Swing Your Razor Wide, Sweeney
by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 22, 2007
I was half-convinced I’d waken.
Satisfied enough to dream you,
happily I was mistaken ….
– “Johanna” / Sweeney Todd
My obsession with Sweeney Todd has been going on for close to 25 years now … trumped only by my obsession with the wondrous Stephen Sondheim himself which started when I was barely 13.
I can still remember that moment that froze me, made me stand still in the middle of that black and white checkered floor in my parent’s basement, where I’d lip-synced my way through the Rogers and Hammerstein canon. I’d just gotten the album “Hooked on Broadway” (Part of the successful “Hooked On …” series) and was listening to it for the first time. There was a Sondheim/Gershwin tribute and I was a Gershwin fan ever since I heard Rhapsody in Blue so was paying particular attention. Who this Sondheim fella was, I hadn’t a clue. Oh, but I was about to find out … and nothing would ever be the same again.
