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THE SIZE OF A CHERRY

@caravaggiosbrushes / caravaggiosbrushes.tumblr.com

susan: 27 โœง she/her โœง queer โœง ita. artist, art historian, fanwriter. - patreon, prints ๐ŸŒŸ - commission sheet - support my art&writing with a coffee โ™ฅ - ao3
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"The Worst Pies in London" illustrates as well as any song in this book the second principle of my mantra: Content Dictates Form. Mrs. Lovett is not only a chatterbox, she is a glitteringly disorganized one. She switches moods mid-thought and thought mid-subject. She is cheery one moment, complaining the next, and can instantaneously alternate her attention between pie and customer. Her garrulousness causes her to seem irritating but harmless, which makes the eventual revelation of her villainy, for she is indeed the true villain of the piece, more surprising...The way to handle this was to compose the first half of the song as a seemingly incoherent monologue and then to repeat it with variations, the only line heard more than once being "The worst pies in London." When the audience hears that phrase the second time, the apparent formlessness of the song drops away and they feel at home. Finally, not rhyming the last word leaves Mrs. Lovett the unfocused character she seems to be.

Stephen Sondheim, Finishing the Hat

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me when. me when thereโ€™s no one left alive who knows the true identities of sweeney and the beggar woman and so at the end of the musical when johanna walks into a room and sees her parents lying dead, sheโ€™ll never know that they were her parents.

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Leitmotifs drive me insane, like I hear *repeated melody that has an association with a person, idea, or situation* and I go *tears up the fucking rug like a dog*

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