| 1 | [[quoteright:332:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SPSWEENE.JPG]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:332:The original Broadway poster. Looks like they’re having a [[{{Pun}} bloody]] good time!]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd''\ |
| 5 | ''His skin was pale and his eye was odd''\ |
| 6 | ''He shaved the faces of gentlemen''\ |
| 7 | ''Who never thereafter were heard of again''\ |
| 8 | ''He trod a path that few have trod''\ |
| 9 | ''Did Sweeney Todd''\ |
| 10 | ''The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."'' |
| 11 | -->-- The opening number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ''Sweeney Todd'' (subtitled "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"), is a highly-regarded musical with music and lyrics by Music/StephenSondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the Christopher Bond version of the legendary story of a murderous English barber, which added influences from ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' and ''Theatre/TheRevengersTragedy'' to create an entirely new story. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | The musical tells the sad tale of escaped convict and former barber Benjamin Barker, who was sent to an Australian penal colony fifteen years ago by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusted after Barker's beautiful young wife Lucy. Back in London with the help of the good-natured young sailor Anthony Hope, [[CameBackWithAVengeance Barker has become a grim, cynical figure calling himself Sweeney Todd]]. When he arrives at his former home to reunite with Lucy and their now-teenage daughter Johanna, however, he finds only his neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, the widowed proprietress of a struggling meat pie shop, who tells him that once he was out of the picture, Judge Turpin raped Lucy, who poisoned herself afterward, and took Johanna in as his ward. Sweeney swears revenge on the Judge as well as his obsequious lackey Beadle Bamford, and Mrs. Lovett takes him in and gives him his old razors back so he can set up as a barber once more. When Anthony [[ContrivedCoincidence meets and falls in]] LoveAtFirstSight with Johanna, who is now [[WifeHusbandry the new target of Judge Turpin's perverse affections]], and Mrs. Lovett begins her own plot to keep Sweeney, whom she's loved since before he was shipped away, by her side, the stage is set for a gruesome rampage of MadLove, bloody revenge... [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies and delicious meat pies]]. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | The original Broadway production went up in 1979 at the Uris Theatre. It was directed by Harold Prince and starred Creator/LenCariou as Sweeney Todd and Creator/AngelaLansbury as Mrs. Lovett. It has since been the subject of many revivals and concerts, and is widely considered Sondheim's masterpiece. Since the release of [[Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet the Tim Burton film version]], it has become even more popular than ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods''. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | A Broadway revival -- the first full-scale version on Broadway since the original production[[note]]The now-defunct New York City Opera produced the original Harold Prince staging multiple times between the 1980s and the early 2010s, and there have been two very pared-down Broadway revivals as well as two major concert stagings with the New York Philharmonic, plus an even more scaled-down version performed off-Broadway in an actual pie shop -- but this is the first to be on Broadway specifically, with a full-sized ensemble and orchestra and fully fleshed-out sets and costumes, since the original closed in 1980.[[/note]] -- opened on March 26, 2023 (after beginning previews on February 26) and features Music/JoshGroban as Sweeney, with ''Theatre/KinkyBoots'' and ''Series/MastersOfSex'' star Creator/AnnaleighAshford as Mrs. Lovett, Creator/JordanFisher as Anthony, and ''Series/StrangerThings'''s Creator/GatenMatarazzo as Toby. Groban and Ashford were succeeded by Creator/AaronTveit and Creator/SuttonFoster as Todd and Mrs. Lovett, respectively, beginning in February 2024. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | The Bond version of the story, via the Sondheim musical, also directly inspired the one-woman show ''Empanada Loca'' by Aaron Mark, a GenderFlip version of the story set in modern-day [[TheBigRottenApple New York City]], which was then expanded into the podcast ''The Horror of Dolores Roach''. The podcast in turn was itself developed into a [[Series/TheHorrorOfDoloresRoach TV series of the same name]], which premiered on Amazon Prime on July 9, 2023. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Because there are so many tropes specific to particular stagings, this page is divided up into sections for tropes specific to the major English-language versions: the original Broadway/London/US tour version directed by Hal Prince, the 2005 John Doyle revival, the 2012 London run directed by Jonathan Kent, and the 2023 Thomas Kail Broadway revival. The 2007 Tim Burton film has [[Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet its own page]]. |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | [[folder:Tropes that apply to all stagings, as comparisons between them, or to unclassified versions]] |
| 27 | * AccidentalPun: Sondheim had Mrs. Lovett sing "bring along your chopper"--referring to Sweeney's beloved razors--in 'By the Sea' having no idea that 'chopper' is slang for 'penis' in Britain. |
| 28 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: "A Little Priest" runs on this trope, as the stoic, grief-hardened, quietly wrathful Todd, who has so far been totally unresponsive to Lovett's playful banter, finally cracks and even joins in on an extended wordplay riff with her. |
| 29 | * AdaptationDistillation / AdaptationExpansion: |
| 30 | ** (a little of both) The characters of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett come from a Victorian "shilling shocker" titled ''Literature/TheStringOfPearls''. It is only in Christopher Bond's modern version, which Sondheim's musical adapts, that Sweeney has a revenge motivation, and Mrs. Lovett has a crush on him. |
| 31 | ** Also in the original story, Tobias is employed from the beginning by Sweeney Todd, and he had only very passing interaction with Mrs. Lovett (specifically, stopping by to buy a pie). Instead of Anthony, we had Mark Ingestrie, and he and Johanna have a more unambiguously happy ending. Most of the characters from the original penny dreadful show up in some way, but many have had their roles, relationships, and so on shuffled around, essentially being recast (or using a very, very AlternativeCharacterInterpretation). |
| 32 | ** Sondheim also fixes one or two weak moments in Bond's version. Now we actually ''see'' the lovers meeting for the first time instead of just hearing about it. Likewise, instead of simply developing a taste for blood, Todd sings "Epiphany" in which his mind snaps after the Judge escapes his clutches and he decides that "we all deserve to die". |
| 33 | * AdaptationalProtagonist: The play turns Sweeney Todd into its VillainProtagonist thanks to a good helping of AdaptationalSympathy --which includes the loss of his daughter, the DamselInDistress Joanna. This is a far cry from the original ''DerivativeWorks/SweeneyTodd'' story, ''Literature/TheStringOfPearls,'' where Joanna is the protagonist trying to save her boyfriend from the villainous Todd, [[RelatedInTheAdaptation with whom she has no familial connection]]. |
| 34 | * AnAesop: Seeking vengeance, even against a monster, can very easily lead to [[HeWhoFightsMonsters becoming a monster in turn]], and will never really heal the pain. |
| 35 | -->'''Sweeney:''' ''(During the final song) To seek revenge may lead to Hell.'' |
| 36 | * AlliterativeName: Benjamin Barker, Beadle Bamford. |
| 37 | * AltoVillainess: Mrs. Lovett is usually played by a contralto. Averted, however, in the 2023 Broadway production, where she's played by soprano Annaleigh Ashford. |
| 38 | * AmbiguousSituation: Are Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett sleeping together, or is Mrs. Lovett's desire to see her "rumpled bedding legitimized" in "By the Sea" simply wishful thinking about their future? WordOfGod from Sondheim himself, in a letter to a fan, states that he wrote it believing them to be sleeping together, but whether or not a given production leans into it really varies- and Sondheim admitted to not giving the question much weight when writing it. |
| 39 | ** How aware is Mrs Lovett that [[spoiler:Sweeney is seconds away from throwing her in her own oven after he learns she withheld the truth about Lucy's survival from him? As scripted, she seems to finally cave into her own delusions when he starts buttering her up with promises of living and forgiving, but it's not uncommon for actresses in the part to show her panicking and struggling as she ''immediately'' realizes his intentions.]] |
| 40 | ** Does Mrs. Lovett really mean it when she says [[spoiler:she was only thinking of how Sweeney would feel finding out that Lucy ended up a deranged beggar when she decided to keep the truth from him? It goes without saying that that wasn't her ''only'' motive- she's been in love with Sweeney since he was still Benjamin Barker, and if he thought Lucy was dead, she believed she'd have a chance to have him to herself. Yet in some productions, there's still seemingly a note of truth to what she says, and a suggestion that she really did think it would be better for him not to know.]] |
| 41 | * AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Mrs. Lovett, to Sweeney, during the final scene. Certain productions put more emphasis on the "anguished" part, such as the 2012 London Cast version. |
| 42 | -->'''Mrs. Lovett''': I love you, [[spoiler: I'd be twice the wife ''she'' was!]] I love you! |
| 43 | * AntiHero: Sweeney Todd starts out as this status, before "Epiphany" where his mind cracks completely. |
| 44 | * AntiVillain: Again, Sweeney Todd himself, having his mental state devolve and crash to the point where he wants to kill everyone. Still, his main priorities are the Beadle and Judge Turpin. |
| 45 | * AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Pirelli,]] Judge Turpin, and Beadle Bamford were all very unpleasant folks and once they die, nobody misses them. [[spoiler: And by the end of the show Mrs. Lovett fits the bill pretty well for being a {{Yandere}} who indirectly had Todd murder his wife.]] |
| 46 | * AvianFlute: The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGB1B2XIClI Greenfinch and Linnet Bird]] begins with fluttering flutes as Johanna, watching birds in cages, likens herself to one of them, singing about her own desire for freedom. |
| 47 | * BedlamHouse: |
| 48 | ** Fogg's Asylum, into which Johanna is imprisoned, is a perfect example of this. |
| 49 | ** There's also [[spoiler:Lucy Barker]], who was sent to the ''actual'' BedlamHouse. |
| 50 | * BetterPartnerAssertion: After Todd discovers that the beggar woman he just killed [[spoiler:was his wife, Lucy]], he confronts Mrs. Lovett, who [[spoiler:implied that she killed herself with poison]]. Mrs. Lovett, who's had feelings for Todd throughout the musical, tells him she'd be much better for him and asks if they can still be together. [[spoiler:Todd throws her in her oven]]. |
| 51 | * BigNo: |
| 52 | ** Issued by Sweeney when Mrs. Lovett informs him of his wife's rape at the end of "Poor Thing." |
| 53 | ** And again at the end, when he realizes that [[spoiler:the Beggar Woman whose throat he just slit ''was'' his wife.]] |
| 54 | * BlackComedy: Despite its dark subject matter, the show is surprisingly funny, especially 'A Little Priest'. |
| 55 | * BlackComedyCannibalism: The ''reason'' "A Little Priest" is so funny; it's all puns about how people will taste based on their profession. "God, That's Good" as well. |
