If you couldn't figure out from the title, this post is about Sweeney Todd. I saw the show by the Blue Water Theater Company last night and I can't seem to get it out of my head. It was just so disturbing. I went in there as a completely naive idiot. I mean, I knew it was dark, but I had no idea what it was about. Apparently, I live under a rock.
I knew that people were going to die. I mean, Sweeney Todd is a barber. With razors. And a temper. That's not exactly hard to figure out. But imagine my surprise when Mrs. Lovett (played by one of the sweetest girls I know) has the idea to dispose of the body by baking it into a pie. The way they talk about it so... lightly made me feel sick to my stomach. I already have problems eating ribs and other meat that is on the bone because it makes me feel queasy. It's too close to the animal for me, and I feel really guilty. But people? That was too much for me to stomach.
Then we get to the second act. The citizens of London are going crazy for these pies. Their greedy and ravenous hunger for human flesh is enough to make anyone sick. Cannibalism, it turns out, makes people go insane. There are far too many scenes of the ensemble losing their minds. They shake uncontrollably and have murderous looks in their eyes. The scenes were way over-acted, and seeing people that I know behave in such a way was unsettling.
You can probably guess that there wasn't a happy ending. Sweeney Todd discovers that the wife he came back for wasn't actually dead like Mrs. Lovett said, but was the insane beggar woman whose throat he had just slit. He then proceeds to shove Mrs. Lovett in the oven. Then Toby, the young and, until this point, innocent boy who helped Mrs. Lovett in her shop, figures out what had happened and kills Sweeney Todd himself. And then three hours of sheer torture is over.
I'm not saying that the show itself was bad. The acting was incredible and extremely believable, which made the horror and darkness of the emotions unbearable to sit through. The actors were all in high school and middle school, which made it ten times worse. Seeing people I know act so blood-thirsty and bizarre really upset me. Sweeney Todd is just not an appropriate show for teens. I don't know HOW anyone could be apart of that show and not be affected by it for the rest of their life.
Especially the actor who played Toby. He's a current seventh grader and he truly did a wonderful job acting. However, he lost it when he discovered the secret to the pies, and the horror led him to kill Sweeney Todd. The loss of innocence and the disappearance of the twinkle in his eye seemed so real. And that, my friends, is why I have been unable to get to sleep.
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