Sweeney Todd
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18“I will have vengeance, I will have salvation.” Sweeney Todd
In 1979, Steven Sondheim’s new musical Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street opened, offering a morality tale on the nature of revenge. The story for the show originated from the apocryphal Victorian British legend of a poor London barber with a beautiful wife and young daughter. The local judge, taking a fancy to the barber’s wife, sent his rival to prison on a trumped-up charge so that he could claim the woman for himself. Finally released from jail after fifteen years, the barber returned to London to learn that his wife had poisoned herself and his daughter had been adopted as ward of the evil judge. Pushed into such an impossible situation, the barber gives himself over to revenge.
Sondheim’s brilliant writing, both textual and musical, provide us an eerily deep understanding of what revenge means to Sweeney Todd, the unfortunate “demon” barber. Unable to kill the judge at first opportunity, he decides to “practice [revenge] on less honorable throats.” The song which Sweeney sings when he decides to kill everyone he can is named “Epiphany.” This horrific declamation shows us the barber’s horrific, radiant joy at finding a solution to his victim status. He tenderly addresses his razors and his barber chair (which he has adapted to dump the corpses of his victims into the bake house of his landlady, who grinds their flesh into filling for her meat pies) as his friends. He is able to sing with calm acceptance of never being able to see his daughter again while he slits the throats of his unsuspecting clients, because, as he describes in an imaginary conversation with his absent daughter, “I still have reason to rejoice, the way ahead is clear.” Having been denied the love of his family, Sweeney learns to desire the satisfactions, accomplishments, and clarity of revenge rather than the familial comfort that was his original goal. In Romans 12:19-21, Paul warns his readers not to avenge themselves but to let God’s righteousness take revenge where appropriate. Although Paul does not explain the consequences of being “overcome by evil” in this way, we see the consequences in terrible and fascinating detail in Sweeney Todd.
The best things about Tim Burton’s film version of this musical are Sondheim’s music and lyrics. The incomparable melodies and profoundly intimate texts of this show are the true stars of the film, and they provide abundant reason to head to the movie theater and purchase a ticket. Those who are familiar with the show will find themselves singing along in the auditorium; those who do not yet know the show should be prepared to remain carefully attentive for every delicious pun and phrase (although Helena Bonham Carter’s pale-sounding, under-enunciating voice makes parsing the text difficult at times). Burton, ever sensitive to atmosphere, does a lovely job of providing a grimy Victorian setting for Sweeney and his victims to populate. And, with the exception of Burton’s long-time partner Bonham Carter, the cast does a fine job of inhabiting Sondheim’s memorable characters. Johnny Depp is both too young and too graceful for the lead role, yet he makes up for these characteristics with strong vocal presence (both speaking and singing) and fine acting. Helena Bonham Carter, as the land lady who falls in love with Sweeney, improves as the film progresses, but her first introduction to the viewers leaves a thin and heartless impression that is hard to shake. Other characters, including Alan Rickman’s scandalously enjoyable Judge Turpin, appear so infrequently and briefly that we hardly have the time to appreciate those actors’ performances.
The original play, as mentioned above, was a morality play of sorts. The plot was introduced, frequently interrupted, and closed with versions of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” a frightening and catchy tune (based on the Dies Irae) which explained the premise of the show. Various iterations of the “Ballad” offer flippant comments (“So what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their Maker impeccably shaved”), darkly profound admiration, (“to seek revenge may lead to hell, but everyone does it, and seldom as well”), and always the encouragement to “attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.” Because the story is presented as fiction, and generally as instructive fiction, Sondheim gives us a clear moral – revenge is dangerous, even when appealing.
With the presence of that moral firmly in place, Sondheim can be lenient in showing us that other characters, too, waver between good and bad. His Judge Turpin, rather than being the severe and one-sided character that Burton offers, is tormented by the disjuncture between his lusty desire for his young ward and his wish to remain righteous. The guilt that grows between these positions provides evidence of, and reason for sympathy with, the judge’s humanity. By removing the judge’s song of confession, self-flagellation, and yearning, Burton prevents us from seeing Turpin in three dimensions. Sweeney’s daughter Joanna, in the musical, is as flighty as she is virtuous, allowing the audience to see her as yet another flawed creature. Burton, once again, removes Joanna from all but the briefest of scenes, trapping her in the role of “pure innocent” as surely as the judge is labeled as “evil luster.” Sondheim entrusted his viewers with a universe of complex, broken creatures, exemplified by Sweeney Todd. Burton, by contrast, removes the morality play frame from Sweeney’s story. He prefers to show us Sweeney as a misunderstood victim (a familiar character in each of Burton’s films), trying to make his way surrounded by unsympathetic, lesser creatures. This narrow focus on Sweeney detracts from the play’s power. Rather than wondering to what extent each character, and even we ourselves, share Sweeney’s disease, the film’s viewers are encouraged to pity the barber who was so poorly treated.
Can there be a reason worthy of revenge? Are there circumstances that warrant creating our own vengeance? Is Sweeney, in fact, justified in his actions? Can a murderer be sympathetic? Is there a difference, in God’s eyes, between the one who sins and the one who takes revenge upon the sinner? These are questions that both musical and movie provoke, although they settle upon somewhat different answers. Fortunately, Sondheim’s music makes asking the questions “too good, at least.”