The young man: I have saved your life and seen into your eyes and I wish to heal you. I respect you now, Eggdrew. Nurse.
I cry for you, Todd. London the pit. The pits. It’s the pits. Bits to bits. Grits its teeth and bites you, Todd. Fights you, Todd. Drives you beneath, Todd.
She was beautiful. Did she succumb? Now I am the young man. And I must leave, to be fucked like Todd was fucked. And Todd was really, really fucked.
You think you’ve been fucked? Fuck no. Not like Todd.
Now I am Todd, old, alone, used like a rag to wipe black brown shit off a toilet. I hurt.
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit and it’s filled with people who are filled with shit and the people of the world inhabit it. I am turning. To the dark side.
Me/Anthony/Luke Skywalker: You are not my father. Darth Vader/Sweeney Todd: I am your father, but symbolically, not real-like.
Me: Ok. Well. I guess I’ll turn to the dark side then. Darth Vader: Here is your cape, son.
Darth Vader 1, Luke Skywalker 0.
Angela Landsbury is Mrs. Lovett. Accept no substitutions. Just watch her play. She dances at acting. To see her on stage is to see her perform ballet.
Where are we? Annie? Isn’t this that song from Annie where she dreams about her parents?
And I’m telling you that pussycats is quick. This line deserves a laugh, but there isn’t enough space. Angela plays it well. Too bad there isn’t enough space in the score.
We get to laugh at everything at the end. Til then we are roped along, no time to think, like Todd is, somehow in awe of Mrs. Lovett.
She is the first woman he sees in England, and, he is a man. An old man.
And she knows him. A proper artist with a knife. Barker, his name was.
Then come back and watch it with me. It is here we go our several ways.
The young man: if a young man dreams to be a man, that is the man they dream to be.
This is why he is so bland. He is the vessel for the audience to dream of being. And they are not.
But of course this is Todd as a young man. He was the young man all young men dream of being.
The old woman: no spoilers.
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and it’s morals aren’t worth what a pig would spit and it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the top of the hole sit the privileged few making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo. Turning beauty into filth and greed.
I too have sailed the world, and seen it’s wonders. For the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru. But there’s no place like London.
The young man is kind. But he is bland. He is so kind. But he is so bland.
There was a guy my friend used to date and he was so bland, so bland. His name was Andrew. And, like Ann in Arrested Development, we called him Egg. Eggdrew. If you don’t get these references, stop reading now.
Eggdrew was a competent young man, about computers or something. I know computers and I never could get a read on him: was he hardware, software, or just a schmoe?
He was a schmoe. He was Eggdrew. He was the bland young man.
He was so bland his black peaked hair made you think of the bland young man in Todd instead of the Mountains of Peru.
His inky black eyes made you think of the bland young man in Todd instead of the Dardenelles.
He was just that bland. He was like Luke Skywalker before he leaves Tatooine.
.
. Eggdrew. If you don’t get these references, stop reading now.
before he leaves Tatooine.