"The Duchess of Malfi" and Other Blood on London Stages Johann Persson Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball take on bloody business in "Sweeney Todd." WHEN the cannibal pie maker Mrs. Lovett sings, "Times is hard" in the popular revival of "Sweeney Todd" at the Adelphi Theater, the words reverberate. Played by Imelda Staunton as the ultimate avatar of British can-do gumption, Mrs. Lovett inhabits a visual landscape guaranteed to set off alarm bells in audiences here. That's in addition to the usual tensions that come from knowing that many throats will be cut before the evening ends. Directed by Jonathan Kent and designed by Anthony Ward, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" has been transported from its original Victorian setting to the bleak, battered London of the 1930s. The abject huddled masses onstage summon images that are still a living and disturbing part of this country's collective memory. A recent front page of The Guardian led with the headline "Breadline Britain: 7m adults just one bill away from disaster." Yes, Sweeney Todd, murderous and mad as hell, has risen from his grave to haunt the Great Depression. Played by Michael Ball, a dimply sweetheart of the West End transformed beyond recognition, this Sweeney isn't just a bogeyman; he's a folk hero wreaking vengeance on the fat cats and self-serving politicians who have consigned his lot to perdition. I have mixed feelings about this revival. Consider it an alternative for those who can't score tickets to the 2012 Olympics. I have never known a London season in which the onstage body count has been quite so high. Josie Rourke's lively production of Friedrich Durrenmatt's seldom-seen "Physicists," at the Donmar Warehouse, begins with the sight of a lovely young corpse center stage and proceeds to contemplate the nuclear annihilation of the world. The National Theater's contemporary staging of "Antigone," directed by Polly Findlay, ends with the reverberant image of a bloody handprint smeared across a wall, an emblem of slaughters past and those to come in Sophocles" war-shredded world. And I attended a reformulated, present-day 90-minute "Hamlet" in which every single character died. But the most compelling of the carnage-heavy productions I saw was set firmly in its own period, five centuries ago. Not that Jamie Lloyd's production of John Webster's "Duchess of Malfi," which recently ended its run at the Old Vic Theater, is without latter-day relevance. As embodied with genuine tragic grandeur by Eve Best, the title character of this production evokes thoughts of another noblewoman, much feted of late, who would also seem to be a prisoner of royal protocol and public perception. I mean Queen Elizabeth II, whose 60 years on the throne were lavishly and extensively celebrated here last month. Had she chosen to visit the Old Vic during that week, Her Majesty might have found a soul sister of sorts in the doomed Duchess of Malfi. Or perhaps her thoughts would have turned to women in her family who were unlucky in love and paid a price, like her sister, Margaret, or her daughter-in-law Diana. Mr. Lloyd's thrilling production of Webster's 1613 revenge tragedy - written when memories of the first Queen Elizabeth and her sacrifices to the state were still fresh - makes it all too clear that if you're stuck on a world stage in a royal role, you had better keep your passions to yourself. The deep stage at the Old Vic is transformed (by the designer Soutra Gilmour) into a tiered Gothic-cathedral-like space that echoes with intimations of both eternity and decay. The inhabitants of this sepulchral, candle-lighted world step out of shadows amid clouds of incense in Venetian-style masks. In ceremonial procession, they scarcely seem mortal. But observe that one woman who stands taller than the others. The strong light behind her reveals the silhouette of a naked body. The lady is definitely of flesh and blood. More's the pity, for that will be the undoing of the Duchess of Malfi, who presumes to fall in love with her own steward (Tom Bateman, a worthy lust object). With these opening images Mr. Lloyd establishes a visual vocabulary that matches Webster's stark poetry of paradoxes. T. S. Eliot memorably wrote that Webster was always conscious of "the skull beneath the skin." And I have never seen a production of any Jacobean tragedy that is so fully imbued, on so many levels, with a sense of doubleness.