Take a bite of a minimalist ‘Sweeney’

The screech of a train whistle pierces the air. The lights turn a creepy crimson. Another corpse is ready for the grinder. Care for a delicious meat pie, dearie? Just don’t ask any questions.

It very well may be the weirdest thing to grace the Gammage Auditorium stage, but the current Broadway touring production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” — Stephen Sondheim’s twisted musical tragedy of murderous revenge, with a side of cannibal cookery — also happens to be the tastiest treat being dished up this season.

The secret ingredient is British director John Doyle’s abstract, wickedly clever staging. Gone are the fineries of the usual “Sweeney”: the mechanical barber chair, the gritty London set pieces — heck, even the orchestra below.

Here, the inmates of an asylum are putting on a show, à la “Marat/Sade,” and they’re using what they have on hand, including all the musical instruments, to tell the tale of a mad barber, wrongly exiled and hellbent for revenge, whose throat-sliced victims soon become filling for the delectable meat pies made by his landlady, Mrs. Lovett.

The result is as evocative as it is horrifying. Unlike Tim Burton’s gory, blood-spurting 2007 film adaptation, this “Sweeney” largely asks one’s imagination to whip up the Grand Guignol. Sondheim’s score manipulates the mood, discordant fugues with flashes of swooning beauty. One moment you’re shivering from the spooks, the next from a gorgeous tune (orchestrations courtesy of Sarah Travis) being plunked out by the spartan 10-piece ensemble.

Speaking of the ensemble: There’s no denying the shadow of the original 2005 Broadway cast — Patti LuPone as Mrs. Lovett; brooding, bald-shaven Michael Cerveris as Sweeney, a perfect pairing — being cast over the touring troupe. Here, we get the Broadway leads’ understudies.

Phoenix native Judy Kaye, stuffed like a gothic sausage into a short black frock and tattered fishnets, is a far funnier Lovett than LuPone’s (a more Oedipal creature, too), and her operatic pipes do Sondheim’s songs great justice.

I was less enamored of songwriter/actor David Hess’ Sweeney, a creepless, flavorless thing from the start (reminiscent of a dull BBC actor) — until he came alive toward the end of the first act. Have patience: By show’s end, he’s a seething, rabid delight, a portrait of how revenge can grow maddeningly corrupt over time.

Still, the best performances come from two of the Broadway revival’s original actors, Lauren Molina as Sweeney’s daughter Johanna and Benjamin Magnuson as the sailor who has come to steal her from her keeper, the evil Judge Turpin (Keith Buterbaugh). Molina and Magnuson double on cellos and sparkle as specimens of earnest, if hilariously flighty, young love.

Director Doyle has some extra tricks and treats in his production, a smart twist-ending I won’t spoil, but the larger wow comes in realizing how much can be done with so little. Witness Gammage’s widescreen stage, narrowed to less than three-fourths its width. That it takes only 10 musicians to bring alive Sondheim’s lush score, the same 10 performers and a minimum of props and sets to guide us through the dreadfully delightful story — well, if you don’t leave with goose bumps, you really ought to check your pulse.

THEATER REVIEW

‘Sweeney Todd’
When: 7:30 p.m. today and Friday; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Gammage Auditorium, 1200 S. Forest Ave., Arizona State University campus, Tempe
Cost: $18-$81.50
Information: (480) 965-3434
Grade: A