| 56 | * BlackmailBackfire: When [[spoiler:Pirelli]] recognizes Sweeney from the old days when he was Benjamin Barker, he tries to blackmail him, threatening to tell Beadle Bamford about him if he doesn't hand over half his earnings to him every week. This proves to be his biggest mistake, as Sweeney [[spoiler:promptly makes him his very first kill]]. |
| 57 | * {{Bowdlerise}}: Music Theatre International licenses a high school-friendly version of the show that features toned-down lyrics, gore, and slight key changes to accommodate younger singers. The only real editing, however, is that the Beggar Woman instead seems to be derangedly asking Anthony out on a date instead of soliciting sex work from him. |
| 58 | * BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler: For Anthony and Johanna, who break into the bakehouse with some cops with them; said cops are possibly about to take them for questioning. Toby also gets cornered with Sweeney's body nearby, leaving the cops to charge him for Sweeney's murder as he turns the meat grinder.]] |
| 59 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: |
| 60 | ** The section in "Epiphany" where Todd turns on (and in some performances, ''leaps into'' and menaces) the audience. |
| 61 | ** "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is addressed directly to the audience and contains the following lines, usually performed by Sweeney himself: |
| 62 | --->What happened then? |
| 63 | --->Well, that's the play, |
| 64 | --->And he wouldn't want us to give it away... |
| 65 | * BreakTheCutie: [[spoiler:Toby]], Johanna, Lucy, as well as Todd himself when his name was still Benjamin Barker. |
| 66 | * BSODSong: "Epiphany" where Todd descends into a state of mentally shutting down before deciding [[spoiler:everyone deserves to die]]. |
| 67 | * CagedBirdMetaphor: Johanna is associated with her birds. She sings [[IWantSong a song]] wondering why they are inspired to sing even in captivity, eventually making it clear that she is not just talking about them--she has spent nearly her entire life as a prisoner in Judge Turpin's mansion: |
| 68 | -->My cage has many rooms, damask and dark\ |
| 69 | Nothing there sings, not even my lark |
| 70 | ** The bird-seller answers the question of how they make the birds sing: "We blinds 'em. That's what we always does. We blinds 'em and, not knowing night from day, they sing and they sing without stopping. Pretty creatures." This is later [[MeaningfulEcho echoed]] by Fogg, talking about Johanna. "She needs so much correction! She sings day and night and leaves the other inmates sleepless!" |
| 71 | * CallAndResponseSong: Segments of "My Friends" and most of "A Little Priest". |
| 72 | * CameBackWithAVengeance: One of the most archetypal examples of this plot, with the unjustly exiled innocent Benjamin Barker coming back for revenge as the murderous Sweeney Todd. |
| 73 | * CargoShip: Invoked with "These Are My Friends", a gentle song that Sweeney sings to his razors. It ends with him dramatically holding one aloft and declaring ''"At last, my arm is complete again!"'' |
| 74 | * CassandraTruth: The Beggar Woman tells these all the time. |
| 75 | * ChekhovsGun: Signor Pirelli's coin purse. [[spoiler:After Mrs. Lovett pilfers it off his body, she pulls it out several more times. When Toby finally sees it and recognizes it, it starts unraveling everything for her and Sweeney.]] |
| 76 | * ChewingTheScenery: Sweeney can be played this way--George Hearn being a good example. |
| 77 | * CompanionCube: Sweeney always makes sure his razors are by his side. [[spoiler:He leaves his room during the finale but returns to pick one up, which causes him to see a disguised Johanna which causes him to target her, unaware that ''this person is his daughter''.]] |
| 78 | * ComeOutComeOutWhereverYouAre: While searching for Toby in the sewers [[spoiler:when he's figured out what's ''really'' in the pies]]. ''"Tooooby...Where aaaare you..."'' |
| 79 | * ContrivedCoincidence: To be expected in a {{melodrama}}. The sailor who saves Todd's life and brings him back to England immediately falls in LoveAtFirstSight with a girl who turns out to be Todd's daughter, and [[spoiler:the first person Todd meets upon returning to England turns out to be his own now-unrecognizable wife.]] Plus Sweeney runs into Adolfo Pirelli (or rather Daniel O'Higgins) a former apprentice of his from fifteen years before, who's now a snake oil salesman. |
| 80 | * ContrivedProximity: We're sure that old beggar woman has no importance to the story whatsoever. [[spoiler:She was hanging around her own old house and where her daughter lived. Still had ''some'' memories.]] |
| 81 | * CookingDuel: "The Contest"; shaving and tooth-pulling. |
| 82 | * CounterpointDuet: "My Friends", "A Little Priest", "God, That's Good!" and "Final Scene" all count, while "Kiss Me/Ladies In Their Sensitivities" and the Act 2 reprise of "Johanna" are {{Counterpoint|Duet}} ''Quartets''! |
| 83 | * CradlingYourKill: [[spoiler:Sweeney Todd desperately cradles the dead body of his wife Lucy whom he murdered. Too late did he look at the face of the Beggar Woman...]] |
| 84 | * CrapsackWorld: Almost everyone in the cast {{jerkass}} at best or complete sociopath at worse. As for the good guys, Johanna, Toby, and to a lesser extent the Beggar Woman[[spoiler:/Lucy]] are [[ExtremeDoormat victims pushed into unhappy compliance]]. Only NiceGuy Anthony manages to be decent and entirely stable at the same time. |
| 85 | -->'''Todd:''' In all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two\ |
| 86 | There's the one staying put in his proper place\ |
| 87 | And the one with his foot in the other one's face!\ |
| 88 | Look at me, Mrs. Lovett--look at you! |
| 89 | * CrowdSong: "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir". It slowly morphs into an AngryMobSong when Todd and Lovett reveal Pirelli's scam. |
| 90 | * CrusadingWidow: Sweeney's motivation to kill comes from his dead wife and his daughter who, while not dead, is taken away from him. |
| 91 | * TheCuckoolanderWasRight: The Beggar Woman is the only one to suspect the crimes of Sweeney and Lovett. |
| 92 | * CycleOfRevenge: Turpin and Bamford were responsible for the imprisonment of Sweeney, so he went on a quest to hunt them down. Then immediately after [[spoiler: he finally achieved his vengeance, Sweeney finds out about Lovett's lies about his wife, whom he killed earlier, so he throws her in the oven, and then he himself is killed by Toby in the end for his own murder of Pirelli.]] |
| 93 | * DamselInDistress: Subverted, surprisingly. Although Johanna's character mostly fits the trope, in a memorable scene, Anthony rescues her from a madhouse where she is being imprisoned, pointing a gun at the asylum keeper. After Anthony admits he can't shoot, Johanna picks up the gun and kills the asylum keeper. |
| 94 | * DanceOfDespair: When Todd realizes that the Beggar Woman [[spoiler:he has killed is his wife Lucy, he is utterly shocked and accuses Mrs. Lovett of lying to him. She explains that, technically, she didn't lie: Lucy did poison herself, but she lived, only she lost her mental health.]] Todd pretends to forgive her and he starts dancing manically with Mrs. Lovett. [[spoiler:Then he suddenly pushes her into the oven and she burns alive. Full of despair, Todd cradles his dead wife Lucy in his arms.]] |
| 95 | * DangerouslyCloseShave: Todd's preferred way of killing his victims: he invites the hapless gentleman up to his shop for a shave and then slits their throat in the process, before dumping them down to the lower floors. [[spoiler:Toby offs him in a very similar manner at the end.]] |
| 96 | * DarkReprise: |
| 97 | ** All over the place, although special mention goes to "Final Scene", which features reprises of "Poor Thing", "A Little Priest", a snippet of "By the Sea" and ends with "A Barber and His Wife", each one being darker than the original version. |
| 98 | ** Furthermore, [[spoiler: when Todd and Mrs. Lovett are chasing Toby through the sewers,]] she sings a few haunting lines from "Not While I'm Around". |
| 99 | * DeadMansChest: Signore Pirelli's final fate is to have [[spoiler:his throat slashed and his body stuffed into a chest]]. |
| 100 | * DeathSeeker: Some productions will have [[spoiler: Sweeney deliberately open up his collar so Toby has a clear swipe of his throat.]] |
| 101 | * DeathSong: [[spoiler:"Pirelli's Death" for, naturally, Pirelli]], [[spoiler:"The Judge's Return" for Judge Turpin]], [[spoiler:"Final Scene" for Mrs. Lovett]], and the reprise of [[spoiler:"A Barber and His Wife" for Sweeney Todd himself.]] |
| 102 | * DeathlyDiesIrae: ''Dies Irae'' is heard in the opening number "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" in the section "Swing your razor wide, Sweeney, hold it to the skies." It remains prevalent throughout the rest of the play. In fact, the only character with a leitmotif that does not contain a reference to the ''Dies Irae'' is Anthony, since he is the only one who neither kills nor is killed, or both, by the end. |
| 103 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: The judge's sentencing of a young boy to hanging, though he is a four-time offender. The musical obviously wants to criticize atrocities committed in the name of the law that were acceptable back then, as children were treated the same way as adults. This is noticeably shortened to one previous offense in the film to make it ''even worse'' (and to make it ambiguous whether or not Sweeney was caught following [[spoiler:Pirelli's murder]]). |
| 104 | * DespairEventHorizon: Sweeney definitely crosses it when he kills [[spoiler:his wife Lucy]] and later finds out what he's done and [[spoiler: [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone feels heavy regret]] about it.]] This implies that he's shown heavy regret for his actions and the end [[spoiler: reveals [[MindRape how much suffering he has felt]] throughout the musical.]] |
| 105 | * {{Determinator}}: |
| 106 | ** Sweeney has a one-track mind where revenge is concerned. |
| 107 | ** Anthony is a positive, contrasting example, similarly set on rescuing Johanna. |
| 108 | * DirtyOldMan: Judge Turpin is an extremely evil example, intent on forcing Johanna- his own ward, who calls him "Father", [[WifeHusbandry to marry him]]. |
| 109 | * DissonantSerenity: Sweeney's part in the Johanna Quartet is this. He murders people in an eerily detached manner, singing a gorgeous song. |
| 110 | * DistantDuet: "Johanna (Quartet)" is sung by Sweeney Todd, Anthony, The Beggar Woman and Johanna herself, all in very different locations within Fleet Street. |
| 111 | * TheDogBitesBack: |
| 112 | ** [[spoiler:Pirelli]] tries to blackmail Sweeney into getting himself an advantage after getting metaphorically butted off by him. [[spoiler:Sweeney cuts his throat in response.]] |
| 113 | ** [[spoiler:Toby slits Sweeney's throat for his murder of Mrs. Lovett and for what was actually in those meat pies]]. |
| 114 | * DontExplainTheJoke: "And I'm telling you, them pussycats is quick!" |
| 115 | * DoubleEntendre: |
| 116 | ** "You will be guaranteed, without a penny's charge...''the closest shave you will ever know''." |
| 117 | ** "We'll serve anyone...meaning ''anyone''...and ''to'' anyone..." |
| 118 | * DownerEnding: [[spoiler:By the end, the only cast members alive are Toby, Johanna, and Anthony. Toby is completely mad and just committed murder so he's probably heading to prison or the madhouse. Depending on the staging, Johanna and Anthony may also be on the brink of arrest, though some versions avert this.]] |
| 119 | * TheDragon: The Beadle fills the role of head henchman for Judge Turpin. |
| 120 | * DrivenToSuicide: Lucy poisoned herself, according to Mrs. Lovett. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Except she never said that she ''died''.]]]] |
| 121 | ** [[spoiler:Sweeney himself]] in the very end, albeit [[SuicideByCop suicide by]] [[spoiler:[[TheDogBitesBack Toby]]]]. |
| 122 | * DueToTheDead: Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett engage in the evil version of this, intending to use the bodies of dead folks to use in the latter's meat pies. |
