Skyler Schlenker: My name is Skyler and I'm playing Sweeney Todd.
Alice Lind: My name is Alice and I'm playing Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
Aaron Cain: Skyler, let me start with you. Are you familiar with your namesake, Schuyler Chapin, and the story surrounding him and Sweeney Todd?
Skyler Schlenker: I am not!
Aaron Cain: Supposedly—and I'm not sure if this really happened—but when the first Broadway production of Sweeney Todd had just opened, theater critic at the time in New York named Harold Clurman raced up to Schuyler Chapin. He's not spelled the same.
Skyler Schlenker: Ohh, this is all coming back to me. ‘cuz he was the Met Director, right?
Aaron Cain: That’s right. He was the former Met Director, at the time, and Clurman came up to him and said, “why on Earth isn't the Met doing this instead of Broadway?” And supposedly Schuyler Chapin replied, “I would have put on like a shot if I had the opportunity, and there would have been screams and yells, but I wouldn't have cared, I would have done it anyway, because it's an opera. It's a modern American opera.” So let's start there…
Skyler Schlenker: Hey.
Aaron Cain: …with why you're doing it.
Alice Lind: [laughs]
Skyler Schlenker: Hey, well, there were screams and yells after the Rite of Spring performance, I believe.
Aaron Cain: During, I think.
Alice Lind: Ha!
Skyler Schlenker: Yeah! I actually have a TikTok channel right now. And one of the things I'm about to do is talk about whether Sweeney Todd is an opera or a musical. And I think it's both. And I think it's so cool to be part of the show, which is really super artistic and just speaks to a very wide audience. It's deep art, it's really relevant to the world around us today, and it's really exciting to be this character who's at the center of the story.
Aaron Cain: So, the musical, or opera—depending on how you want to look at it, either or both—is not called Mrs. Lovett.
Alice Lind: [Laughs]
Skyler Schlenker: [Laughs] It kind of could be, though.
Alice Lind: She is certainly a character with so much responsibility on her shoulders when it comes to the plot. I'm someone where a lot of the roles that I've done—given my voice type and also my interest in comedy, and the high energy—I will do a lot of the side characters. The quirky characters are usually given the job to assist the lead, or make commentary alongside the main love plot, whatever's going on in the show. Mrs. Lovett gets to be that quirky, one of the memorable, kind of different characters, but Lovett still drives the plot. And she's right there at the forefront with Sweeney, with the title character, so she really directs Sweeney's journey. It's still Sweeney’s life. It's still Sweeney's motivation, Sweeney's desire to have his family back, and to seek revenge, and all these things are really the heart of the plot. But what makes him go down the paths that he does, and what shapes his perspective is done by Lovett.
Aaron Cain: One of the things that strikes me about the story, and always has, is that it's about almost supernatural levels of brokenness and harm in these characters, but it still doesn't seem like it is a story about evil, but about people.
Alice Lind: It is.
Skyler Schlenker: Yes, very much so.
Alice Lind: Class is a large thematic topic in this show, and that's something that I find almost hilarious about it. The irony of it is Sweeney, from the get-go, is talking about how that time in prison and being wronged has shown him that life is a man-eat-man world, and it's very survival of the fittest, and then Mrs. Lovett takes that to a literal sense, when it is literally man eating man. It's kind of a cruel joke that we play for the audience to digest, pun intended. And I think that was something brilliant on Sondheim's part, the very literal representation of this class structure.
Skyler Schlenker: I think that the supernatural inspiration is derived from Gothic elements…
Alice Lind: I was just gonna say.
Skyler Schlenker: …like Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe. Sweeney is described as ‘The Demon Barber,’ but I think the story is one that's real. And I think it involves real people just trying to do their best in a society that's pretty messed up. I would be really happy if people saw some of their own experiences in life in the show. And I think the character of Sweeney Todd is really the hero of the middle and lower classes, is how I see it. And I would be so thrilled if people could identify with the humanity of this character, and then also see how he's transformed by his quest for revenge. And really see where that gets you.
Aaron Cain: Alice Lind. Skyler Schlenker. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Alice Lind: Thank you.
Skyler Schlenker: Thank you.
Aaron Cain: IU Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater presents Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, by Stephen Sondheim, this weekend, Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 at the Musical Arts Center. I've been speaking with the performers playing Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in Saturday night's show: baritone Skyler Schlenker and mezzo-soprano Alice Lind. More information at operaballet.indiana.edu. For WFIU Arts, I'm Aaron Cain.
