Zora Likes Sweeney Todd - The Rev-Engine

Astronomical dramatization occurs in Sweeney Todd ("At last my arm is complete again."). As the story moves forward, inexorably, it builds to a stasis of general purpose. This happens at the end of act one and beginning of act two. We are there, operating in a perfectly functioning engine. Mr. Todd, treading water until the return of his condemned man, is channelling his rage by providing Mrs. Lovett with the meat for her pies. He is a great barber, shaver, tooth-extractor, following in the operatic footsteps of figaro. The engine that runs his life is revenge. His energy and skills focus upon his purpose and we experience how great it is to have a quest. Is there no stronger quest than revenge? Establish the quest. It could be a horrible one but it gives purpose to our lives...often containing the seeds of its own destruction making it perfect for a night at theater. Justice runs through the story without legal intervention. Perhaps the judge deserves to die, but then, so too dies Todd after killing the object of his drive. "If only angels could prevail we'd be the way we were"... but no. We're having too much fun and we, the passive observers of the audience, can walk out with our guilty pleasures knowing that the workers, the creative artists, serve us a higher justice. And while Mr. Sondheim may have been completely immersed in the beauty of the creation, Mr. Prince pulled it out, into a Dickensian world that reduces everything into a state of desparation. There is a collaboration here. There is also the dynamic of the story which builds slowly and achieves that beautiful middle ground... I've felt that seeming stasis arrival in Hamlet... I have to consider why and offer the reason another time. So the double sided double album breakdown of the work allows for the overlap between act one and act two on side three. The stasis of functionality occurs there, in the 1980 LP. Also the tone of Len Cariou is definitive. I don't think it is worth going anywhere else with the performance without simply writing another piece. Just sing and speak it with the tone and modulations of Mr. Cariou. I suppose Ms. Lansbury should be acknowledged too for her professionalism and pitch-perfect accuracy throughout. The pieces fall in place from beginning to end. It seems like a good idea to write dramatic musical theater ... but did it ever happen again? I don't think it was from Sondheim if it did.