It’s been a busy week – not only did I see Sweeney Todd again, (just as bloody, just as good), watch an open dress of Theresa Rebeck’s OUR HOUSE (vitriolic sendup of reality TV, pools of blood, writer-strike humor), have teleconferences with almost all the confirmed Convergence participants, and just finish 3 days of LYDIA tech, but I managed to overhear this conversation in the elevator, not five minutes ago:

Woman: My mother always wanted me to marry a cowboy, and I said, hell no.
Man: I’m not a cowboy?
Woman: Well, you do fix the fence sometimes. You’re sort of a cowboy.
Man: I could be a cowboy.
Woman: You do have those outfits. (To her companion) He has some cowboy outfits.

But back to what’s really important, which is the Sweeney Todd movie – I went to see it again on Tuesday despite the impending tech and my unfinished rewrite. I had Phil’s observation in mind that it was too clean of a London for him, and it certainly is a very clean propscape. Every object that’s introduced is used. Every reference is followed up on. It’s a spare staging.

It’s like a play in that way, and I think it’s Burton’s homage both to the material’s theatrical origins and to the single-minded focus of Sweeney’s mind. There may be other things in his world, but he doesn’t see them. And Sondheim approves – ArtsJournal led me to a piece in the Lebrecht Weekly where the composer said “This (ST) is the first musical that has ever transferred successfully to the screen.”

In conclusion, January 12 is my mother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mom.