Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Mar 14, 2024, 02:38 PM[...] it's not that I consider Prince's staging untouchable in principle — only that I've yet to see a better one anywhere.One of the productions of Sweeney that I've seen (a college production) was heavily influenced by the original Prince staging (it had the barber shop on top of the pie shop that spun around on wheels to become the parlor). Another one--Opera Colorado--took the staging in a completely different direction, and it's my most memorable Sweeney. There was a platform over part of the stage where the chorus mostly stayed. There was a large framed image on that wall of a Dürer-like food chain starting with the krill and ending up with the Big Fish several steps later, representative of how everyone gets preyed on by the higher-ups. I thought it was an effective way of not showing the beehive. The action took place all over the stage, which was an in-the-round space with part of the seating blocked off. the barber chair was center stage, and when something (bodies, books, etc.) needed to go down the chair-chute, it got dropped from the ceiling at another part of the stage that represented the bakehouse. The parlor was in a different part of the stage. I'm sure the reason that they went off from Prince's original staging was due to the limitations of the not-quite-in-the-round space. It was an amazing production.
Quote from: David Gordon, TheatermaniaAt the time of closing, it will have played 28 preview performances and 407 regular performances.