“I was half convinced I’d waken, satisfied enough to dream you…”

One of my favorite songs of Sweeney Todd is “Johanna,” a song sung not by Sweeney but by Anthony, the “romantic” lead of the show (if there is such a thing in Sweeney Todd). In the song, Anthony sings of the splendors of the girl he sees in the window, a girl trapped like a bird in a cage. It’s a beautiful number when sung well; it has been a privilege enjoying Ryan Chu’s performance each night. “Johanna” is yet another Sondheimesque homage to previous musicals–think “Maria,” from West Side Story. In his rapturous proclamation of Johanna’s beauty, Anthony wonders of the reality of what he is seeing…

I was half convinced I’d waken
satisfied enough to dream you…

I’m writing this post on a Monday after our first weekend of shows in front of live audiences. The last two weeks have been a frenzy. Rehearsing until late in the night, patiently working through tech cues and stage transitions, and transitioning from rehearsal tracks to a live pit orchestra is taxing. I’ve had little time to write. But it is Monday now. I have no rehearsal this evening, and I won’t until this Thursday, a final cue-to-cue rehearsal with the entire cast, our last rehearsal before our last weekend of shows. I am only now finding the space to put into words the way that I am feeling about the experience of returning to the stage in such a magnificent show. Anthony says it well. The last two months have felt like a dream. If I were to wake up at this very moment to discover as much, I would wake up happy and satisfied. The conclusion to Anthony’s lyric captures the joy of the moment… happily I was mistaken. This hasn’t been a dream. The last two months have been a great gift, something I will cherish the rest of my life.

Truth be told, I can’t begin to capture in words the feeling of this last weekend. There is something reductive about the very thought. It’s one of the reasons I hate videos of live productions. There is nothing that can capture the magical energy of live theatre–no words, no pictures, no recordings. Each night the rehearsed regularity of lines and lyrics prepared over months gives way to the unexpected. In a complicated show like Sweeney Todd, those unexpected things require actors to adapt on the fly. A razor rigged for throat slitting falls down the slide along with one of Sweeney’s victims. An audience member has a medical emergency, prompting the show to stop mid-scene. An actor sings a terribly difficult, grotesque song about his character’s lust for a young girl, and the audience can’t decide if it should clap or not. An oven door gets stuck because Sweeney closed it with too much violence. Because of the months of labor together, actors learn to do what they have prepared to do, to act and react to the unexpected, and to tell a story that is received well by an audience rooting for them all the way.

A week from the end of the show, I am excited about our final two performances, two more chances to share the stage with actors, pit musicians, and tech crew who have also become my friends. Whether young or old, I look up to these men and women. The tangible remnants of this show–costumes soaked in stage blood, leftovers from Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, Pirelli’s bottles of “inkpiss”–will soon disappear. I am hopeful that the bonds forged by our experience together will be just as tangible as what will become part of our shared memory. Two more shows! Join us!