I HATE it being cut. I fully, fully believe that the show can not function as well as it should without it. As much as I love the Josh Groban revival and would probably say it's my favourite production to date, a major issue I have with it is how sanitised it feels.

Sweeney is not supposed to be a straight or non-ironic show, and a lot of the subject matter is dealt comedically. The show is self-aware of the size of its characters, and from that it inherently takes on a camp-ish quality — but because of that, I see so many productions make what is, in my opinion, the mistake of not placing emphasis on the darker parts of the narrative, or allowing the characters to take their situation seriously. They use the humour of the show as a distraction from the darker themes, attempting to sanitise it, as I said, but Sondheim's humour has never been like that. The events of the narrative are funny because they are so severe, not in spite of their severity. I find that Sweeney has a very absurdist sort of humour, and, additionally, not in spite of that, would even argue really that the audience resonance of such themes that it covers has shifted from 1979 significantly, but that's neither here nor there.

People are afraid of absurdism, I think, as to an outsider it's uncomfortable to observe. The characters in Sweeney aren't laughing because victims of cannibalism, rape, incest, murder are funny, but because it's completely ridiculous that THIS much horrific suffering is dealt upon these people. It's so bad that it BECOMES funny after surpassing its darkness. You can't deliver the humour properly if you don't first acknowledge the darkness existing. The thing is, I'm guessing a lot of people are concerned about the audience getting the wrong message, but that should be the job of the show. To help the audience suspend their disbelief and bring them into the world of the characters, so that they can understand why they're laughing. Instead, the show runners and the audience both try to ignore the darkness, and distract it with humour, which leaves the events of the show feeling shallow. As I said, the socio-political climate has shifted from 1979. I think we NEED dark productions of Sweeney now, more than ever. People need to face things in front of them. But I digress on that front.

The underground railroad in real life is not a railroad and is but underground but it was used to help get slaves to freedom.

In Hadestown there's a literal railroad that literally takes you underground where your soul is enslaved. The literal replaces the metaphor and the final destination is slavery rather than freedom. But then there's also a pathway for the souls to get out of Hades so the underground railroad as a metaphor with its IRL meaning also exists in Hadestown in contrast to the literal one

Then there's the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and Hades literally paves the road to hell ("the river of Styx is a river of stone" is how Orph describes it) and literally has good intentions while doing that as part of his industrializing+electrifying his kingdom. For the underground railroad, the literal version contrasted the metaphor but for this the literal version recomfirms the meaning of the phrase