| 123 | * TheDulcineaEffect: Anthony is suddenly devoted to Johanna's well-being, despite not knowing her well at all. |
| 124 | * EatTheEvidence: Why doesn't anyone ever find Todd's victims? Because no one thought to look in Mrs. Lovett's pies. |
| 125 | * EatTheRich: During "A Little Priest," Sweeney briefly considers exclusively serving the upper classes in Mrs. Lovett's pie shop before discarding the idea as "discriminating." |
| 126 | * EpicRocking: The eponymous Ballad that opens and closes the show fits. |
| 127 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 128 | ** Sweeney slits people's throats with a straight razor and has the bodies baked into pies, but he won't kill men who have families, which is understandable, since the reason for his RoaringRampageOfRevenge is that he was unjustly taken away from his wife and daughter, who were then raped/DrivenToSuicide ([[spoiler:well, not exactly]]) and adopted/implied to be sexually abused by Judge Turpin, respectively. Though it may be more PragmaticVillainy, families mean witnesses and investigations. The latter explains why it's PlayedForLaughs in the stage version. In some productions, he does give a [[PetTheDog customer's daughter a small treat.]] |
| 129 | ** He also seems to have a soft spot for Anthony. After all, Anthony and his fellow sailors on the ''Bountiful'' saved Sweeney's life, and as such must stand out to him as the only good and kind people he's known since his life was shattered fifteen years ago (he even grimly points out that Anthony making sure he was rescued was a very rare type of kindness in the world as he's seen it). When Mrs Lovett suggests killing Anthony before he can elope with Johanna, Sweeney seems disgusted with the very idea. Later on, when Anthony accidentally spoils Sweeney's revenge on Judge Turpin, Sweeney furiously shouts at him to get out, but doesn't move to kill him (and in some productions even seems to be deliberately holding himself back against the instinctive urge to do so), even though he's quite literally spiraling into omnicidal madness at that very moment. In Act II, Sweeney is even quite calmly accepting of yet another interruption from Anthony and arranges his second chance at avenging himself on Judge Turpin in a way that will also allow Anthony and Johanna to run away together after all. All in all, for someone who "never forgot and [...] never forgave", he seems very willing to do exactly that where Anthony's concerned. |
| 130 | * EvidenceDungeon: A variation with the meat room of Mrs. Lovett's pie shop. Sweeney starts murdering his customers and baking them into pies. The smell of the human flesh burning is pumped into the air and just by the nature of butchery, loads of viscera must be left around. |
| 131 | * EvilIsBurningHot: Mrs. Lovett's oven is treated with hellish tones as dead bodies are sent into it to be cooked in its roaring flames [[spoiler:and she herself dies when Sweeney throws her into it]]. |
| 132 | * EvilIsPetty: Mrs. Lovett. Quite apart from the horrible things she and Sweeney do, which aren't petty at all, she spends a surprisingly large amount of time making spiteful jabs at people. During "God That's Good!" she gloats that she's put her rival Mrs. Mooney out of business. Earlier she'd scoffed at her over the suspicion that she was using cat meat. Considering what Mrs. Lovett is now including in ''her'' pies... |
| 133 | * EvilSoundsDeep: Sweeney is a bass-baritone and Judge Turpin a bass. On the other hand, the Beadle and Pirelli are both high Tenors. This is countered out with Toby's high, innocent tones and Anthony's warm lyric baritone. |
| 134 | * EvilVersusEvil: A StrawNihilist SerialKiller with a razor who [[ImAHumanitarian has his fellow human victims baked into pies]] with the help of a ruthless {{Yandere}} StepfordSmiler, against a HangingJudge [[DirtyOldMan Pervert]] whose backstory includes {{rap|eIsASpecialKindOfEvil}}ing the [[SerialKiller serial killer's]] [[ItsPersonal wife]], and whose introduction is a KickTheDog--he [[KangarooCourt has the title character transported for life]] so that he could have his wife for himself. His [[TheDragon "best friend"]] sees nothing wrong with any of this and is quite content to help him [[{{Squick}} seduce the]] daughter, who the judge [[WifeHusbandry has adopted as his own]]. |
| 135 | * ExactWords: Mrs. Lovett, when [[spoiler: Sweeney discovers Lucy was still alive the whole time]]. |
| 136 | -->[[spoiler:'''Sweeney:''' You ''lied'' to me!]] |
| 137 | -->[[spoiler:'''Mrs. Lovett:''' No. No, not lied at all-- no, I never lied! Said she took the poison-- she did-- never said that she died-]] |
| 138 | * FalseDichotomy: Todd, when he goes insane in "Epiphany" and figures why "we all deserve to die": any person who is happy is a wicked wrongdoer so killing them is a service to the community; and to any other person "death will be a relief". |
| 139 | * {{Fauxreigner}}: Adolfo Pirelli a.k.a. Daniel O'Higgins, and he's Irish. |
| 140 | * AFeteWorseThanDeath: The masked ball in "Poor Thing", which culminates in Judge Turpin raping Sweeney Todd's wife. |
| 141 | * TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: In some productions, Todd will leap into the audience during "Epiphany" and start shouting at random audience members. |
| 142 | ** Also invoked in the final reprise, when the cast point around the theatre, shouting that Sweeney is "there! there! there!" |
| 143 | --->'''Company:''' No one can help, nothing can hide you!\ |
| 144 | Isn't that Sweeney there beside you? |
| 145 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: And lots of it. |
| 146 | ** [[spoiler:Why doesn't Mrs. Lovett want the Beggar Woman near Sweeney? She's Lucy.]] |
| 147 | ** When the Beggar Woman first meets Sweeney, she sings "Hey--don't I know you, mister?" [[spoiler: As mentioned above, the Beggar Woman is Lucy, his supposedly dead wife--despite being driven insane, she still remembered her husband.]] |
| 148 | * FracturedFairyTale: Everything about Johanna's situation seems to be taken from a fairy tale, Rapunzel and Allerleirauh, in particular. Most of the main characters seem to be based on fairy tale archetypes (Mrs. Lovett is the deceitful witch, Anthony is the optimistic commoner, Johanna is the princess in distress, Toby is the orphan, and Turpin is the Devil). |
| 149 | * FriendsWithBenefits: One of Mrs. Lovett's lines ("Me rumpled bedding legitimized") from "By The Sea" implies that she and Todd are sleeping together. She'd like to upgrade the "friends" part. |
| 150 | * FromNobodyToNightmare: Benjamin Barker to Sweeney Todd. He was once a loving father to Johanna and a faithful husband to his wife Lucy, but then Judge Turpin sexually assaulted Johanna and sent Benjamin away on false convictions. This turned the poor man into the sinister barber we see him as. |
| 151 | * FunnyForeigner: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] – Signore Pirelli's exaggerated Italian accent and mannerisms are {{fa|uxreigner}}ked; the character is really an Irishman named Daniel/Davey. This can turn into a DoubleSubversion, depending on how strong the Irish accent and mannerisms are presented (see the 1982 videotaped stage performance for an example). |
| 152 | * GainingTheWillToKill: |
| 153 | ** The eponymous Sweeney Todd was originally a wronged man looking to get his daughter back from an evil judge, who abducted the girl after raping Sweeney's wife and sending Sweeney himself to [[SentencedToDownUnder Australia]] on a trumped-up charge. That all changes when a charlatan named Pirelli recognizes Sweeney as an escaped convict and threatens to turn him in, driving Sweeney to kill him. Sweeney has never killed before, but he shows no remorse for this act, having decided it was necessary to protect his cover. When his friend Mrs. Lovett proposes disposing of the body by baking it into meat pies, Sweeney finds he has no qualms about continuing to kill, and launches himself into a frenzied campaign of revenge against the world that wronged him by becoming a SerialKiller and handing the bodies over to Mrs. Lovett for, er, [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies disposal]]. |
| 154 | ** On the other hand, Mrs. Lovett apparently ''always'' had it, considering she recommends Sweeney kill clueless, innocent, kindly Anthony as soon as he brings Johanna to the shop after rescuing her, for no real reason aside from Sweeney's despair at the idea that Anthony will bring Johanna to Plymouth before Sweeney can reveal himself as her father and rejoin her life. |
| 155 | * GenreRefugee: Anthony is a sweet, well-meaning and forthright young man who seems to have wandered in from a much more swashbuckling and romantic story. While his LoveInterest Johanna superficially comes off the same way, the emotional damage she's experienced growing up as Judge Turpin's ward has made her markedly more in line in terms of mental stability with the rest of the cast. |
| 156 | * GetOut: Sweeney's reaction to Anthony's ''very'' untimely foiling of his first attempt to kill Turpin. |
| 157 | * GildedCage: Well, technically it's damask and dark, especially with a controlling and creepy caretaker, despite all the riches Johanna could ever have. |
| 158 | * GilliganCut: A very dark version of the Contrary Cut version: Judge Turpin muses as he leaves court that Johanna having had a little more time to consider his marriage proposal has probably put her in a “more sensible” frame of mind. Lights up on Johanna frantically pacing her bedroom, planning to kill herself to get out of the marriage. |
| 159 | * GirlInTheTower: Johanna, despite her walking outside. It's implied that Turpin not only forbids her from leaving the house, but also from leaving her room (because the rest of the house must have windows, too). On top of that, she's blessed with long blonde hair- Rapunzel, anyone? |
| 160 | * GleefulAndGrumpyPairing: Outwardly, Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd tend to look like this in most productions - the brooding, revenge-obsessed Sweeney playing well off of the comical, perky Lovett. In actuality, her jovial nature makes her crimes seem all the more creepy [[spoiler: and her flippant mistreatment of Lucy even worse]] to the audience. |
| 161 | * GoAmongMadPeople: Happens to Johanna where she's placed within a whole asylum of mad people after Turpin has her locked up by Mr. Fogg. |
| 162 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler:Tobias, after he discovers what's in the pies.]] |
| 163 | * GottaKillEmAll: Sweeney's plan to kill the Beadle and the Judge, which eventually morphs into everyone. |
| 164 | * GreaterScopeVillain: You might think it's Judge Turpin, but surprise: it's [[spoiler: Mrs. Lovett, whose careful lie of omission about Lucy ''surviving'' her suicide attempt is what ''really'' propels Sweeney into the monster he becomes]]. |
| 165 | * GriefSong: Many. Most notably is the reprise of 'A Barber And His Wife'. |
| 166 | * HangingJudge: Judge Turpin is literally corrupt, willing to sentence anyone unjustly. He did exactly that to Benjamin Barker to get his wife. |
| 167 | * HatedHometown: When Sweeney agrees that "there's no place like London," it's not praise. |
| 168 | * TheHecateSisters: Johanna as the maiden, Mrs. Lovett as the mother and the Beggar Woman as the crone. |
| 169 | * HeKnowsTooMuch: |
| 170 | ** Sweeney's reason for killing Pirelli was that he knew of his past as Benjamin Barker and intended to use it for blackmail. |
| 171 | ** Later, Mrs. Lovett realizes that [[spoiler: Tobias]] is getting too close to the truth about Todd's murders, so she [[spoiler: locks him in the bakehouse and waits for Sweeney to get back to kill him.]] [[spoiler: It doesn't work.]] |
| 172 | * HeroAntagonist: Tobias Ragg. |
| 173 | %%* HeroOfAnotherStory: Picture Anthony as the protagonist and Todd as the Poisonous Friend, keeping Judge Turpin and the Beadle as BigBad and TheDragon respectively. |
| 174 | * HeWhoFightsMonsters: Sweeney becomes worse than the monsters after "Epiphany", deciding to just kill everyone. [[spoiler: In doing this, he unknowingly kills Lucy and nearly kills Johanna; the two people he was trying to avenge.]] |
