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senoritafish< procrastination >
Very excited about Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street opening this month (which does not guarantee I will make it to theater to see it, but excited nevertheless). My best friend Dobkins gave me the LP of the Original Broadway Cast Recording when I was still going to community college back in the early 80's. I was obsessed with it for months afterwards and would go around singing "A Little Priest" at work - causing fast-food customers and coworkers to give me looks as if I was insane. People would ask what the music was and I would tell what it was about; often they would look horrified, with remarks like "How could you write a musical about that?!" Unless they were Sondheim fans, in which case they would join in the duet.
What I've seen of the trailers looks excellent, and Tim Burton was a natural as it's already filled with macabre black humor, as if it were made for him. Who knows, he's around my age, maybe he was influenced by it at the same time I was. ;)
Alan Rickman has always made a great villain and I'm sure he'll be fantastic- Judge Turpin is a pretty creepy character, who you're made to feel deserves what he ultimately gets, but I'm sure my admiration for Mr. Rickman won't dull that in the least. I am less sure about the main characters. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter look absolutely gorgeous, but I'm so used to the cast recording I hope their voices can live up to it. Len Cariou, the orginal Sweeney, sounded (to me, at least, I never actually saw him perform it) stocky and powerful, a solid baritone; Depp, aside from being a bit willowy, strikes me more as a tenor. Both the leads are rather younger than I imagined the characters being; Angela Lansbury especially, depicted dowdy late middle-age in the original. It wouldn't have been so long ago I would have expected Depp and Bonham-Carter to be playing Antony and Johanna, the younger romantic couple (yes, I know they're both fortyish or close to it, but they're just so...pretty, they just don't seem as mature). I just hope they're actually singing, and not, as I often seem to see with actors not used to it, chanting or speaking (or worse, shouting or screaming, which George Hearn did in the video of the play) along with a score.
Ah well. I'm not out to see a perfect recreation of the original. Tim Burton has yet to disappoint.
*crosses fingers*
< /procrastination >
Edit: On just listening again, if they screw up/leave out "Kiss Me/Ladies in Their Sensitivies," I shall be livid.
Oooh. Goosebumps.
Very excited about Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street opening this month (which does not guarantee I will make it to theater to see it, but excited nevertheless). My best friend Dobkins gave me the LP of the Original Broadway Cast Recording when I was still going to community college back in the early 80's. I was obsessed with it for months afterwards and would go around singing "A Little Priest" at work - causing fast-food customers and coworkers to give me looks as if I was insane. People would ask what the music was and I would tell what it was about; often they would look horrified, with remarks like "How could you write a musical about that?!" Unless they were Sondheim fans, in which case they would join in the duet.
What I've seen of the trailers looks excellent, and Tim Burton was a natural as it's already filled with macabre black humor, as if it were made for him. Who knows, he's around my age, maybe he was influenced by it at the same time I was. ;)
Alan Rickman has always made a great villain and I'm sure he'll be fantastic- Judge Turpin is a pretty creepy character, who you're made to feel deserves what he ultimately gets, but I'm sure my admiration for Mr. Rickman won't dull that in the least. I am less sure about the main characters. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter look absolutely gorgeous, but I'm so used to the cast recording I hope their voices can live up to it. Len Cariou, the orginal Sweeney, sounded (to me, at least, I never actually saw him perform it) stocky and powerful, a solid baritone; Depp, aside from being a bit willowy, strikes me more as a tenor. Both the leads are rather younger than I imagined the characters being; Angela Lansbury especially, depicted dowdy late middle-age in the original. It wouldn't have been so long ago I would have expected Depp and Bonham-Carter to be playing Antony and Johanna, the younger romantic couple (yes, I know they're both fortyish or close to it, but they're just so...pretty, they just don't seem as mature). I just hope they're actually singing, and not, as I often seem to see with actors not used to it, chanting or speaking (or worse, shouting or screaming, which George Hearn did in the video of the play) along with a score.
Ah well. I'm not out to see a perfect recreation of the original. Tim Burton has yet to disappoint.
*crosses fingers*
< /procrastination >
Edit: On just listening again, if they screw up/leave out "Kiss Me/Ladies in Their Sensitivies," I shall be livid.
Oooh. Goosebumps.
