To this day, I find it amazing that anyone — even Stephen Sondheim — could go to producers and financial backers in the ‘70s and say: “I want to do this musical about a wacko barber who slits throats, and then his landlady bakes the bodies into meat pies, which she sells. Whaddaya think?”

It’s not that such fare is rare in theatrical history. From Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex through Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus through France’s Grand Guignol, stages have been chock full of guts and gore. But Broadway — where the big bucks go mainly to musicals that feature romance rather than revenge? Whatever sold the idea, the result was a classic, 1979’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And to see why it’s a classic, hasten to Cygnet Theatre’s newly opened production. You won’t see many better.

Sondheim, complementing Hugh Wheeler’s tight adaptation of Christopher Bond’s 1973 play of the same title, composed some of his most melodic music and cleverest lyrics (note, particularly, his numerous rhymes for “elixir”). Cygnet’s offering, co-directed by Sean Murray and James Vasquez, takes full advantage of that wondrous material with a talented assemblage of 11 actor-singers, vocally pleasing separately and in chorus, and superior tech achievements.

If you’ve somehow missed the story in its many iterations (including the 2007 film that won Golden Globes for it and star Johnny Depp), it’s about a barber who is convicted on a fraudulent charge because corrupt Judge Turpin desires the man’s wife. After 15 years in Australia, the man returns and hears that his wife has taken poison and his daughter, Johanna, has become a ward of the judge. The furious barber adopts the Todd pseudonym so he can lure the unsuspecting magistrate to his tonsorial parlor and cut his throat. Todd sets up his business above a shop where Mrs. Lovett sells “the worst pies in London.”

Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Sean Murray.

^{Photo by Daren Scott}

When Pirelli, a traveling con artist, threatens to expose Todd, he becomes Todd's first victim. That deed accelerates Todd’s descent into insanity, which becomes complete when Turpin escapes his clutches. Todd vows to randomly murder subsequent customers, giving Mrs. Lovett an inspiration: With meat being so expensive, the victims’ remains offer an abundant supply of ingredients.

Meanwhile, the judge has become obsessed with ward Johanna and decides to marry her to “protect” her from other men, particularly a young sailor who had befriended Todd, then saw Johanna on Turpin’s balcony and fell in love. All this lust-and-bloodshed intrigue culminates in a highly charged climax, leaving the stage strewn with bodies.

Cygnet artistic director Murray undoubtedly picked Vasquez to co-direct because Murray also took the challenge of playing the title role. Good choice. Other than giving short shrift to an English (or Australian) accent, Murray, in ghostly white makeup, sings strongly and excellently depicts Todd’s many facets while even eliciting sympathy for a serial killer.

Mrs. Lovett seems a role that Deborah Gilmour Smyth was born to play. Her singing, expressions and gestures provide a continuous delight, especially as she comes up with the plan to dispose of the bodies and subsequently duets with Todd in “A Little Priest,” their wickedly funny song about how those in various occupations would taste.

Other standouts are Steve Gunderson as evil hypocrite Judge Turpin; Geno Carr as his nasty associate, the Beadle; Ashley Fox Linton as the angel-voiced Johanna; and Tom Zohar as the simple-minded boy who becomes Mrs. Lovett’s assistant.

Despite the play’s morbid theme, there is occasional humor, often of the dark variety. Meticulous preparation for a shaving contest between Todd and Pirelli evokes laughs, as does Murray’s befuddled look when a lucky customer, saved by the presence of his wife and baby, pays for his shave. The Murray-Vasquez direction also spreads the action into the audience, with amusing offers to sell the meat pies or a hair-growing elixir to the folliclely challenged.

This is one of those productions where the designers should join the cast in taking curtain calls. Sean Fanning’s set — largely a wall of soot-covered bricks and metal stairways evoking 19th-century London — is especially commendable because it creatively differs from the usual Sweeney two-level design, Todd’s parlor above Lovett’s shop. Taking advantage of the under-stage pit in the Old Town Theatre and a couple of trap doors, the set allows the (in)famous sliding of bodies from barber chair to pie shop.

Surprisingly, given other productions’ tendencies, this Todd doesn’t have much gore. The throat-slittings generally produce only red lines, probably a choice made to avoid having to overly clean Shirley Pierson’s apt Victorian costumes. Instead of rivulets of blood, the slayings get impact from jarring noise, in Matt Lescault-Wood’s usually underscored sound, and the vivid reds in Eric Lotze’s lighting plan. That superb lighting, featuring shadows and spotlights in the general darkness, is almost like another character on stage.

Credit, too, the five unseen musicians — Manny Castro, Diana Elledge, Joseph Howell, Charlie Reuter and Dave Rumley — who, under Reuter’s musical direction, create everything from a sepulchral organ to a tinkling harpsichord.

Cast and credits

Song list