| 175 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: |
| 176 | ** How did Judge Turpin succeed in raping Lucy? Tricking her into thinking he’s sorry for having her husband deported, and sending a third party (the Beadle) to tell her as much. [[spoiler:How does Sweeney succeed in killing Judge Turpin to avenge exactly that? Luring him with false promises that Johanna feels sorry for having refused him, and acting as the third party carrying news of this contrition.]] |
| 177 | ** [[spoiler:Subverted with Sweeney’s own death. He may meet his end at the wrong end of one of his own razors, but by that point he’s consumed enough by despair to welcome it.]] |
| 178 | * HumanResources: The two main characters use human flesh in... decidedly ''resourceful'' ways. |
| 179 | * HurricaneOfPuns: The wickedly funny string of allusions to personalities and flavors in the number [[http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/sweeneytodd/alittlepriest.htm "A Little Priest"]], where the two figure out how they'll dispose of the body upstairs (and make a tidy profit out of future customers, at the expense of the rival pie shop across the way). |
| 180 | --> (after pretending taste a pie made out of a priest) '''''HEAVENLY!'''''\ |
| 181 | '''Mrs. Lovett''': This may bit a bit stringy, but then again, it ''is'' fiddle player.\ |
| 182 | '''Todd''': No, this isn't fiddle player! It's ''piccolo'' player!\ |
| 183 | '''Mrs. Lovett''': How can you tell?\ |
| 184 | '''Todd''': It's piping hot!\ |
| 185 | '''Mrs. Lovett''': Then blow on it first! |
| 186 | * HypocriticalHumor: In "The Worst Pies in London," Mrs. Lovett condemns her neighbor, Mrs. Mooney, for stealing her neighbor's cats and baking them into pies. Almost immediately afterwards, she claims she "Wouldn't do in my shop/why the thought of it's enough to make you sick/and I'm telling you them pussycats is quick!" |
| 187 | * IAmBecomingSong: "Epiphany", "Johanna Quartet". |
| 188 | * IdiotBall: Very quickly picked up by Johanna in the asylum, when she calls out Anthony’s name and immediately blows his cover. Fortunately, she metaphorically drops it just as quickly by [[spoiler:shooting Mr. Fogg herself]]. |
| 189 | * IfOnlyYouKnew: In "Epiphany," Todd sings "And my Lucy lies in ashes," presumably referring to the famous phrase "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to him, Lucy is still alive and sleeping among the rubbish bins of London as a homeless beggar--she's ''literally'' "lying in ashes."]] |
| 190 | * IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Judge Turpin has a serious problem with lust when it comes to pretty women, and ends up doing this to Lucy Barker in the "Poor Thing" scene. |
| 191 | * ImAHumanitarian: Mrs. Lovett's customers, albeit unknowingly. |
| 192 | * InformedAttractiveness: Lucy and Johanna. |
| 193 | ** Also Sweeney himself, according to Mrs. Lovett. |
| 194 | * TheIngenue: Johanna, though she's an unusually brittle and cynical example. [[spoiler:Her time in Fogg's Asylum moves her even further from the trope, though how so varies from production to production- in some of them, she winds up TheOphelia, while in others she ends up [[TookALevelInBadass stronger and more defiant from having nothing left to lose]]]]. |
| 195 | * IronicNurseryTune: [[NightmareFuel Pat-a-cake pat-a-cake baker's man ...]] |
| 196 | * {{Irony}}: |
| 197 | ** Johanna is the only member of her family we see in an [[BedlamHouse insane asylum]], but she's also the only member of her family who hasn't gone irreparably insane [[spoiler:as far as we can tell]]. (The lyrics in "Kiss Me" imply that she is at least very anxious, probably clinically so- "It was a gate, it's the gate... --We don't have a gate!"- and some productions do depict her as [[GoAmongMadPeople going a little insane in the asylum]], but the libretto, for the record, limits the description of her mood after her escape to "excited and chatty", and she's clearly in control of her faculties in escaping from Sweeney in the end.) |
| 198 | ** In pursuit of vengeance for his wife, and wanting his daughter back, [[spoiler:Sweeney winds up murdering his wife and almost kills his daughter, who's in disguise.]] |
| 199 | ** All three of the Barkers end up in their old room together and none of them are aware that the others are there. |
| 200 | ** Anthony is a sailor who is both young and claims to have "[Sailed] the wold and seen its wonders" yet he's a romantic idealist. He doesn't even quite grasp the magnitude of Johanna's home life situation. Johanna, on the other hand, is a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl raised in wealth and she's extremely nervous and a bit cynical, admitting that she was afraid that Anthony wouldn't come back for her. |
| 201 | ** Mrs. Lovett gets the idea to use [[spoiler: Pirelli]]'s body in her pies because "I don't suppose he's got any ''relatives'' gonna come poking 'round looking for him". [[spoiler: But Toby, while heavily abused by his boss, still cares about him and wonders what happened to him, and his suspicion that Sweeney had something to do with it and all the other missing customers contributes to the eventual downfall of the villains]]. |
| 202 | * IWantSong: Mrs. Lovett's "By The Sea" song, all about the future she's hoping for. |
| 203 | * IWasQuiteALooker: |
| 204 | ** Benjamin Barker was quite dashing, so his appearance as Sweeney is super unnerving compared to back in the day. |
| 205 | ** [[spoiler:The Beggar Woman, who ranges from merely filthy, ragged and insane but still recognizably an UnkemptBeauty to outright disfigured depending on the production, is the once-beautiful Lucy Barker all along.]] |
| 206 | * JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Sweeney himself. |
| 207 | * KangarooCourt: Judge Turpin's trial of Benjamin Barker is implied to have been anything but fair. |
| 208 | * KarmicDeath: |
| 209 | ** Sweeney gives one to [[spoiler:Judge Turpin, deceiving him with false courtesy to kill him, similar to the way Turpin lured in Lucy to assault her.]] |
| 210 | ** Sweeney also gives one to [[spoiler:Mrs. Lovett, throwing her into her own people-cooking oven after learning that her selfish deceptions allowed him to accidentally kill his own wife.]] |
| 211 | ** The final death of the story is given to [[spoiler:Sweeney Todd, having his throat slit by one of his own razors at the hand of a vengeful, traumatized Toby, though by that point Sweeney welcomes it]]. |
| 212 | * KickTheDog: |
| 213 | ** Judge Turpin and the Beadle are dog-kicking machines. Senseless acts of evil include: |
| 214 | *** The imprisonment of Benjamin Barker on a false charge, sending him to a prison colony for many years (Judge Turpin) |
| 215 | *** Raping Lucy Barker and thus driving her mad (Judge Turpin) |
| 216 | *** Snapping the neck of the bird that Anthony had bought for Johanna (the Beadle) |
| 217 | *** Throwing Johanna into [[BedlamHouse Fogg's Asylum]] for defying Turpin (Judge Turpin) |
| 218 | ** Pirelli's brutal treatment of poor Toby also qualifies as a KickTheDog moment. |
| 219 | * KillTheOnesYouLove: [[spoiler:Sweeney kills the beggar woman, unaware that she is actually his wife Lucy]]. |
| 220 | * {{Killed Offs|creen}}tage: [[spoiler:Beadle Bamford]] is unceremoniously murdered out of sight, although the reveal of [[spoiler:his]] body serves a narrative purpose by [[GoMadFromTheRevelation pushing]] [[spoiler:poor Toby]]--who was already beginning to realize the secret of the meat pies--over the edge into full-on madness. |
| 221 | * LadyMacbeth: Mrs. Lovett is arguably more evil than Sweeney Todd. Given that while he has the excuse of having endured terrible tragedy and going crazy, she participates in and encourages his mass-murdering for financial motives, and it was her suggestion to cook the corpses of his victims in the first place.\ |
| 222 | Then, there's Mrs. Lovett's ulterior motive in [[spoiler:not telling Sweeney that his wife is alive and is the crazy Beggar Woman; she lets him think his wife is dead because of her crush on Sweeney]]. |
| 223 | * LampshadedDoubleEntendre: |
| 224 | ** "If you get my drift..." |
| 225 | ** "No?" ... "AH!" "Good, you got it." |
| 226 | * LargeHam: |
| 227 | ** In "A Little Priest", the actor always arrives overdone... |
| 228 | ** Pirelli, notably, is written for an opera tenor when the others (except Johanna) are just written for regular theatre voices. |
| 229 | ** George He- excuse me, '''GEORGE HEARN!!!''' |
| 230 | ** And when paired with Patti [=LuPone=], it gets taken to new levels, very effectively. |
| 231 | ** People who saw Angela Lansbury early in her Broadway run and then later on, around the time of the recorded production, generally say that she was playing jokes much bigger as the show's run went on. |
| 232 | ** During "A Little Priest", if Sweeney and Lovett aren't completely tearing the house down, they're doing it wrong. |
| 233 | ** Jack Eric Williams, who played Beadle Bamford in the original cast, is quite a ham himself. "GLAD AS ALWAYS TO OBLIGE MY FRRRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS!" |
| 234 | * LastSecondWordSwap: In "The Worst Pies in London": |
| 235 | -->'''Mrs. Lovett:''' Is that just revolting,\ |
| 236 | All greasy and gritty?\ |
| 237 | It looks like it's molting,\ |
| 238 | And tastes like--\ |
| 239 | Well, pity |
| 240 | * LeastRhymableWord: In "A Little Priest," there's a moment where Mrs. Lovett offers Todd a flavor of pie ("Tinker?") only for Todd to reject it with a rhyme ("No, something pinker."), getting progressively more difficult and closer to PainfulRhyme territory as they go. The word Todd ''can't'' rhyme is "Locksmith." |
| 241 | * {{Leitmotif}}: |
| 242 | ** In many of her appearances, the Beggar Woman sings a fast-paced, discordant jig: "How'd you like a little muff, dear? A little jig-jig? A little bounce around the bush?" [[spoiler: We hear the same music, played much more slowly and beautifully (to the point of being almost unrecognizable--that's deliberate), at the beginning of the Judge's costume party in flashback, where Lucy ends up raped. The music thus becomes a ChekhovsGun: presumably, this was one of the last things Lucy heard before she went mad, and it now repeatedly runs through her head as she wanders the streets of London.]] |
| 243 | ** There is also the underscoring when Todd sings "and my Lucy lies in ashes" is also played when [[spoiler: he kills the Beggar Woman]]. There's also the Beggar Woman's "Alms, Alms!" is a repeated motif--"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is reprise and entertained within many songs--honestly, it would probably be faster to list what isn't a motif. |
| 244 | * LethalChef: Subverted – Mrs. Lovett is this before she starts making pies of human flesh; she says because she couldn't afford fresh meat. She's not alone; she snaps that her rival, Mrs. Moony, uses the neighbors' cats for filling. Afterward, in the wake of financial success, Mrs. Lovett's meat pies are delicious (if now lethal in a rather ''different'' way), implying that she's actually a good cook, she just needs better ingredients. |
| 245 | * LightIsNotGood: Mrs. Lovett in the 2023 Broadway revival is a petite blonde who favors modest pastel dresses. |
| 246 | * [[LikeFatherLikeSon Like Mother, Like Daughter:]] A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example, but at the beginning of "Kiss Me," Johanna's first idea of how to avoid marrying Turpin is to poison herself: "I'll swallow poison on Sunday/That's what I'll do, I'll get some lye..." |
| 247 | * LonelyRichKid: Johanna is within the wealth of a judge's home but is controlled by said judge and thus can't go out of the house to make friends at all. |
| 248 | * TheLostLenore: Lucy, to Sweeney. |
| 249 | * LoveAtFirstSight: Anthony with Johanna. Johanna claims to have felt the same way. |
| 250 | -->'''Johanna:''' I loved you even as I saw you, even as it does not matter that I still don't know your name, sir... |
