An article dated June 13, 1934 “Part of the Show,” which was written in response to Sweeney Todd and other productions, suggests how theatre producers engaged the audiences’ attention with various techniques to make sure that they kept following what went on on the stage, and therefore, eventually, to make sure return audiences. “Audiences are [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘theatre historiography’
January 10, 2008
Here comes the “Niagara of blood” [Tracing Sweeney Todd - part 5]
Charles Morgan wrote for New York Times an article “Melodrama as an art: a study in contrasts, Sweeney Todd and Mary Dugan as exponents of diverse styles,” on April 1, 1928, four years after the premiere of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. He compared and contrasted the two plays that shared a similarity of presenting criminals [...]
January 10, 2008
Blood + some laughs = that meat pie [Tracing Sweeney Todd - part 4]
A review, which also served as an ad of the show after the opening night described the eighty-year-old melodrama’s “motivating force was in all probability the success of Fashion. Sweeney Todd corresponds to the American piece in period. It turned out to be a flavorous old melodrama, which, as is the way with these old [...]
January 10, 2008
The Horror Thus Told, and Retold [Tracing Sweeney Todd - part 3]
Melodrama has come to be associated with “indulgence of strong emotionalism; moral polarization and schematization; extreme states of being, situations, actions; overt villainy, persecution of the good and final reward of virtue; inflated and extravagant expression; dark plottings, suspense, breathtaking peripety” (11-12), and Sweeney Todd legend embraced all of the criteria. It tells the story [...]
January 10, 2008
The Murderous Barber at Large [Tracing Sweeney Todd - part 2]
The original play about the murderer barber Sweeney Todd was written by George Dibdin Pitt in 1840’s, under the title of The String of Pearls, or The Fiend of Fleet Street. According to some sources, the tale of Sweeney Todd might have appeared first in a British penny dreadful called The People Periodical in 1846, [...]
January 10, 2008
When Villains Rule [Tracing Sweeney Todd - part 1]
Sweeney Todd and other murderous characters not only had lived in the Victorian tales, they also inhibited the English stage. England seems to be a place where tradition to narrate stories of hideous murderers has been cultivated and revived throughout centuries. Among the legendary notorious villains are, Jack the Ripper, Guy Fawkes, Maria Martin, and [...]
