I'VE BEEN THINKING FLOWERS

Hundreds, possibly thousands of essays and chapters have been written on the subject of Stephen Sondheim's 'Sweeney Todd' and quite rightly so as it is one of the most perfect musicals ever written for the stage, supremely executed (pun intended) in both words and music.

There are simply too many highlights throughout the blood-soaked melodrama for me to single out, however there is one fleeting moment of such unusual and fragile beauty that it always breaks my heart when I hear it.

Given the ghoulish context of the scene in which this 'blink and you'll miss it' detail is included, you might think it strange that I should refer to it as being beautiful in any regard but such is the genius of Sondheim that he often manages to find these moments of human nature where beauty and horror can express themselves at the same time with no apparent conflict of interest.

In Act One's 'Wait', the wronged barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd, is plotting his violent revenge against Judge Turpin whilst being urged in a sinister, uneasy lullaby melody to 'Wait' by the sympathetic Mrs Lovett (his former landlady) to patiently bide his time.

Easy now
Hush, love, hush
Don't distress yourself
What's your rush?
Keep your thoughts
Nice and lush
Wait

Lovett's maternal instincts reveal themselves at several points in 'Todd', firstly toward Sweeney himself with 'Wait' and secondly toward her young boy helper, Toby, in Act Two's 'Not While I'm Around'. For the apparently childless Lovett, she assumes a hybrid of roles toward the demon barber throughout the piece, including business partner, wife, mother and criminal accomplice. What drives Lovett's motivation to help the murderous Todd? Could it be something as simple as sharing a domestic bliss with Sweeney and improving their lives to make some home improvements and afford some of the nicer things in life? Considering that the musical deals with the social economic inequality between the classes during the dehumanising aspects of the advancing industrial revolution of Victorian England, it makes sense to see their shared desire to claw back some justice for their poor circumstances as a form of karmic recompense.

The microcosm of Todd and Lovett's plans reflect a wider discontent in London's underclass and is another reason why Sondheim's masterpiece is a total art work in its examination of both its characters and society at large in much the same way that Beaumarchais's play and Mozart's opera of 'The Marriage Of Figaro' managed to achieve in the 18th century.

Lovett's aspiration to improve the perpetual gloom of her dank, run down property in Fleet Street is subtly alluded to in her mentioning of acquiring flowers to 'brighten up the room'.

I've been thinking, flowers-
Maybe daisies-
To brighten up the room.
Don't you think some flowers,
Pretty daisies,
Might relieve the gloom?
Ah, wait, love, wait.

The plain, humble way Mrs. Lovett sings these lines reminds me of a slither of pale sunshine finding its way through a gap in thick, heavy curtains where it momentarily alleviates the darkness of the place. It foreshadows her later song 'By The Sea' in Act Two where she expresses wider ambitions for her and Mr Todd's life together inspired by their combined success with their co-joined barber/pie shop businesses.

What kills me (pun intended again) with this miniature fragment in 'Wait' is the sheer modesty of her suggestion. In lesser hands, her motivations would be far more greedy and materialistic resulting in a more overt villainous characterisation for Mrs. Lovett. The modesty of her choice of flowers is also heartbreaking somehow. We're not talking the more ostentatious Parma Violets such as she might find at the flower stand in Covent Garden where Eliza Doolittle worked selling flowers to the 'opera crowds' in Lerner and Lowe's 'My Fair Lady'.

And just to make the delicacy of this brief reference to domestic improvements even sweeter, she ends 'Wait' with the lines -

Gillyflowers, maybe,
'Stead of daisies...
I don't know, though...
What do you think?

Gillyflowers, I'd say. 
Nothing like a nice bowl of gillies.

There's just something delicious about a character as grotesque as Mrs Lovett be so desiring of this unassuming beauty in her life.

In Sondheim's 'Sweeney' even monsters are allowed to have such tender human desires at times. Just another reason that makes 'Todd' one of the great masterpieces of the 20th Century.