At Signature, a bloody amusing ‘Sweeney Todd’

It’s no slight on the cast and crew of Signature Theatre’s perfectly agreeable latest stab at “Sweeney Todd” to point out that this show is, on the evidence of innumerable iterations since it arrived on Broadway 31 years ago, difficult to screw up.

Stephen Sondheim’s musical upgrade of Christopher Bond’s play is such a sturdy, macabre delight that even a middling staging of reliably entertains. The simple, elegant plot — a barber returns to filthy mid-19th century London to take his revenge on the judge who stole his wife and shipped him off to jail on false charges — slices its economical way through tightly wound scenes of comedy and suspense, arriving at a grotesque denouement that manages to feel surprising and inevitable, as great endings must. And Sondheim’s tunes, infectious upon first exposure, tickle and thrill even when sung by imperfect voices.

All that aside, Signature’s 20th anniversary revival of the first musical the company ever performed doesn’t lean solely on the strength of the material. Edward Gero, a veteran of some 60 roles at the Shakespeare Theatre since the mid-1980s, is a stronger actor than a singer — unsurprising, given this is his first singing role in two decades — but he gets Sweeney’s Travis Bickle-like alienation from the city that seems to be sinking back into hell around him just right. Gero’s limited vocal range only makes him seem more menacing, a brooding, pallid bringer of smooth-cheeked oblivion.

Sherri L. Edelen is even stronger as the widowed Mrs. Lovett, maker of “The Worst Pies in London.” She’s so lonely that even a muttering sociopath like Sweeney seems like a catch. We can’t help but like her, even after she starts habitually turning her indifferent beau’s victims into tomorrow’s lunch special. Retaining her capacity for human feeling despite her complicity in Sweeney’s crimes, she’s the audience’s window into the show, and Edelend bears that load with grace.

James Kronzer’s set is essentially a scaffold that almost seems to suggest the entire story is unfolding in a single tenement, teeming with disease and desperation. As Judge Turpin, the author of Sweeney’s tragedy, Chris Van Cleave is memorably oleaginous and predatory.

Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, helming his third “Sweeney” for the company, spins the material off in some intriguing alternative routes. As Joanna, Sweeney’s daughter, now Turpin’s ward and would-be bride, Erin Driscoll gets a more active role in her late-show rescue from Bedlam. And the show’s harrowing finale, Sam Ludwig’s spookily pliable Toby directs his speech more to the few characters who remain alive on stage than to the audience directly, as in many productions. The neck hairs rise all the same, and there’s another scare still to come. Razor’s edge theater? Probably not. But it’s never less than bloody amusing.