The first national tour of John Doyle's Tony Award–winning Sweeney Todd reinvention kicked off at Boston's Colonial Theatre on Tuesday night, to rave reviews. According to Boston Globe critic Louise Kennedy, the production "reveals Stephen Sondheim's dark brilliance in all its cold-blooded glory. It is marvelous and terrible to behold."

Many members of the Broadway cast—who can be heard on the 2006 Nonesuch recording—return for the tour; and as on Broadway, they play their own instruments on stage. According to Kennedy, this "lets us hear the wonderfully consonant dissonances of Sondheim's score more clearly than ever; stripping the music bare reveals its coolly coherent structure and seemingly effortless flow ... It feels truer to the spirit of the piece."

Joining the cast on tour are David Hass as the demon barber himself and Judy Kaye as his cohort in crime, Mrs. Lovett, whom the Globe review calls "nastily hilarious."

To read the complete review in the Boston Globe, visit boston.com.

Sweeney Todd will play in Boston through November 4, when it will travel to Toronto, then on to more than a dozen cities across the US. For all the information on the tour, including locations and dates, visit sweeneytoddtour.com.