| 251 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy: Mrs. Lovett, in spades; this gets her to go on full {{Yandere}} mode to keep Sweeney for herself while [[spoiler:indirectly having the Beggar Woman killed]]. |
| 252 | * LovingAShadow: Sweeney has a variation in regards to his fatherly love of Johanna. His version of the Johanna quartet is him wondering what she's like, and ultimately deciding he'd rather keep his fantasy of her intact than meet her in person. |
| 253 | * LuredIntoATrap: The "Poor Thing" sequence has Beadle Bamford luring Lucy Barker to a masked ball at Judge Turpin's mansion, telling her that the Judge is remorseful about sending away her husband, Benjamin Barker, for life on a false charge. Turns out he's anything ''but'' remorseful, and has used this as a means to [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty get her alone and defenseless]]. |
| 254 | * LyricalDissonance: |
| 255 | ** "A Little Priest" is about getting people used to make Mrs. Lovett's meat pies but is sung in an oddly jaunty tune. |
| 256 | ** Also Mrs. Lovett's verse in "Not While I'm Around"; she repeats Toby's protests of love and loyalty, but the creepy, wheedling violin solo underneath makes them sound totally insincere. |
| 257 | ** "Johanna (Quartet)" has some unnerving lyrics set to a sweet sounding song for Sweeney as he longs to meet his daughter again while killing his customers. |
| 258 | * MadeFromRealGirlScouts: "Or we have some shepherd's pie, peppered with actual shepherd on top." |
| 259 | * MadLove: Depending on the version, Mrs. Lovett's one-sided obsession with Sweeney can be seen as an example of this trope, particularly considering her attempts to keep him from discovering that [[spoiler:his wife is still alive]]. |
| 260 | * MadnessMantra: |
| 261 | ** The beggar woman [[spoiler:Lucy]] spouts these: "Beadle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle dumpling!" "Mischief! Mischief!" |
| 262 | ** Also [[spoiler:Toby]] at the end of the stage show. "Three times, that's the secret, three times through the grinder." |
| 263 | ** Subverted with Johanna in Fogg’s Asylum. She sings incessantly to herself, but this is to ''avoid'' going insane by giving herself something else to focus on. |
| 264 | * ManipulativeBastard: |
| 265 | ** Mrs. Lovett, you're a bloody wonder. |
| 266 | ** Also Todd's scheme in Act II, where he [[spoiler:helps Anthony to rescue Johanna by setting him up as a wigmaker's apprentice ''and'' betrays Anthony to the Judge in order to lure the latter back to his parlour]]. In particular, the song "The Letter" shows Todd agonizing over the exact words that will manipulate the Judge's lust and sense of inadequacy. |
| 267 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 268 | ** Perhaps unintentional: the name "Sweeney" is an anglicized version of the name Suibne, a (legendary) mad king of Ireland. "Tod(d)" is German for "death." |
| 269 | ** The optimistic young sailor, Anthony Hope. |
| 270 | ** [[{{Yandere}} Mrs.]] [[MadLove Lovett.]] |
| 271 | ** Tobias Ragg. A 'Ragg' is something used for the basest tasks, which was how Pirelli treated him. |
| 272 | * MedleyOverture: The organ prelude (not always included in every production) sets the tone by mixing only three motifs: the melody that appears most prominently on the lines “and I’ll never/see Johanna/no I’ll never/hold my girl to me” and “and my Lucy/lies in ashes/and I’ll never/see my girl again” in “Epiphany”, a minor-key version of Johanna’s song “Green Finch and Linnet Bird”, and finally the Dies Irae for Sweeney himself. It is, essentially, a dirge for the shattered Barker family. |
| 273 | * MenAreTheExpendableGender: While women ''do'' die over the course of the story, the meat pies are entirely made from Sweeney's male customers, as they're the only ones Sweeney would be able to get into the barber's chair and bring a blade close to their throats without rousing any suspicion. It never even ''occurs'' to him to kill a man's wife and daughter too when they accompany him to the barbershop, and even the puns in "A Little Priest" are entirely about different types of men. |
| 274 | * MetaphoricallyTrue: The major epiphany of the final scene: |
| 275 | -->[[spoiler:'''Mrs. Lovett''']]: "No, no, not lied at all--No, I never lied, said [[spoiler:she took the poison]]--she did, never said that [[spoiler:she died]]!" |
| 276 | * MidwordRhyme: "Ladies In Their Sensitivities". |
| 277 | -->'''Beadle:''' When a girl's emergent\ |
| 278 | Probably it's urgent\ |
| 279 | You defer to her gent-\ |
| 280 | -tility, my Lord |
| 281 | ** And again in the same song! |
| 282 | -->'''Beadle:''' Meaning no offense, it\ |
| 283 | Happens they resents it\ |
| 284 | Ladies in their sensit-\ |
| 285 | -ivities, my Lord |
| 286 | * MomentKiller: Anthony walks into the barbershop for one of his trademark interruptions right after Mrs. Lovett suggests to Sweeney that they can "have a life together." |
| 287 | * MoodWhiplash: After the terrifying Epiphany in which Sweeney goes off the deep end comes the hilarious HurricaneOfPuns that is A Little Priest. |
| 288 | * MortonsFork: The logical conclusion Sweeney reaches during "Epiphany": "the lives of the wicked should be made brief/for the rest of us, death will be a relief/we ''all'' deserve to die!" |
| 289 | * MotiveDecay: |
| 290 | ** Sweeney quickly goes from desiring only revenge on the Judge and Beadle responsible for his imprisonment and stealing his wife and daughter to a vendetta against all humanity. However, given that in the original Victorian "shilling shocker", Sweeney had no motivation for his crimes, this is undoubtedly an improvement. |
| 291 | ** There's even a song that illustrates it: his part in the Johanna Quartet. |
| 292 | ** Todd's MotiveDecay is a [[TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget fully-fledged part of his character arc]]; come TheReveal at the very end, Todd realizes what a monster he has become in allowing his lust for revenge and violence to consume him. |
| 293 | * TheMourningAfter: No matter how hard Mrs. Lovett tries, she'll never take Lucy's place in Sweeney's broken heart. |
| 294 | * MurderByCremation: [[spoiler:Todd throws Mrs. Lovett into her own piping hot oven]]. |
| 295 | * MusicalSpoiler: ''Many'', and all to do with the reveal of one character's identity. |
| 296 | ** [[spoiler:Listen carefully to the minuet during the flashback to Lucy's rape by the Judge. It's the same melody that she, as the beggar woman, sings as she tries to entice men to sleep with her.]] |
| 297 | ** [[spoiler:In productions that include the Beggar Woman's Lullaby, she appears disoriented and consumed by deja-vu in Sweeney's barber shop, and the lullaby she sings to an imaginary baby is not only to the tune of "Poor Thing", but addresses the baby as "my Jo"- presumably short for Johanna.]] |
| 298 | ** [[spoiler:Finally, when Sweeney slits her throat, as she stares at him, wide-eyed and gagging, and then collapses, there's an absolutely ''aching'' instrumental reprise of a musical phrase from "Epiphany"- specifically, "And my Lucy lies in ashes". Now, the Beggar Woman, Lucy, is lying there dead.]] |
| 299 | ** [[spoiler:The above phrase is also the very first music the audience hears in the show, as the opening notes of the prelude.]] |
| 300 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: After realizing [[spoiler:that the old beggar woman he killed was Lucy]], Sweeney Todd has this reaction, before [[spoiler:turning his anger towards Mrs. Lovett, who was being a bit MetaphoricallyTrue]]. |
| 301 | -->'''Sweeney:''' Oh my god! [[spoiler: Lucy!]] WHAT HAVE I DONE?! |
| 302 | * MysteryMeat: Thanks to Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett's decision, the meat in the latter's meat pies were all comprised of Sweeney's murder victims. |
| 303 | * NervousWreck: Johanna, and can you blame her? The first bright spot and hope of escape the poor girl's had in her life still paralyzes her into anxious babbling about what to pack, things she feared happened to Anthony while she couldn't see him, and even forgetting that her house doesn't have a gate out of fear of her abusive guardian coming home. |
| 304 | * NeverTrustAHairTonic: Pirelli's Miracle Elixir... isn't. It's a mixture of urine and ink, as Sweeney reveals. |
| 305 | * NiceGuy: Anthony, the only one in seemingly all of London who qualifies. |
| 306 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 307 | ** Nice job busting into Sweeney's barber shop in the middle of his shaving of Turpin so that your plans to rescue Johanna gets blown to hell, Anthony! |
| 308 | ** Not to mention that you ruining Todd's plans for vengeance has caused him to lapse into a downward spiral of mass murder and unwitting (for the customers of the pie shop, anyway) cannibalism! Well done! |
| 309 | * NoDoubtTheYearsHaveChangedMe: Sweeney to Turpin, the {{Trope Namer|s}}; although he's not ''so'' changed that Mrs. Lovett and Adolfo Pirelli, who both admittedly knew him well in the past, don't recognize him upon first meeting him. Also [[spoiler:the Beggar Woman]]. |
| 310 | * NoPlaceForMeThere: An interpersonal example. By Act II, Sweeney knows that no matter how much he wonders what Johanna is like as a young woman, there is no longer any room for him in her life, even if she does get a happy ending. He’s a stranger, a former convict, an impediment to her elopement with Anthony, and a murderer to boot- and he’s also finally able to admit to himself that he’s essentially (parentally) LovingAShadow. |
| 311 | ->And though I’ll think of you, I guess, |
| 312 | ->Until the day I die, |
| 313 | ->I think I miss you less and less |
| 314 | ->As ev’ry day goes by, |
| 315 | ->Johanna… |
| 316 | * ObiWanMoment: [[spoiler:Sweeney is surprisingly rather accepting of his death, letting Toby slit his throat.]] |
| 317 | * ObsessionSong: The Judge's song "Johanna (Mea Culpa)". Anthony's version of "Johanna" can come across as this as well. |
| 318 | * OhCrap: |
| 319 | ** Judge Turpin, upon finally learning just who Sweeney Todd is, just before [[spoiler:Sweeney takes brutal and final vengeance]]. |
| 320 | ** As well as Sweeney himself after Pirelli reveals that he knows him from the old days, with similar results. |
| 321 | ** Ms. Lovett has this reaction when Todd has a VillainousBreakdown upon realizing [[spoiler:he just murdered his wife, the beggar woman]]. She immediately tries to say she didn't lie, [[spoiler:because his wife did swallow aersenic. It just didn't kill Lucy]]. |
| 322 | * OpeningChorus: "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd". |
| 323 | * TheOphelia: Johanna in many productions is mentally unstable despite her loveliness. She's sometimes wearing flowers in her hair when she's in the asylum. |
| 324 | * OutOfCharacterAlert: In one of the many reprises of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," it's said that Sweeney "never forgot and he never forgave." So when he tells Mrs. Lovett in the "Final Scene" that the history of the world is to "learn forgiveness and try to forget," that should be a sign to the audience that something ''very bad'' is about to happen. |
| 325 | * PapaWolf: A hint of Benjamin Barker remains in Sweeney Todd. Even after the judge commits Johanna, Todd helps form a plan with Anthony to rescue her. |
| 326 | * ParentalLoveSong: “Johanna (Reprise)”. Sweeney fondly reminisces over his daughter and what she may look like as a young woman, but he ultimately feels as though he has no place in her life since he had been away from her for so long (to say nothing of having put himself beyond the pale with all the murdering he’s been doing). |
| 327 | * PatterSong: "The Contest". |
| 328 | * PenalColony: Botany Bay in Australia, where Benjamin was transported for life. |
| 329 | * PerkyFemaleMinion: Mrs. Lovett. In the musical, she is clearly the comic foil to the brooding and vengeful Todd. |
| 330 | * PetTheDog: |
| 331 | ** Lovett taking in Toby. She's using him for labor, but she feeds him and knits him a muffler. |
| 332 | ** Lovett speculates that the Judge adopting Johanna must mean that he did have enough of a conscience to save her. Productions that feature "Mea Culpa" suggest that she may be a just a little bit right about the Judge's sincerity. |
