If there is one thing that fervent film and musical theatre aficionados like me dread more than a seismic earthquake, or the uncontrolled melting of ice in the South Pole, or the repetitive intonation of the bone-chilling phrase “Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank”, is to see a botched film version of the best musical ever created by a human mind (and one of my own personal favorites), Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”. Since the time Tim Burton announced that he was a directing a film version with Johnny Depp in the lead role close to a year and a half ago, gossip, innuendo, a high level of anticipation, and large doses of bitterness and cynicism have flooded the blogosphere. From the casting to the production design to which songs were cut- everything about the movie has been yakked about by various theatre and movie bloggers and pundits. “Sweeney Todd” is currently being marketed as the movie to beat at the Oscars, so I am keeping an open, albeit very cautious, mind about it. I admire Tim Burton and really think Johnny Depp is a fascinatingly unique and talented actor, but Helena Bonham-Carter, in a role that Meryl Streep and Toni Collette were up for, that Angela Lansbury originated to great acclaim onstage? That is a coronary inducer if you ask me. Anyway, some short “Sweeney” film clips have tantalizingly made it to various Oscar blogs (check them out here), but my apprehension level right now as to whether the quality and power of the “Sweeney” movie will pass muster, is as high as that of someone about to go into their first colonics session.
On the theatrical front, the Broadway stagehands’ strike has been settled, so “August: Osage County” has resumed performances, with a re-scheduled opening night on December 4. I’ll be following the theatre blogs closely to see what New York audiences are saying about this sensational Chicago export, and will be writing about them in this blog as appropriate. The buzz before the strike was Tracy Letts definitely for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the show itself for the Tony Award for Best Play, and surprisingly (only because Deanna Dunagan, as Violet, the matriarch, was the one acclaimed in Chicago), Amy Morton, as the eldest daughter, as the one to beat for the Tony for Best Lead Actress in a Play.
Jay Raskolnikov’s theatre blog is always interesting reading for me. He has two very provocative posts from earlier this week on whether we have higher standards for quality in theatrical productions than other cities because we have so much of them; and also on overrated theater companies in Chicago. I agree with many of his points, and I do think that the Goodman Theatre is the Angelina Jolie of Chicago theaters, because both of them do ambitious things that look fabulous, but they also sometimes under-deliver. When they deliver though, they do so in a big, memorable way (remember the Angelina of “Gia”, and Girl, Interrupted?). I continue to support the Goodman, because for every tedious “Frank’s Home”, or messy “Massacre”, they have a glorious “King Lear”. I think there are more theaters in Chicago that are way more overrated than the Goodman, and Jay does mention the House Theater too (which I agree with). However, where’s Trap Door, Profiles, and Bailiwick in that same breath?
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