August 24, 2023
The highlight of the week was seeing Sweeney Todd. This is one my all-time favorite musicals. I remember seeing a recorded version of the play with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn back in the 80s, I will never forget when they sang “A Little Priest” and realized this was musical was much darker than I thought it was. I was familiar with some of the songs including “Not while I’m around” and “Pretty Women” and had no idea of the context.
While on my flight to NYC, I received an email indicating that Annaleigh Ashford wasn’t going to be in Thursday night’s production. I learned a long time ago, to selecting shows based on what I wanted to see as opposed to the leading starts who was in them. You never know when you show up if the you are going to see be an understudy. I wanted to see this show, but having Josh Groban star in it made it even better. I was glad to see he would be in the production.
Overall, the night was a walk down memory lane. Back in the 80s, I did a project in the Hotel Edison which was next door to the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. Back then it wasn’t nearly as nice as it is today. The Cafe Edison restaurant that was in the hotel (known as the Polish Deli) had closed years ago and they opened up the Bond 45 restaurant. The story behind Bond 45 was that the restaurant ordinally opened int he the space where the Bond Clothing store occupied in Times Square. The restaurant moved to the Hotel Edison.
In high school, I worked for a Bond Clothing store in my hometown mall. The iconic store in Times Square had closed years before but the old timers all talked about it. I thought they would at least have pictures or references to the store but I didn’t see any but it was next door to the Lunt Fontanne theater which meant I didn’t have to worry about being late.
As the lights went down, the crowed roared. I don’t remember seeing a play where people were this excited when the lights went down. The crowd seemed very energetic. I loved every minute of the play which was performed the way it was originally intended. Josh Groban and Annaleigh’s understudy delivered amazing performances but I was really surprised by Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things who played Tobias. I was really impressed at how well he could sing and act.
On the way back to the hotel, Sophon commented that he thought it was a lot funnier than what he expected. I realized that he didn’t see the original play, but he had seen Tim Burton’s movie. The play had always been reviewed as a dark musical comedy, the movie was a lot darker.
Recent Comments