| 333 | ** Sweeney Todd tells Anthony there is a way to rescue Johanna. He gives him the details of a plan to bust her out of the aslyum and tells him to carry a pistol. It's nearly undone when he nearly slashes a disguised Johanna, but she did get out. |
| 334 | * PoorlyTimedConfession: Just as Sweeney is about to kill [[spoiler:Judge Turpin]], Anthony bursts in and blurts out the fact that Johanna [[spoiler:(the Judge's ward, who he intends to marry and is insanely possessive of)]] has agreed to [[LoveConfession elope with him.]] Cue a massive OhCrap moment. Not only does it foil [[spoiler:Anthony]]'s own rescue mission, it also robs Sweeney of his chance to revenge himself on the Judge, tipping him into a HeroicBSOD. |
| 335 | * [[PreAsskickingOneLiner Pre-Asskicking]][=/=]PreMortemOneLiner: Before [[spoiler:killing Turpin]], Sweeney finally tells him who he is: "BENJAMIN BARKER!!!" |
| 336 | * PreInsanityReveal: the homeless madwoman that hangs around the barber shop is revealed to be [[spoiler: Sweeney's long-lost wife, Lucy.]] Unfortunately, this isn't revealed--either to Sweeney or the audience--until [[spoiler: ''after he murders her''.]] |
| 337 | * PsychoSupporter: Mrs. Lovett's support of Sweeney's murder sprees and her eagerness to get rid of the corpses in such a disturbed manner make her a prime example of this trope. |
| 338 | * RaceLift: Aside from simple cases of the characters sometimes being played by people of color, there do exist alternate lyrics allowing Johanna (and by extension Lucy) to have "raven" rather than "yellow" hair that were originally written for an all-Asian-American cast. In some cases, they are also "beautiful and dark" rather than "beautiful and pale". |
| 339 | ** The 2023 Seattle production adjusted for casting Johanna and Lucy with actresses of color by having Todd and Anthony serenade them as "beautiful and bronze". |
| 340 | ** In the Dayton Opera's November 2023 production, both Lucy and Johanna were played by light-skinned Black women, and the only lyrical change was Anthony describing Johanna as "pale and ''ebony''." Johanna's "yellow" hair was brown with squash-colored highlights. |
| 341 | ** Interestingly, the opening description of Sweeney, which includes "his skin was pale and his eye was odd" has never been changed regardless of casting. That said, this can probably be handwaved as not referring to him simply being a fair-skinned white man, but to convey his sickly, drained appearance and works just as well for an ashen-faced man of color. |
| 342 | * RapeAsDrama: Lucy Barker. Johanna, ''maybe.'' Threat of rape, almost certainly. |
| 343 | * ReassignedToAntarctica: The judge sends Benjamin off to Botany Bay on a false charge so that he could get at his wife Lucy. |
| 344 | * RedHerring: In the song "Kiss Me," Johanna makes a big fuss about her reticule (small purse), saying she cannot possibly leave it behind, it's [[OrphansPlotTrinket the only thing her mother gave her]]... quite a bit of set-up. The reticule is never mentioned again. |
| 345 | * ReducedToRatburgers: In the time that the play is set in, there is a meat shortage in London, such that those without means often have to turn to other avenues to get their meat, such as catching animals off the streets to be made into pies. It is this situation which leads to Mrs. Lovett's idea to serve up Sweeney's victims as meat pies. After all... |
| 346 | -->'''Sweeney:''' These are desperate times, Mrs. Lovett, and desperate measures are called for. |
| 347 | * ReplacementGoldfish: Johanna seems to be this to Judge Turpin, in VillainousCrush fashion, for her mother (and his onetime rape victim), Lucy. |
| 348 | * RepriseMedley: Many reprises are intertwined in the show, but notable examples are: |
| 349 | ** City On Fire: The main song is taken from the Beggar Woman's solo in "Johanna (Quartet)", Johanna sings a snatch of "Kiss Me", and Mrs. Lovett sings part of "Not While I'm Around". |
| 350 | ** Judge's Return: the music when [[spoiler: Sweeney kills the Beggar Woman]] is taken from "Epiphany", the Judge and Sweeney reprise "Pretty Women", and then Sweeney reprises "My Friends". |
| 351 | ** Final Scene: Sweeney sings a line from "No Place Like London" with underscoring again from "Epiphany" while Mrs. Lovett reprises "Poor Thing". They then reprise "A Little Priest" and Mrs. Lovett sings "By The Sea". Finally, Sweeney sings "A Barber and His Wife". |
| 352 | * {{Retirony}}: Arguably, "By the Sea", sung by Mrs. Lovett who wants to have a happy retirement after her career is put to rest. She [[spoiler:ends up dying before it even happens.]] |
| 353 | * {{Retraux}}: Christopher Bond's play, while expanding Todd's motivations from the original Victorian melodramas, is written in the style of a Victorian play, with deliberately old-fashioned devices like having Todd deliver long [[{{Soliloquy}} soliloquies]]. This is toned down in the musical version, where the soliloquies are mostly cut or turned into songs. |
| 354 | * {{Revenge}}: Sweeney Todd is done in the style of a classical revenge tragedy. |
| 355 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The entire show is one for Sweeney as he tries to get revenge on Judge Turpin and the Beadle before exacting it on the common townsfolk as well. |
| 356 | * RuleOfThrees: |
| 357 | ** There are three songs called "Johanna", one of them sung by Anthony, the second by Judge Turpin, and the last as a quartet led by Sweeney. The second is cut from some productions, despite it being the Judge's big moment. |
| 358 | ** Also, Mrs. Lovett's instructions for making the meat pies: |
| 359 | --->''"Three times... that's the secret... three times through the grinder..."'' |
| 360 | * SanitySlippageSong: "Epiphany." |
| 361 | * ScareChord: |
| 362 | ** SWING YOUR RAZOR WIDE, SWEENEY! HOLD IT TO THE SKY! The first two verses were sung with only the singer illuminated. During the music between the second verse and the above line, the entire stage is dark and the entire cast assembled in ranks. The line starts; cue ''every'' spotlight in the house going on and ScareChord. Truly amazing. |
| 363 | ** The shrill factory whistle that accompanies Sweeney's murders in many productions. |
| 364 | ** Another, more dramatic example plays in the final scene, [[spoiler: when Sweeney sees the face of the beggar woman he has just murdered, and recognizes her as his wife, Lucy.]] |
| 365 | * SceneryPorn: |
| 366 | ** The stage version generally ''has'' to use a double-level set and depending on the available resources it can get more elaborate from there. On the other hand, John Doyle's 2004 staging in London (later transferred to Broadway) was a minimalist version that had only 10 actors who played instruments when they were not singing themselves, and only suggested its settings. |
| 367 | ** Also, the concert version performed in New York and San Francisco had no sets whatsoever, the actors performed on platforms surrounded by the orchestra. |
| 368 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Stagings that don't go full BolivianArmyEnding for [[spoiler:Anthony and Johanna]] often have them do this instead [[spoiler:before they manage to enter the bakehouse along with the police]]. |
| 369 | * TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: The bodies are used to make Mrs. Lovett's meat pies, initially just for body disposal but it then turns out that this just increases the flavor. |
| 370 | * SentencedToDownUnder: Sweeney being handed this punishment kicks off the plot. |
| 371 | * SentencedWithoutTrial: Judge Turpin is the living embodiment of this trope. He sentences Benjamin Barker to exile on false charges in order to have his way with his wife and adopt his daughter, triggering the barber's StartOfDarkness and him returning fifteen years later under the name Sweeney Todd. Turpin later sentences a child to death, and after the execution, asks Beadle Bamford what the boy was on trial for in the first place. |
| 372 | * SerendipitousSurvival: One of Sweeney's customers survives his time in the chair because his wife and daughter came into the barbershop ''with'' him, rather than waiting outside or planning to meet him later. |
| 373 | * SettingIntroductionSong: "No Place Like London". |
| 374 | * SettingUpdate: Of "''Literature/TheStringOfPearls''", which stated that the story of Sweeney Todd took place in 1785. Instead, the musical takes place in 1846, the year the story was first published. |
| 375 | * SerialKiller: Sweeney himself, as well as his "The String of Pearls" incarnation. |
| 376 | * SexIsEvil: According to Judge Turpin. |
| 377 | * SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Various theater versions of this musical have various takes on this. Some make Turpin a more clear-cut example by highlighting his self-loathing, while others make him more one-dimensional. |
| 378 | * SignificantDoubleCasting: The original script dictates that during "Poor Thing", Lucy Barker is portrayed by Johanna's actress. |
| 379 | * SlashedThroat: Well, it ''is'' Sweeney Todd. |
| 380 | * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Todd is contrasted with the young sailor Anthony ''Hope'', who is a romantic idealist. It should be noted that Anthony Hope [[spoiler:is still alive at the end.]] Whether this is good or bad is dependent on where ''you'' fall on the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. |
| 381 | * SmallStartBigFinish: "Johanna". Anthony is initially a little quiet while singing about the girl he likes, but the song gets bigger and more instruments join in by the end. |
| 382 | * SnakeOilSalesman: Pirelli's trade is to con people into buying his "unique" products like his exilir. |
| 383 | * SoBeautifulItsACurse: All of the Barkers. Lucy's beauty is what caused the Judge's attraction to her and kickstarted the plot. The same applies to Johanna once she grows older and the Judge sets his sights on her. Meanwhile, Todd may have been able to reunite with Lucy (or at least [[spoiler: not have killed her]]) if he hadn't attracted Mrs. Lovett. |
| 384 | * SociopathicHero: Given that he was wrongly imprisoned for more than a decade and has lost his wife and daughter, the audience is encouraged to sympathize with Sweeney Todd despite every terrible thing he does in pursuit of vengeance. |
| 385 | * SoundtrackDissonance: One of the best scores in musical theatre belongs to a play about a guy who slits people's throats and has them baked into pies. The "Johanna" sequence near the beginning of Act II, where Sweeney's steady, gentle, romantic theme is at odds with the atrocities he is simultaneously committing, showing how disassociated he has become. |
| 386 | * SpannerInTheWorks: The story would have been a ''lot'' shorter if Anthony hadn't apparently competed in a "say something incriminating as quickly as possible" contest. |
| 387 | * SplitHair: During the contest with Pirelli, Sweeney does this. Generally, on-stage, he pulls one of his hairs out, slices it, and watches it fall to the ground, all during a pause in Pirelli's song. |
| 388 | * StealthPun: The Ballad after [[spoiler: Pirelli's Death]] is a ''barbershop'' trio. |
| 389 | * StalkerWithACrush: |
| 390 | ** Anthony is a subversion. He would absolutely fit the trope... ''if'' Johanna didn't fall in LoveAtFirstSight right back. |
| 391 | ** If Mrs. Lovett is played as having waited specifically for Todd to return a single man, then this certainly applies. |
| 392 | * StalkingIsLove: Anthony's infatuation with Johanna and Mrs. Lovett's obsession with Sweeney Todd can both come across like this (though Johanna encourages it in Anthony's case). Judge Turpin appears this way at first, but this is horribly subverted when a few minutes later it's revealed that [[spoiler:he rapes Lucy]] after seemingly attempting to court her. |
| 393 | * StrawNihilist: In the songs "Epiphany" and "A Little Priest", Sweeney justifies his actions based upon the utter corruption of the world. He even states that all humans are either bastards for whom death would be justice, or miserable wretches for whom death would be mercy. |
