Sweeney Todd.

* Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; book by Hugh Wheeler * Directed and designed by John Doyle * Starring Michael Eerveris, Patti LuPone, Manoel Feliciano * Eugene O'Neill Theatre, New York (open-ended run)

Imagine Sweeney Todd staged like the gay film Lilies, only instead of a prison we're trapped in a mental institution. Center stage is fragile Toby, a youth who joins other inmates and staff (and possibly a ghost) in reenacting the events that brought him there: The story of a London barber seeking revenge, and his baker-lover, Mrs. Lovett, who finds Sweeney's victims make good pie filling. Oh, and there's no orchestra: The 10 actors also play all the instruments. Remarkably, it all works, for the most part. Hedwig and Assassins graduate Michael Cerveris, who plays guitar and resembles Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Eorgan in both visage and melancholy, is a powerful, menacing Sweeney; Patti LuPone (who plays tuba on a couple songs) is an aggressive and funny but never campy Mrs. Lovett. Best of all is Manoel Feliciano as Toby; he's innocent and affecting and never breaks character even while playing the violin beautifully throughout. (He brings new potency to "Not While I'm Around.") The minimalism is a burden now and again--Sweeney sings a love song to a nonexistent barber chair; the drama stumbles when characters don't have the space to act out some events--but overall it's quite a feat of stagecraft.