"If only angels could prevail,
we'd be the way we were."
--from the "Johanna Triplet"
in "Sweeney Todd. Music
and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
The day I first saw "Sweeney Todd--March 1, 1979-- was one of the happiest and most grievous periods of my life. You see, I had bought the tickets in advance, and by the time I went to see the show, my mother, who had not been feeling well, since Fall of 1978, was hospitalized with inoperable lung cancer, and the outcome could only be fatal. By the time I was scheduled to travel into the city--I was still living in Jersey, with my parents--my mother was hospitalized, and in the throes of illness. I wanted to give up the ticket, and not go, but it was she who urged me. And so I went.
Walking up that huge escalator of the Gershwin (then Uris) Theatre, where the auditorium was, I wondered what bizarre new world, I was walking into. I soon found out, when I beheld a macabre looking stage, a grave hole center, an organ off to my left, and a huge drawing of the British Beehive--symbol of the class system-- on a huge sheet, covering most of the center of the stage. A few minutes before showtime, an actor comes out, and starts some things whirling. An organist, straight out of a horror film, went to his spot, and began playing an ominous funeral dirge. Most of the audience, including myself, did not know what they were in for, so, when the factory whistle went off, many jumped in their seats. At that point, the beehive fell, revealing the company, who began "The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd." When the chorus got to "Swing your razor high, Sweeney..." the hackles on my neck rose. This sounded like opera, and very gripping opera, indeed. I thought it sounded like the "Dies Irae."
And so began my relationship with "Sweeney Todd." I returned to Jersey, and the hospital, telling my mother how captivated I was by it. I knew I had to see it again, but it was a bad time. Not only was my mother failing, but so was Baby Mouse, our fourteen-year-old poodle, who had to be put down, around the same time. When it was done, and we visited my mother, it was like she knew. We were all upset by the passing of this beloved creature. But worst was to come.
My mother passed on April 2, 1979. It was one of the worst times of my life. I was barely out of college, not yet on my feet, and what did the future hold for me? Not much, I thought.
When did I start revisiting "Sweeney Todd?" I cannot tell you, but once I did, I could not stop. It was like a catharsis to help me deal with my mother's death, especially in the Epiphany" number.
That was then. This is now.
I still associate this show, and will forever, with the period surrounding my mother's death. But where before I got catharsis from seeing someone treated so unjustly wreaking vengeance--not realizing, till later, I was watching the musical depiction of a serial killer!!!!!!!--now my reaction is tearful and muted. And it happens in the "Johanna Triplet," when Sweeney Todd sings the lyrics "If only angels could prevail, we'd be the way we were." Every time I hear this lyric, the tears come, and I long for a time when things, including myself, were more innocent, my mother was not sick, and things would have gone on, as they were.
Of course they could not, even under the best of circumstances. And here I am, four decades later, remembering a musical that, in a phrase, all I had gone through then, all that I longed for. And sometimes still do.
Who knew, when I walked into "Sweeney Todd" that first time, what the impact would be?????????????
I remember that impact, and thank Sondheim for it, forty years later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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