he didn’t believe he could face Act Two. Gemignani apparently overcame this feeling, for when Prince offered him EVITA, Gemignani decided to stay with SWEENEY.
34) Eighteen-year-old John Logan saw the final preview and returned twice more. Little did he know he’d eventually write the screenplay.
35) Today, SWEENEY TODD is considered a masterpiece. But mixed reviews came from both of The New York Times theater critics: Richard Eder (“unacceptable”) and Walter Kerr (“unhappily”).
36) Just before the recording session, Len Cariou, playing Sweeney, was diagnosed with strep throat. He decided “The show album must go on!” and performed.
37) When SWEENEY closed on Broadway after 557 performances, it had returned only 53%. of its investment. See entry 44 to see when it finally paid back.
38) Lansbury toured until her contract ended on September 20, 1981. She offered to stay on another month, but business was bad, and the musical closed early.
39) Bond eventually became the artistic director of the Liverpool Playhouse, where he staged the musical in 1983.
40) Bond later became the artistic director of the Half Moon Theatre in East London and staged it again in 1985.
41) A 1989 intimate production started at the small York Theatre and moved to Broadway’s Circle in the Square – underneath the Uris/Gershwin where the original played.
42) That modest production, often called “Teeny Todd,” got that sobriquet from Gerard Alessandrini who spoofed the revival in his FORBIDDEN BROADWAY.
43) Although the Goodspeed Opera House made its reputation staging musicals that had around for a half-century, in 1996, 17-year-old SWEENEY became its youngest-ever production.
44) And when did the original production eventually return its entire investment? More than a decade after it had opened.
45) Although London had a long-term interest in the property SWEENEY TODD could only muster 157 performances – 400 fewer than Broadway could.
46) Sondheim, saddened by the quick West End closure, said he’d written the show as “a love letter to London.” That description may strike many as odd, but many more have shown quite a bit of love to SWEENEY TODD during the past 46 years.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
