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Apr 6, 2024 · By Thomas Floyd. April 6, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT. Forget Nellie Lovett’s pie-making haplessness: For the past 45 years, the “Sweeney Todd” scene stealer has managed to carve out a reputation ...
Mrs. Lovett is a fictional character appearing in many adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd. Her first name is most commonly referred to as Nellie, although she has also been referred to as Amelia, Margery, Maggie, Sarah, Shirley, Wilhelmina, Mary and Claudetta. [ 1 ] A baker from London, Mrs. Lovett is an accomplice and business partner of ...
Sep 29, 2010 · The following is an article by our guest contributor Eric Kang - a talented Composer and Musical Director. The Worst Pies in London, and the Ultimate Fate of Mrs. Lovett There are few roles as complicated and difficult to perform as the diabolical pastry chef of Fleet Street in Stephen Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD / SWEENEY TODD SCHOOL EDITION. In addition to singing a good bit of the score-much of ...
Oct 14, 2020 · Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Mrs. Lovett, on the other hand, is a lonely woman who lives her life driven by love but acting in a selfish manner. She is always taking advantage of the situation and getting away with whatever suits her.
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
The story of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street first appeared in the 1830s in England and was soon adapted for the London stage. When Stephen Sondheim, the celebrated producer of hit Broadway musicals, saw a version of the play in London in the mid 1970s, he asked Hugh Wheeler to collaborate with him on a musical adaptation. When the n...
Hugh Callingham Wheeler was born on March 19, 1912, in London, England to Harold and Florence (Scammell) Wheeler. He received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of London in 1932. Ten years later, in 1942, he became a naturalized American citizen. Wheeler's writing career began with detective novels published under three different p...
Act 1
The play opens on a street by the London docks where Sweeney Todd and Anthony Hopehave just come into port. When Anthony expresses his pleasure at being back in England, "the best place in the world," Sweeney suggests that he will soon be disappointed. A Beggar Woman appears and Anthony gives her money. After she tells Sweeney that he looks familiar, he shoos her away but not before shepropositions him. Sweeney tells Anthony a tale of a "foolish" barber and his beautiful wife whose lives were...
Act 2
Mrs. Lovett has now become a prosperous shopkeeper, thanks to the popularity of her delicious pies while Tobias waits the full tables in her shop. Sweeney has ordered a new barber chair that he attaches to a chute into the basement, his "customers" last stop before the oven. In another part of the city Anthony searches the streets for Johanna, who has been sent to an insane asylum by Judge Turpin in order to keep her away from Anthony. That evening, the old Beggar Woman sees the thick, noxiou...
The Beadle
The Beadle's character is a carbon copy of Judge Turpin. He, however, has less power than Judge Turpin, and so must carry out the crimes against others, which he does with great relish. His brutality emerges as he breaks the neck of the bird that Anthony has bought for Johanna.
Beggar Woman
Sweeney does not discover that the desperate and miserable Beggar Woman is his wife, Lucy Todd, until after he has killed her. She appears throughout the play, initially as the illustration of what poor, destitute women in Victorian London were often reduced to. After Sweeney refuses her pleas for money, she lewdly propositions him. Later, she becomes the harbinger of doom as she haunts the street in front of the pie shop, trying to draw attention to the "stink of evil" within.
As his name suggests, throughout the play, Anthony is a cheerful, optimistic, country bornyoung ship's first mate. He is a loyal friend to Sweeney, whom he courageously saved from drowning. In his determination to save the woman he loves, he faces threats from Judge Turpin and the Beadle, which include incarceration. His innocence emerges, however, when he is unable to shoot Mr. Fogg.
Corruption
The play's focus on corruption is announced by Sweeney in the first scene when he describes London as "a great black pit" inhabited by "the vermin of the world." There is no morality in Sweeney's London where "at the top of the hole / Sit the privileged few / Turning beauty into filth and greed." Judge Turpin becomes an illustration of one of those privileged few whose "justice" is meted out according to his own greedy appetites. He sends Sweeney off to a prison colony in Australia on false c...
