voyeurism and Sweeney Todd. This takes some explanation.

A couple of months ago, I saw a college production of Sweeney Todd, given by the music department and theatre department of the university where my parents work. It was much better than I had expected--I was not impressed by the New York Metropolitan Opera baritone they'd imported for the title role, and the judge sounded like a typical laid-back white-bread Minnesota boy, which was a little off-putting during the whipping scene especially. But Anthony was outstanding, Johanna acted well if she had some trouble with the high notes, and Tobias managed both cute during the bulk of the play and crazy at the end. Oh, and did I mention Mrs. Lovett? Mrs. Lovett...well. I've seen the DVD versions of both Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone playing the role, and this girl would have outsung Angela Lansbury and acted Patti LuPone off the stage, given the filmed samples.

Anyway. The main features of the stage design were a cube that rotated, with its sides and top representing all the various rooms of Mrs Lovett's pie shop, plus two large moving pieces of scaffolding, which supplied most of the other sets (the Judge's house, Fogg's asylum, etc.). This required members of the chorus to lurk onstage, ready to move the pieces during the very short breaks between scenes. When not moving the scenery, they would sit or stand or lean around the set, very still, dressed in black, with the creepy dead-looking makeup that most productions of the play use, and watch the action or the audience. It was a little distracting at first, but I started to appreciate it about a third of the way through the first act. I'd never really thought about voyeurism* in the context of the play, but it crops up an awful lot of places.

First of all, there's the play in general. It's a melodrama, which is, to my untrained eye, one of the more audience-conscious forms of theatre. It deliberately plays on the lowest common denominator, things which will titillate the audience. For me, at least, there's sort of a horrified fascination with the events on stage, watching the utter self-destruction Sweeney brings upon himself.

Then there's the objectification of Lucy and Johanna. The Judge, seeing and lusting after Lucy, sets off the events of the play. Anthony sees and falls in love with Johanna after seeing her from a window (or on a balcony--I don't quite remember). And we can't forget the nice scene where the Judge whips himself to orgasm while watching Johanna in her room. Even Sweeney objectifies the women, describing his wife only as beautiful and virtuous, and imagining what Johanna will look like.

Seeing is a theme of the play, of course--the blinded birds, Tobias figuring out what happened to Pirelli via Mrs. Lovett's purse, Sweeney's final epiphany. But I hadn't quite realized how much of the play was as voyeuristic as it actually is. The staging I saw only highlighted this by adding so many more people watching but not participating, which was cool and a little mind-bendy. The voyeurism, in turn, brought out for me the way greed and possession inform the motives of the characters--the Judge wanting Lucy and then Johanna, Anthony wanting Johanna, Sweeney wanting Johanna, Mrs. Lovett wanting Sweeney (and money)...The having seems to be the final end of their wishes. We never even know what happens to Anthony and Johanna. That's a requirement of the way the play is structured, but it does make me wonder what exactly we're supposed to think about the relationship. In fact, I'm wondering how this changes everything in the play--because it essentially lumps all the men save Tobias and Pirelli in one big voyeuristic pile. Maybe it highlights the differences by introducting sameness, but, I don't know, in this case it only makes me feel less bad for Sweeney.

Note: the OED defines voyeurism as "A person whose sexual desires are stimulated or satisfied by covert observation of the sex organs or sexual activities of others." I'm using it in a slightly more metaphorical sense here--still getting your kicks, but not necessarily in an overtly sexual way, if you get my drift. back