Sweeney Todd

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Brooke took me to see the Canadian Stage production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I’m definitely not a musicals guy, and this is about as Broadway as a musical can be. The story tells the tale of a murderous barber, the pie-making woman who loves him, and the novel way in which they dispose of the bodies. While I enjoyed a few of the numbers, namely the ones played for laughs (The Contest, A Little Priest), overall I found the music grating. As with most musicals, I found the “love story” terribly contrived, and the second act was insanely rushed. I missed a huge portion of the lyrics since many of the songs had several people singing over each other. The singers’ attempts to affect Cockney accents surely didn’t help my comprehension much, either. I’m not sure if I’ll ever “get” musicals. Do you?