Playwriting in Song: “Reprise Types” in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd
Reprise pervades Sweeney’s score: every character recalls passages from earlier songs, altering music and lyrics according to the dramatic circumstances that bring him or her to recall an earlier tune. Analysis of reprise in musical theatre traditionally foregrounds the relationship between a song and its later recurrences. Yet in Sweeney Todd, many reprises bear striking similarities to each other—not in the music that they recall, but how recurring musical material functions within the formal, tonal, and motivic context of each new song. Seemingly disparate songs—in setting, dramatic situation, and emotional stake—can be linked when characters use the same “reprise type.” By studying the creative process behind Sweeney’s songs and numbers, as well as comparing publicly available recordings, I argue that close reading of the music-theatrical conventions at play within Sweeney’s reprises (1) informs the relationships between characters and (2) amplifies, supplements, or even contradicts the story unfolding on stage.
First, I compare four songs throughout the show in which either Anthony or Johanna recalls an earlier song. Both “Ah, Miss” and “Kiss Me!” oscillate between two sections before blossoming into lyrical reprises that achieve tonal closure; by contrast, both “Pretty Women” and “City on Fire!” are disrupted by reprises. Next, I examine the two songs that Todd and Mrs. Lovett sing in the Act I finale, “Epiphany” and “A Little Priest.” Opposing forces seemingly guide this scene from all sides, but each song begins similarly, building up to a “corrected” reprise of one of the show’s first songs.