| 394 | -->'''Sweeney:''' There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit,\ |
| 395 | And it's filled with people who are filled with shit\ |
| 396 | And the vermin of the world inhabit it...\ |
| 397 | ''But not for long!''\ |
| 398 | They all deserve to ''die!'' |
| 399 | * StepfordSmiler: Mrs. Lovett is an example of the facade being the true personality with a bit of {{Yandere}} thrown in, always almost always cheerful and kindly, but having no qualms about chopping up and cooking Todd's victims, motivated by [[LoveMakesYouEvil obsessive love for Sweeney Todd]] and a desire to improve her economic standing. |
| 400 | * StrongFamilyResemblance: Johanna is implied to look very much like her mother Lucy did, in many cases extending to having the actress who plays Johanna also playing Lucy in the flashback during "Poor Thing". (See the 2023 revival section of this page for the bonus added in that version.) |
| 401 | * StupidEvil: Judge Turpin. He sends away Benjamin Barker on a false charge, leaving his desired wife alone with no means of supporting herself ''and'' with an infant daughter. He has every opportunity to coerce Mrs. Barker into marriage, from pretending Barker had died and ComfortingTheWidow to blackmail. Instead, he rapes her at a ball, with a bunch of witnesses. Then she swallows poison [[spoiler:and becomes the Beggar Woman after a nervous breakdown]]. It's only because the Judge has a high influence that he proceeds to obtain custody of Johanna, and intends to groom her when she becomes of age. This takes years, while marrying Lucy would have been quicker, and he decides to commit Johanna when she refuses to play along. Johanna is not stupid, however; she figures out his intentions and plans to do what her mother should have done: run away from London. In the film, at least, she succeeds thanks to Anthony. |
| 402 | * SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: in the finale. |
| 403 | -->The history of the world, my pet,\ |
| 404 | Is learn forgiveness and try to forget.\ |
| 405 | And life is for the alive, my dear,\ |
| 406 | So let's keep living it—\ |
| 407 | Just keep living it—\ |
| 408 | Really living it—\ |
| 409 | ''(he throws her in the oven and stops singing)'' |
| 410 | * SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:Or suicide by Toby, but same idea.]] |
| 411 | * SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Sweeney kills so many men that Toby begins to suspect something, but the real issue comes when Mrs. Lovett has to dispose of all the bits that she doesn't use in her pies. She burns the remains in her oven, but the resulting smell does ''not'' go unnoticed and the Beadle is sent around to complain about the stench coming from the bakehouse. |
| 412 | * SweetPollyOliver: Johanna after the escape from Fogg's Asylum. |
| 413 | * SympatheticMurderer: Sweeney himself, wronged by a corrupt judge who he plans to kill in revenge. |
| 414 | * TenorBoy: |
| 415 | ** Anthony is a surprising aversion (except in the movie, where his part was transposed higher). Despite perfectly fitting the character archetype- the young, naive, innocent male half of the OfficialCouple alongside the InnocentSoprano with whom he falls in LoveAtFirstSight- he's written as a baritone (the same voice type as Sweeney himself). While he has been played by many tenors in musical theatre productions, the part still requires an extensive low range that lies outside of the usual purview of the trope (a "baritenor" voice, as it's often called), and in opera house stagings he's ''always'' sung by a true baritone (albeit typically a lyric baritone- see MediaNotes/VoiceTypes). |
| 416 | ** Toby is a straight example: A very young man with a childlike demeanor (so much so that he was rewritten as an ''actual'' child in the movie), sung by a tenor in the stage version. |
| 417 | * ThatManIsDead: "Not Barker! Not Barker! Todd now. Sweeney Todd!" |
| 418 | * ThatRemindsMeOfASong: The Beadle's "Parlour Songs". The fact that he is spending so much time singing is relevant to the plot, but the content of the songs is not. |
| 419 | * ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: "There's the one staying put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one's face." And [[MortonsFork both kinds deserve to die]]. |
| 420 | * TogetherInDeath: Implied by the final scene of Todd dying while cradling Lucy. |
| 421 | * TragicDream: She may be completely amoral, but Lovett's enthusiastic dream of marrying Todd and living a blissful life in a seaside StepfordSuburbia is never going to happen. As everything starts falling apart she seems to grow desperate to cling to this. |
| 422 | * TraumaticHaircut: Johanna is threatened with one of these in the asylum. Some productions actually go through with it. [[spoiler: And in turn, it's sometimes subverted in the productions that include this- it's a lot easier to shoot the asylum keeper and escape without knee-length hair weighing you down, and there's little evidence that Johanna herself cares as much about her hair as the men in her life do!]] |
| 423 | * TheUnfettered: Sweeney has no desires besides getting his revenge and lets nothing get in his way. |
| 424 | * UnusualEuphemism: Combined with a bit of ICallHimMrHappy several times in the Beggar Woman's songs. |
| 425 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Anthony, when he (rather, unfortunately) stops Todd from killing Judge Turpin mid-story. |
| 426 | * VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: It's usually a well-known fact that the musical added stories of revenge, a judge, and Sweeney's daughter to [[Theatre/SweeneyTodd the original story.]] The latter was originally a novel, itself based on an UrbanLegend...which has its roots in a true story. The latter is quite different from ''Sweeney''[='s=] scenario, though (besides the cannibalism). It happened in Paris, not London, and as early as [[TheMiddleAges 1387]], in Marmousets street. Also, the baker was male, not female, and named Pierre Miquelon, while his barber neighbor was Barnabé Cabard. Their motivation was apparently simply greed, (no revenge story here) and they were burned at the stake after it was discovered they used students' corpses to do pâtés. Ironically, Barnabé is nowadays often described as a [[invoked]][[AdaptationDisplacement "french Sweeney Todd"]], while it's actually the other way round. |
| 427 | * VictoriasSecretCompartment: Mrs. Lovett [[spoiler:puts Pirelli's purse in hers]]. |
| 428 | * VillainProtagonist: Mr. Todd himself. |
| 429 | * VillainSong: Sweeney's "Epiphany", Turpin's "Johanna (Mea Culpa)", Pirelli's "The Contest", and a [[TheVillainSucksSong "The Villain Protagonist Sucks" song]] with "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" itself. |
| 430 | * VillainousBreakdown / [[VillainousBSOD BSOD]]: |
| 431 | ** "Epiphany." Dear gods, "Epiphany." Also, Sweeney seems to descend into an even deeper circle of insanity hell after he finds out [[spoiler:he killed his own wife]]. |
| 432 | * VillainousCrush: |
| 433 | ** Judge Turpin for both Lucy and Johanna. |
| 434 | ** Mrs. Lovett for Todd, too. |
| 435 | * WestminsterChimes: Quoted a few times in the score, most prominently the opening chords of Act Two. |
| 436 | * WideEyedIdealist: Anthony Hope sees evil only when it's being rubbed in his face (example: any interaction he has with the Beadle). Even then, he believes that good will win. |
| 437 | * WifeHusbandry: Judge Turpin attempts this in regards to Johanna. [[spoiler:It fails.]] |
| 438 | * WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: We are asked to accept that a serial killer can operate so openly from a single location for so long, racking up a kill count that's ''easily'' into double digits, before someone realizes that very few of Todd's customers are ever seen again after their appointments. However, it seems that the plan is only to dispose of visiting foreigners and other people who have no close acquaintances in the city (Mrs. Lovett specifically points out that [[spoiler: Pirelli]] isn't likely to have any relatives coming to look for him and cause trouble, whereas one customer brings his family along to his appointment, so Todd lets him live) which makes it slightly more believable. Plus the plot eventually unravels when the neighbours start complaining about the smell - aka burning human remains - coming from the bakehouse. |
| 439 | * WouldHurtAChild: After Todd kills Pirelli, Mrs. Lovett asks what she should do about Toby. He tells her to "send him up." |
| 440 | ** However, it never so much as occurs to him to kill a little girl who accompanies her father to the barbershop and watches him get a shave. More than likely, she reminds him too much of Johanna. |
| 441 | * WrongfullyCommitted: Johanna Barker gets involuntarily committed to Fogg's Asylum after her plan to elope with Anthony Hope gets discovered by her guardian Judge Turpin. Turpin wanted to marry Johanna himself, but learns of her elopement plans due to a tragically foolish act by Anthony which also spoils Sweeney Todd's plot to kill Turpin. She is markedly affected by the experience but is eventually rescued by Anthony, with Johanna herself shooting the asylum keeper. |
| 442 | [[/folder]] |
| 443 | |
| 444 | [[folder:Tropes specific to the original 1979 Broadway run and its replicas]] |
| 445 | * DoorClosesEnding: The original staging ends with Sweeney [[DoorSlamOfRage angrily slamming a door]] after he has walked through it. |
| 446 | * DrumrollPlease: Toby does this himself while presenting "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir". |
| 447 | * HellIsThatNoise: ''That damned factory whistle''. It sounds every time Sweeney kills somebody. |
| 448 | * HighPressureBlood: Very visible in the 1982 filmed release starring George Hearn. |
| 449 | * TheIgor: Toby has many of the hallmarks of this trope- he's a subservient, possibly developmentally delayed lad of uncertain age with a limp who refers to Pirelli as his "master" and wears the same clownish rags even after he switches employment to assisting Mrs. Lovett instead. |
| 450 | * LockedIntoStrangeness: Toby emerges from the shadows with white hair in the final scene as a symbol of the traumatized madness he's been driven to. |
| 451 | * LooksLikeCesare: Sweeney has had this going on [[https://bsp-static.playbill.com/dims4/default/09fc7a1/2147483647/crop/1127x634%2B0%2B114/resize/970x546/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpb-asset-replication.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff8%2F80%2Fde0ca37b4c5fa683cad6b01e346e%2Fgeorge-hearn.jpg ever since the original production]]. |
| 452 | * MeaningfulEcho: During "Poor Thing", a flashback shows Lucy opening up the window curtains in Sweeney's barbershop. [[spoiler: During Act II, the Beggar Woman opens up the curtains in the exact same fashion.]] A variation of this appears in the 2023 revival as well. |
| 453 | * NeverTrustATrailer: |
| 454 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dgdz-XifyU This commercial]], featuring George Hearn and Angela Lansbury, gives the impression that the show is foremost a rollicking black comedy with a kitschy horror vibe rather than the grim revenge tragedy it is. |
| 455 | ** Subverted with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90vBH847AD4 this commercial]], which sums up the darkness factor in 30 seconds. |
| 456 | * NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Len Cariou in the original production made no attempt at an English accent. Which actually helped sharpen the character's isolation from the rest of the cast, most of whom either were English or affecting FakeBrit accents. |
| 457 | ** Ironically, neither did Creator/EdmundLyndeck as Judge Turpin. |
| 458 | * OriginalCastPrecedent: |
| 459 | ** Mrs. Lovett’s trademark [[{{Odango}} twin bun hairstyle]], usually symbolically verging on DevilishHairHorns, which has persisted across a rather impressive number of very different-looking stagings. Broadly speaking, even if she doesn’t have that specific hairstyle, she can often be identified by having particularly crazy-looking hair in general, though still styled and put up in some way. |
