Skip to content

So, Where’d The Line About Splitting Muff Go?

Posted in Uncategorized

Thanks to Brynn Paulin‘s husband, bless his awesome, awesome soul, I found myself last night squashed into a packed theatre beside Cheryl Sterling, Bronwyn Green and Brynn, watching Sweeney Todd two weeks before it hits the big screen.

I must, at this point, explain that this will not be a fair and objective review. This review will be handled by rabid Sondheim and Sweeney fan Jennifer “Green Bitch And Critical Bird” Armintrout, and not by a normal, sane human being who saw a movie.

[insert fire truck noises and running around the room in an endless loop]. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. After all the horror I experienced reading about the production of the movie– rumors that ranged everywhere from “they’re cutting the ballad” to “that dude from Oingo Boingo that Tim Burton likes so much is completely redoing the orchestrations”– I could not be more relieved at the end product.

First of all, yes. They did cut the ballad. Or, more accurately, they cut the lyrics. The music is still very much there, interspersed throughout the movie. Some other cuts they made, that, if I had known of them before going to the movie would have enraged me, were most of the beggar woman’s “Alms” refrains, “Kiss Me,” and a huge chunk of the Wigmaker Sequence, which basically boiled down to Sweeney telling Anthony to go pretend to be a wigmaker, which he does. A few lines and lyrics were changed here and there, and strangely the harmony and melody to the choruses of “A Little Priest” is changed up, but it all WORKS. It makes no sense at all, but the leads are clearly non-singers, the cuts made should be considered heresy, and the blood is orangey and fake. BUT IT WORKS.

Please, if you’re avoiding seeing this because you love the play, please, go and see it anyway. It truly was a worthy adaptation.

Did you enjoy this post?

Trout Nation content is always free, but you can help keep things going by making a small donation via Ko-fi!

Or, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Here for the first time because you’re in quarantine and someone on Reddit recommended my Fifty Shades of Grey recaps? Welcome! Consider checking out my own take on the Billionaire BDSM genre, The Boss. Find it on AmazonB&NSmashwords, iBooks, and Radish!

3 Comments

  1. I was gonna ask you about splitting the muff…

    I wanna go see it again. Righ now!!!

    December 13, 2007
    |Reply
  2. Can I mention you were so happy that you were skipping afterward?

    December 14, 2007
    |Reply
  3. Finally, an unbiased review that did not wax eloquent about Johnny Depp's tush! LOL!

    Glad you and the BBC had a good time.

    And was the Green-haired Goddess really skipping?

    December 17, 2007
    |Reply

Leave a Reply to Bronwyn's Blog Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *