Today we experimented with different ways to show the
murders within the show and how we can create the illusion of blood.
We recognised that we have 6 deaths within Sweeney Todd that
are seen by the audience: Pirelli’s, Ollie Marshall’s (citizen) Turpin’s,
Beggar Woman’s/Lucy’s, Mrs Lovett’s and Todd’s. We wanted to be sure that every
death would be somewhat different so that the audience are always impressed by
each one. This is far more creative way to approach this rather than them all
dying the same way.
With Pirelli’s death, we already have him being choked which
meant we didn’t need to worry about anything like blood and for Mrs Lovett’s
death, we were considering during her dance with Todd prior to her demise, she
gets spun which and Todd lowers her down as if he were to kiss her but then
Todd snaps her neck instead. Although this isn’t true to the original story, we
felt artistically it looks more effective to end her life so suddenly and it’s
a lot more realistic as trying to represent her burning in a furnace would look
too cheesy.
This left us with 4 deaths left to deal with. We wanted all
of them to be different as we felt that it would make them all independent of
each other and not just the same thing again and again. Also, we could show the
magnitude of the kills with different ways of killing the characters rather
than the same thing every time which suggests the deaths are all equal. We
thought instead of going obvious with fake liquid blood, we should go for
something more outside of the box yet still conventional. This is where the
idea of using red material came into play. Not only is it easy to manoeuvre but
it also looks impressive as well.
We thought for Ollie M’s death, as it’s not major, it should
be quick and simple. We came up with the idea of him sitting in the chair, it
being spun around and the white dust sheet around him is lifted and the
underside is red. Ollie would then exit and the chair would swivel back round
empty. For Lucy’s death, we have Taylor holding the ball of material in her hand
and when Todd swipes his knife at her she reaches for her throat and lets the
ball unfurl and drape from her hands as if the blood were dripping from her
throat; this is very suitable as this death is very quick and in-the-moment.
For Judge Turpin’s death, we need it to be major compared to
the other kills as this is the man Todd has wanted to murder for years. We
thought about having a physical theatre piece for this part but we felt that it
might be too complicated; just because it needs to be a very bold moment, it
doesn’t mean we need to go fully abstract with it. However, our final idea we
have Todd stab me, followed by 2 other cast members pulling red material from
my chest (which they already have balled up in their hands) and then Todd
slowly pulling out the last strand of blood out from my neck.
For Todd’s death, we thought we could have a very simple
slitting of the throat from Toby but we then thought that any young child
wouldn’t be so suave about murder and after all his thoughts of Todd being a
demon, he’d surely want to stab him several times to be sure he’s dead. So,
with this, we have James stab him in the throat once and then run around him
stabbing him more and more. We discussed having fake liquid blood for this
scene as this would be effective to show how much blood Todd has inside of him
due to his bloodlust on his hunt for Turpin.
To finish, Tom and Rob sang through Johanna (Reprise) which
sounded brilliant. The song is lovely and simple so we definitely now won’t add
movement to it; we’ll simply have the pair stood singing.
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