SWEENEY TODD Question

[Phan#24601]

Posted: 7/19/14 at 8:45pm

So, during "God, That's Good!" does anyone know why the chorus sings these two huge messes of sentences:

"God, that's good! That is de-have you-licious
Ever tasted smell such oh my God
What more that's pies good!"
And
"God that's good! That is de-have you-licious
Ever tasted smell such oh my God
What perfect more that's pies such flavor
God that's good!"

My sister says that the customers are starting to get so drunk off ale that they can no longer form logical sentences, which makes sense...maybe Sondheim just wanted to torture anyone who tried to sing his chorus parts. Tell me what you think!

[lovebwy]

Posted: 7/19/14 at 9:08pm

I always assumed (though never consciously until now) that we're hearing what's meant to be snippets of conversation for the large crowds throughout the day at the pie shop.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 7/19/14 at 9:21pm

Sondheim wrote that Sweeney gave him the ability to write choral numbers where not every member of the ensemble expressed the exact same thought (he brought up how there was surely one gay sailer who would not think "there is nothing like a dame" in SOUTH PACIFIC), which is shown in the miracle elixir number. Because the point of God That's Good is to show how everybody loves the meat pies, he wrote wists of conversations (like in "Sounds While Selling" from SHE LOVES ME). I assume he didn't want to write 5 different melody lines for each conversation (isn't the number complicated enough?) and instead wrote what we would hear if we were in the shop, only brief wists of their conversation, heightened by the entire ensemble singing.

Updated On: 7/20/14 at 09:21 PM

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 7/19/14 at 11:57pm

It's actually quite a clever passage. I had never noticed before now.

[mjohnson2]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 12:32am

Wow, Sally, that's some seriously cool information.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 5:58am

Yes, Sally, and very well explained. Thank you.

[beilis32]

Posted: 7/21/14 at 12:27am

I always thought it was that the pies were so good that people were hypnotized almost by them, and so obsessed with getting these amazing pies that they can think of nothing else, at the expense of forming coherent sentences. Kind of weird, but what about Sweeney is not weird? Ha!

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 7/21/14 at 1:20am

There's probably a solid logical/cerebral reason for it not making sense, but I love the emotional reason, that this massive mob of people is being driven so wild by these meat pies, possibly the only really good-tasting thing they've eaten in months, that their singing rises as this amorphous blob of crazed joy. I think that's probably my favorite moment in the entire show, particularly the original production with the huge orchestra that really gets slamming at the end of the number. The overwhelming, darkly comic mania for human-flesh pie always gives me goosebumps.

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 7/21/14 at 8:18am

bits of conversation... maybe the words the customers can gasp out between bites of incredibly great food?