Oh, man. Oh, man. OhmanohmanohmanohmanohMANNN! The movie version of “Sweeney Todd” is coming this Christmas and I am literally wiggly with anticipation. But fretful, too. Like smelling-salts fretful, Auny Pittypat fretful. Like I’m not sure it’s gonna be done RIGHT. And, yes, it is a VERY BIG DEAL to me.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before — well, not suure, but mostly sure — but I did a production of “Sweeney Todd” in Seattle years ago. It was a joint production of the Seattle Light Opera and The Seattle Repertory Theatre, so there was a general tingliness in the Seattle theatre community over this upcoming production. At the time, I was a young and feckless college graduate — with a Bachelor’s in Theatehhh, no less. I mean, I was an actress with a piece of paper that proved it, goldurnnit. I was also deeply in love or something with The Weirdo who would later be Fiance #2 and one of our main pastimes — ahem! — was listening to the soundtrack “Sweeney Todd.” Because, basically, lounging around crappy apartments and listening to angsty soundtracks is all part of the initiation rite into the brotherhood of actors worldwide. You dare not call yourself an actor unless you’ve done this, repeatedly, with others, spontaneously singing the parts uproariously together OR spontaneously ignoring everyone else in the room and doing your own thing to the music. This, my friend, means you are a theatre geek, you are ON YOUR WAY, you have earned your right to start treading the boards. Oh, and I had done that. All of that. Obsessively, with “Sweeney Todd.” And all of this added up to an overall fatheadedness that made me brash enough to think I could just mosey on down there and audition.
Uhm, I’m getting far afield here. I’ll save the rest of that story for later. I will! This post was supposed to be about these posters. I want y’all (I am Southern! See my acting??) to tell me which one you like best, mmkay, and I will shove my opinions down your throats.
Sweeney #1
While I like the atmosphere of this one — the huge sloping window, the portrait in the background, the austerity of the room — I don’t like Sweeney’s pose here or the blood on the floorboards. Ooooh, people are being killed here, oooooooh! Ya think? There’s a lyric in Sweeney Todd that goes like this: Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle, Sweeney would blink and rats would scuttle. Yes, Sweeney WAS subtle. Sweeney was a killer, but he was careful about it. “Set a sort of a scene, he did.” So I don’t care for the blatant look-at-my-crotch pose. It doesn’t work for me. Not subtle, too forward. To me it says, “I am Johnny Depp. Notice my crotch, my chair, my razor. Pay no attention to my Edward Scissorhands wig with the Bride of Frankenstein white streak.” And if Sweeney would blink and rats would scuttle, then I can only imagine that this spreadeagled pose could singlehandedly (singlecrotchedly?) cause the mass migration of the entire rat population of London.
Sweeney #2
This is the one MB and I recently saw in the theater. I prefer this misty Sweeney, walking away from us, razor dangling from his hand. It’s more subtle. More mysterious. Quietly menacing. I feel like if you don’t know Sweeney, you’d look at this image and say, “Who is this guy? What’s that in his hand? What’s he up to?” I like that. I love the mood. Sets a sort of a scene, it does. BUT for me, they ruin it with the giant BEWARE at the top of the thing. I feel the marketing here. I can hear the bunch of guys in suits sitting around a table and saying, “But lots of people don’t know Sweeney. We want them to KNOW they should be scared, that they will want to be SCARED. If they’re not strongly BEWARED, they won’t come and that would be bad and ACK! ACK!” Whereupon, all the besuited dudes start sweating and pulling at their ties and the decision is made.
BEWARE.
BEWARE, goobers!
But that’s just me. What do y’all think? (Okay. Please. Someone just hand me the Oscar, already.)