| 460 | ** Sweeney spends a good portion of the show in a dingy white shirt, dark pants, and suspenders (braces, if you're in the UK), with something best described as a curtain haircut (a look so associated with him it extends even to his {{Expy}} Dooney Flint in the second season of {{Series/Schmigadoon}}). This (especially the outfit, if not the hairstyle) has also spread across productions. |
| 461 | ** The title character's OneLiner when he triumphantly holds out his razor is, according to the script: "My right arm is complete again!" So why is it usually performed and remembered as, "At last my arm is complete again"? Len Cariou of the original Broadway cast was left-handed (and so was his replacement, George Hearn). |
| 462 | * ShoutOut: Pirelli's appearance and behavior might be one to Figaro in Music/GioachinoRossini's ''Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville''. |
| 463 | ** Angela Lansbury once suggested Johanna's general look was inspired by Gainsborough's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkie_(painting) Pinkie]]. |
| 464 | * SilentCredits: In the 1982 live film of the Hearn/Lansbury tour, the credits are unsettlingly so. |
| 465 | [[/folder]] |
| 466 | |
| 467 | [[folder:Tropes specific to the 2005 Broadway revival]] |
| 468 | * ActorMusoShow: The John Doyle production of the show that ran on the West and Broadway in the early 2000s used this approach. |
| 469 | * AnachronismStew: It's anyone's guess when this production took place. The male characters except for Toby all wear fairly plain button-up business shirts and black ties, Johanna wears a plain white gown, and the Beggar Woman and Mrs Lovett wear all black. Toby wears institutional pajamas, and there are no sets except for a wall covered with Victorian knickknacks and a coffin that's also a counter and a table. |
| 470 | * BaldOfEvil: Michael Cerveris as Sweeney- though to be fair, this is only because Creator/MichaelCerveris already shaved his head and the production opted against using a wig on anyone but Creator/PattiLupone as Mrs. Lovett. |
| 471 | * CrosscastRole: Pirelli was played by a woman (within the framing device, the doctor overseeing Toby's case), but as a man. This was done to ensure there were enough female voices in the choruses and established something of a precedent in small-scale productions. |
| 472 | * FramingDevice: The general premise for this version is that Toby is now in an asylum, and the doctors, staff, and other patients are helping him work through his trauma by acting out what he's been through with him. |
| 473 | * StalkerWithACrush: Notably, this is the only major production to interpret Anthony as just as much of a dark obsessive as the rest of the cast- in particular by casting Benjamin Magnusson, who was visibly much older than Lauren Molina's Johanna. |
| 474 | * TheVamp: Mrs Lovett, reinterpreted as a seductress in torn stockings and a black bob haircut. |
| 475 | [[/folder]] |
| 476 | |
| 477 | [[folder:Tropes specific to the 2012 London revival]] |
| 478 | * FramingDevice: The workers in a bombed-out factory after the Blitz tell themselves the story of Sweeney Todd to entertain and scare each other on their break. |
| 479 | * PlayingAgainstType: Michael Ball, who played Sweeney, is best known for having created (in English) the role of hapless romantic lead Marius in ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' as a young man and graduating into playing a mix of comedic and romantic-drama roles later in life, but all of them using his trademark crooning tones. His Sweeney, on the other hand, is a snarling, bitter Cockney maniac who openly sobs during "Epiphany". |
| 480 | * DramaticDrop: In the 2012 London revival, Sweeney drops his razor in the climax when [[spoiler:he recognizes the beggar woman he killed was actually Lucy, his supposedly dead wife.]] |
| 481 | * SettingUpdate: Takes place in the 1940s instead of the 1840s. |
| 482 | [[/folder]] |
| 483 | |
| 484 | [[folder:Tropes specific to the 2023 Broadway revival]] |
| 485 | * AdaptationalNiceGuy: |
| 486 | ** Sweeney is still a vengeance-crazed mass murderer who will never be over the loss of his wife, but as played by Josh Groban, he is a ''much'' gentler and sadder figure who even seems to mildly return Mrs. Lovett's affections [[spoiler:until he finds out she concealed Lucy's survival from him]]. |
| 487 | ** Mrs. Lovett is much more genuinely affectionate toward Toby from the start. Even more noticeably, she seems to recall the late Lucy Barker with fondness and genuine sadness over what happened to her. [[spoiler:This leads to the impression that Mrs Lovett regards the Beggar Woman as a grotesque and unlovable SoullessShell that ''used to be'' Lucy, or a kind of CameBackWrong version of her, and that she ''really did think'' that because she can't stand to see her that way, neither could Sweeney. She's [[StealthPun dead wrong]].]] |
| 488 | * BeardOfEvil: Josh Groban kept his beard to play the mass-murdering Sweeney, as did Aaron Tveit, his replacement. |
| 489 | * BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted this time where Johanna is concerned. Spending several months in Fogg's asylum takes a toll on her, making her look gaunt, red-eyed, tired and chapped-lipped. |
| 490 | * BookEnds: At the beginning of the production, Sweeney is literally pulled out of his grave to sing the final verse of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"; during the finale [[spoiler:both he and Mrs. Lovett are again pulled from beneath the stage to join in the ballad's reprise, and as the show concludes the two clasp hands, share a glance and jump back into their graves -- and into Hell]]. |
| 491 | * TheComicallySerious: Sweeney gets a bit more of this treatment than in most productions. His dealings with Toby in particular were described by one critic as resembling "an awkward dad trying his best". |
| 492 | * DraggedOffToHell: [[spoiler:As the show ends, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett move to the back of the stage, clasp hands and jump through a trapdoor in the stage, implicitly down to Hell.]] |
| 493 | * GorgeousPeriodDress: And how! Unlike the original production, the characters all wear perfect period-accurate 1840s clothing. Each ensemble member even has their own unique costume design that's solely their own for the majority of the show[[note]]the female ensemble all briefly play inmates at Fogg's Asylum and two of the men also play police officers, with one more also playing the bird seller[[/note]], with the swings (understudies who cover multiple ensemble tracks) also wearing outfits that are never seen except for when they personally perform. |
| 494 | * HotterAndSexier: |
| 495 | ** When the show opened in March 2023, one of the recurring elements in the (generally positive) critical reviews was that this version of the show is much more sexually charged, especially in the much more mutual attraction between Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. Of course, it's not as though the show has ever ''lacked'' a sexual charge, but this one is considered notable for how much the audience shares in it. |
| 496 | ** In addition to his preexisting fandom, Music/JoshGroban gained a whole new fleet of admirers on social media for his performance as Sweeney, in a kind of meta AllGirlsWantBadBoys effect. A great number of fans who never thought twice about him before became very interested in the prospect of watching him sing while (pretending to) kill people. |
| 497 | * ItGetsEasier: A large part of this staging. Neither Sweeney or Mrs. Lovett are particularly insane compared to other versions, but it gets easier and easier to ignore their consciences in the pursuit of revenge and love and material comfort, respectively. |
| 498 | * IWantMyMommy: Creator/GatenMatarazzo's Toby, upon [[spoiler: being locked in the bakehouse and finding Beadle Bamford's body, took the scripted yells for [[ParentalSubstitute Mrs. Lovett]] to let him out a step further, crying out ''"Mummy! Mummy I'm scared!"'']] |
| 499 | * ParentalSubstitute: Especially evident in this production is Mrs. Lovett and Toby's pseudo-mother-son relationship. She genuinely seems to adore him and fusses over him when he comes with Pirelli to the shop, and he's just as devoted to her as always during "Not While I'm Around." [[spoiler: At the conclusion of the number, she realizes he's going to have to be killed, and silently cries while hugging him close.]] |
| 500 | * ReplacementGoldfish: For a different character than usual! Sweeney is [[TheMourningAfter just as fixated on revenging Lucy]] as in any other version, but is far more gentle and affectionate toward Mrs. Lovett than he is often depicted, and seems resigned toward eventually marrying and retiring to the seaside with her, which seems like a HopeSpot until one remembers ''this'' Mrs. Lovett is a pretty blonde (like Lucy was), probably around the same age Lucy would be... |
| 501 | * SelfHarm: Johanna's enough of a nervous wreck that her cuticles are picked bloody enough to be visibly red to the audience. She starts chewing her fingers after "Greenfinch and Linnet Bird", but stops herself. The idea was developed by her actress, Maria Bilbao. |
| 502 | * StrongFamilyResemblance: The 2023 Broadway revival also shows Johanna to resemble Sweeney himself, her biological father, in addition to the story constant of her resembling Lucy, her mother. They share many of the same nervous tics and anxious or despairing gestures, and the makeup used to suggest the toll Fogg’s Asylum takes on her beauty resembles the makeup used on the actor playing Sweeney [[spoiler:and notably not the makeup used on the actress playing her mother, Lucy, in her current state as the Beggar Woman]]. |
| 503 | * ThatManIsDead: Present with Sweeney, as always, but also [[spoiler:Mrs Lovett has this attitude toward Lucy/the Beggar Woman. Unlike in most versions, Mrs Lovett seems fond of Lucy when she describes her during "Poor Thing", and is sadder than usual as she recounts what happened to her. Contrast that with how she treats her in the present, and it puts her line about the Beggar Woman being "all that was left of her" in a different context- she's no longer her old friend Lucy, she's a SoullessShell.]] |
| 504 | * TheyLookLikeEveryoneElse: Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are both significantly more normal-looking people than they are typically presented as. |
| 505 | * WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Sweeney is portrayed as a perpetually exhausted and sad-eyed man who has no idea what to do with his life after he completes his mission- which is perhaps why in this version he seems quietly amenable to Mrs. Lovett's plans to run away to the seaside together. |
| 506 | * YoungerAndHipper: |
| 507 | ** Annaleigh Ashford was only 37 when the show opened, and seemed to be playing Mrs. Lovett as about that age, with the only thing done to make her look older being an inobtrusive silver streak off the temple in her blonde wig (which could easily still happen to someone in their late 30s). Averted with her replacement, Sutton Foster, who was 48 when cast as Lovett |
| 508 | ** Subverted with Josh Groban as Sweeney. While he was perceived by the fandom and critics as unusually youthful for the part, he turned 42 shortly after opening- making him ''[[OlderThanTheyLook three years older]]'' than Len Cariou was when he created the role. Also applies for his replacement, Aaron Tveit, who had recently turned 40 when cast as Sweeney, but whose longstanding image as a Broadway heartthrob caused people to say he was too young for the part. |
| 509 | [[/folder]] |
| 510 | |
| 511 | ---- |
| 512 | --> ''"There was a barber and his wife\ |
| 513 | And she was beautiful\ |
| 514 | A foolish barber and his wife;\ |
| 515 | She was his reason and his life\ |
| 516 | And she was beautiful\ |
| 517 | And she was virtuous\ |
| 518 | And he was...\ |
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