The Tale of Sweeney Todd that spurs him to confront Mrs. Lovett, who tries to kill him but is knocked out and left to hang on a meat rack. Shortly after, she is arrested. Carlyle then makes over to the barber shop to confront Todd, who overpowers and binds him. As he prepares his instruments to torture Carlyle to death, he explains what led him to a life of murder and cannibalism. Charlie, who has managed to free himself from his shackles, stabs Todd in the back, killing him. He then frees Carlyle, who sets the building on fire before escaping with the boy. The
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street New York, this tale of horrors was transformed into a mountain of steel in motion. Prince's scenic metaphor for "Sweeney Todd" was a 19th-century iron foundry moved from Rhode Island and reassembled on the stage, which critic Jack Kroll aptly described as "part cathedral, part factory, part prison, that dwarfed and degraded the swarming denizens of the lower orders." The massive scope of Prince's setting went beyond even Sondheim's intentions. Sondheim admits that his conception of the show differed from that of Prince: "Hal's metaphor is that the factory turns out Sweeney Todds. It turns out soulless, defeated, hopeless people.