Loss of Innocence
The rampant corruption in the city causes the characters to lose their innocence. Sweeney admits that he was "foolish" in his initial belief that he and his wife, who was "his reason and his life," could find happiness together. He is soon forced to face reality when Judge Turpin, "a pious vulture of the law," destroys their family. Sweeney has now become a world-weary cynic who tells Anthony, whose own innocence prompts him to declare that London is the best place in the world, "You are youn...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Think about how a dramatic version of Sweeney Toddcould be produced without the musical passages. Determine what scenes or dialogue you would have to add if you cut out these passages. 2. Research the original version of Sweeney Toddwritten by George Dibden-Pitt and trace the development of the story into Wheeler's play. 3. Read Jonathan Swift's satire "A Modest Proposal," which also focuses on cannibalism. Compare and contrast it to the play. 4. Investigate the living conditions of the lo...
Musical
More than half of the play is sung, often without a clear melody, and employs natural, conversational syntax. The play opens with a prologue sung by the company that outlines its main focus. The musical sequences that follow often provide symbolic echoes of the plot. For example, in the first scene after Sweeney and Anthony arrive in London, Anthony sings the city's praises. Sweeney has a contrary view of London, however, that he expresses in a song which describes the city as "a hole in the...
Dramatic Structure
As the plot unfolds, Wheeler often creates a collage of scenes, making quick cuts back and forth between story lines. This juxtaposition emphasizes the thematic unity in the play. One such segment involves Sweeney and Anthony. As the scene cuts back and forth between the two characters, the play's focus on the interplay of innocence and corruption is reinforced. The scene opens with Anthony searching the streets of London for Johanna, singing of her beauty and insisting that he will save her....
Victorian London
The distinction between the wealthy and lower classes was quite evident in London during the nineteenth century. A small portion of the city was set aside for well-kept residences and shopping areas. Upper and middle-class residents stayed in these areas, predominantly in the West end, fearing to venture into the remaining three quarters of the city, especially in the rough East end, which was teeming with devastating poverty and corruption. The gulf between the rich and poor widened each yea...
Melodrama
The melodrama emerged in Italy late in the sixteenth century but did not develop into a specific genre until the end of the eighteenth century in France. Early notable melodramas include Rousseau's Pygmalion in 1775 and Gabiot's L'Auto-da-Fe in 1790. The melodrama reached its height in England in the nineteenth century, due in part to theincreasing popularity of the Gothic novel. Novels by Scott, Dickens, Wilkie Collinsand other popular authors were adapted into this form for British audience...
In 1830, George Dibden-Pitt penned the story of the fictitious "Sweeney Todd," which was published in a London "penny dreadful," similar to today's tabloids. Like the present day version, this story followed a mad barber who slit his customers' throats before his landlady baked them into pies. The story was well received and Dibden-Pitt soon wrote ...
Wendy Perkins
Perkins is a professor of American and English literatureand film. In this essay, Perkins examines the historical context of the play. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America's new, vibrant, young president, encouraged Americans in 1961 to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," which prompted many to turn away from the materialism and apathy of the previous decade. When President Kennedy established the Peace Corpsin 1961 so that young Americans could offer...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Wheeler's A Little Night Music(1974) also reflects the cynicism of America in the 1970s. 2. Jonathan Swift's satire "A Modest Proposal" (1729) suggests a solution to the poverty and hunger in Ireland: babies should be bred and eaten. 3. Richard Altick's Victorian People and Ideas(1973) examines "different voices of Victorian social and intellectual history." 4. Sally Mitchell's Daily Life in Victorian England(1996) focuses on a variety of lifestyles during this period from country gentry t...
Sheldon Goldfarb
Goldfarb has a Ph.D. in English and has published two books on the Victorian author William Makepeace Thackeray. In the following essay, Goldfarb explores the nature of revenge in Wheeler's play. It is not unusual for works of art to inspire conflicting interpretations among critics and commentators, but Sweeney Toddis unusual in inspiring conflicting interpretations among its own creators. On the title page of the published version of the musical play, four different creators are given credi...
Bond, Christopher, Introduction to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim, Applause, 1979, pp. 1–9. Eder, Richard, "Stage: Introducing Sweeney Todd," in the New York Times,March 2, 1979, p. C3. Fraser, Barbara Means, "The Dream Shattered: America's Seventies Musicals," in Journal of American Culture,Vol....
Angela Lansbury put her dough-smashing, Tony-winning stamp on the Victorian London baker in the original 1979 Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon...
Jan 17, 2024 · This quote is evident in Todd’s behaviour in the novel, in which he commits Tobias to a madhouse and poisons Mrs Lovett in the novel as a means to hide his criminal activities, but in the ...
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