Sweeny Todd


Originally, i was thinking i would make this post 366 to complete the project (a full year of album reviews), but as Cartman so rightly pointed out, i do what i want!

Contrary to what i may have led you to believe, Sweeny Todd is my second favorite musical. My absolute favorite musical in the entire universe is Cannibal, The Musical, but i don't have it any more. I somehow managed to hang onto the weird Germano-Spanish erotic cinema i found at Barnes and Noble one day two lifetimes ago (Vampiros Lesbos, and She Killed in Ecstacy), but i think i let someone borrow the greatest thing Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever created, and i'll never see it again. Such is life.

Luckily, Soylent Green isn't the only thing made of people. The real question is, which is better; the original cast audio or the partial original cast stage performance?

Now, i'm not gonna stand here and lie to you: any Angela Lansbury is great Angela Lansbury, she's amazing. Who doesn't like Angela Lansbury? Seriously, who? She's literally Angela Lansbury. Hating Angela Lansbury is like A) hating your own grandmother, and Bngela Lansbury) complaining that your sushi is undercooked.

What i don't like is that everybody cuts the "pulling teeth" and "god, deliver me" scenes. Pay them their extra 20 minutes at union scale! That's why we're in all of this mess to begin with, right? Wheeler and Sondheim didn't write those scenes because they were bored, they're important to the overall aesthetic arch. You know run time is about money, about not having to pay the actors and musicians any more money than absolutely necessary, right? Pay them already you greedy-bastard nickel-pinching Scrooge McDouchebags! You can depreciate a half a million dollar speaker system over three years, but you can't fork over an extra 3 grand to watch Judge Turpin ironically flagellate himself for two minutes? No wonder we're all eating cat or kangaroo or whatever non-cattle beef substitute McDonalds found in the Bornean Rainforest. There's 2,000 head of cattle 2 miles that way, i can go pet them before i pick which one's for dinner, but i can't afford to buy it and have it butchered because Papa John is worried about losing his Disneyland resort of a personal residence? So sorry for demanding a raise for lifting your new air conditioner into your pickup truck and two-wheeling your water heater warranty fraud to your door.

Sorry, that rant got a little out of control. The answer is i'd rather watch the actual stage performance, but Len Cariou is infinitely more better than George Hearn and i don't want to reboot into Windows just to enjoy a little Sondheim awesomeness. Original cast recording wins.

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