Whoa damn. I may be humming "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" for the next, oh, month.


The cast is thusly:
KS: Kindred Spirit. A lovely girl, if a trifle self-absorbed.
WEG: Wide-Eyed Girl. Plays up her naivite at every opportunity.
OK: Other Kathleen, who shares my name but does not actually go by it, therefore is a little less confusing than one might think.

We set out at 4:30, KS fuming the whole way because WEG and OK had been late to the car despite repeated pleadings to be on time. I nabbed shotgun and sang along to the Sweeney Todd movie soundtrack the whole way there, pausing occasionally to discuss Discworld, instruments, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, the probability that they are gay for each other and the hotness of a hypothetical threesome, Doctor Who and the relative hotness of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant, and other topics that naturally come up when you get four geeky girls in the same car for an hour or so. We also (being four hot girls in a tiny little red sports car) got leered at by every single car that passed us. WEG asked, wide-eyed as usual, why that guy had stuck his head out of the passenger window and whistled.

No, she's not always serious. But anyway. KS then turned into LA, and things got interesting.

Apparently KS, much like myself, gets panicky when she takes wrong turns. LA being what it is, there were several quick lane changes, girls screaming at each other, a shriek or two of pure panic, and eventually successful parking in the theater parking lot. Success!

We tromped around in search of a resteraunt, and eventually ended up outside an Italian resteraunt that looked awfully posh, but the prices seemed good; $10.50 for salmon. My wallet screamed in agony and withered, but KS and I nodded at each other, and convinced WEG and OK that it would be a yummy place to eat at. Which indeed it was, but when the menus came, we realized that we had been looking at the lunch menu. My wallet screamed again and died so hard it wasted three regenerations. However! I had some lovely spinach and ricatto tortillini, as well as lovely lovely bread fresh out of the oven with a tasty spinach and pesto dip. I felt so rich and pampered, and I did try not to realize just how broke I'd be. Ah well.

Getting to the theater had a couple of side trips (including Unexpected Hot Guy from Proudian and my being briefly hypnotized by a fountain), but we made it in plenty of time, went in, sat down (nosebleed section; not actually the last row in the highest balcony, but pretty damned close), chattered, and waited for the curtain to go up. And once it did...oh my.

The recent production of Sweeney Todd does something rather interesting. It's a ten-person cast: Sweeney, Mrs. Lovett, Toby, the Beggar Woman, the Judge, the Beadle, Johanna, Anthony, Perilli, and Jonas Fogg. Apart from the light techs,, absolutely no one else is involved in making the musical work. The actors perform triple duty as actors, their own orchestra, and their own stage crew as well. I don't believe anyone is ever offstage for more than a minute or so, and then it's only when it is dramatically required (for example, when Mrs. Lovett locks Toby in the bakehouse). When an actor (Mrs. Lovett, for example) is not actually onstage as Mrs. Lovett, she is playing in the orchestra, specifically percussion, the glockenspiel, and once or twice a tuba. It's a truly incredible production.

So there's ten people playing, acting, and moving set pieces around on a tiny, tiny stage. It's maybe a hundred feet by a hundred. At the height of the action, it's a total madhouse, people doing everything at once; I can't imagine how many rehersals it took to get it right. No one is ever offstage for more than a minute. Most of the time all ten actors are onstage getting in each other's way. No character is played as particularly sane; Johanna especially is played as far more wrong in the head then I'm used to seeing her portrayed. It's a creepy production, emphasising the sheer insanity of the characters and the plot. No one's sane, it says. Everyone has the edge of madness within them, and it's closer than you think.

I had a few issues with the production, namely Johanna's movements (very sharp and eccentric; a brave acting choice but one I'm not sure I agree with) and Mrs. Lovett's stockings (seriously, WTF). Also, being in the nosebleed section, Mrs. Lovett's cleavage was... almost an eleventh character in the second act. The Beadle was strangely hot for a creepy man. He looked rather like a very cultivated Mafia enforcer. Exactly my mental image of Johnny Marcone, actually. I was pleased with him. Everyone sang beautifully, it was properly creepy and fun, a wonderful show overall.

My mention of the Beadle as Johnny Marcone on the way out prompted KS to start waxing rhapsodic about Storm Front, which she has just begun to read. We flailed at each other, and I told her to read faster, because Thomas wasn't there yet and because he's awesome. She thinks Murphy is kickass. She is absolutely correct. Anyway. KS and I babbled at each other all the way back about the Dresden Files, Juno, the production, Anthony's stalkerish tendencies, Johanna's obvious mental illness, books she'd read, books I'd read, violin-playing making boys hot, WEG's desire to marry Toby and have three kids, OK's curious desire to keep Judge Turpin on a leash, things like that, all to the soundtrack of Juno, which is delightfully eccentric.

All in all, a marvellous evening. But now I have no money. Woe.

Worth it.