Sweeney Todd was a clear Tony and Drama Desk winner as outstanding musical for the 1978-79 season and received additional accolades in an intimate revival a decade later off-Broadway.
At a preview of the original Broadway version I was overwhelmed by director Harold Prince's startling effects. The somber tone was set as a gaunt organist, dressed like a chimney sweep, came slinking in to his keyboard and sounded his gloomy, foreboding chords. A girdered ramp bridged the stage overhead and menaced everything beneath it as it ground and rotated to different positions. We were then treated to blood-spurting throat slittings, accompanied by screeching blasts from factory whistles. Next, Stephen Sondheim gave us a patter song, in the manner of a W. S. Gilbert gone mad, celebrating cannibalism, as Angela Lansbury described the wide selection of her human meat pies. In that preview an elderly judge stripped to the waist in a frenzy of self-flagellation to appease his lust for Sweeney Todd's young daughter. I left the theater stirred by what I had seen but doubtful that the critics or the public would accept it. How foolish of me to think they were any different.
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“Assassins is about how society interprets the American Dream, marginalizes outsiders and rewrites and sanitizes its collective history. "Something Just Broke" is a major distraction and plays like an afterthought, shoe horned simply to appease. The song breaks the dramatic fluidity and obstructs the overall pacing and climactic arc which derails the very intent and momentum that makes this work so compelling...”
- Mark Bakalor
“I found [the Sondheim Celebration's Company] to be completely delightful. Almost all of the numbers excited and energized me, and most of the scenes were about as pitch-perfect as you can get. I just sat there with a big smile on my face the whole show.
Which is not to say that it is perfect...”
- popcornonmyknees
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