The Mystery of Edwin Drood ★★★★

Charles Dickens notably featured orphans in his novels, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood was no exception. Fittingly, and sadly, the novel itself was orphaned in 1870 when Dickens died halfway through writing it, leaving no notes on how the story was to end.

Slightly more than a century later, singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes wrote a jolly good musical adaptation of Dickens’ unintended literary riddle that became a Tony-winning success on Broadway. Holmes was the perfect artist for the job. He found inspiration in the theatergoing experiences of his early childhood in England, where he was introduced to British pantomime, a style very popular in Dickens’ day that included such conventions as a cross-dressing lead boy and a great deal of audience participation.

Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood follows the disappearance of a young Englishman shortly before his wedding, and, despite the title, focuses more on Drood’s uncle, John Jasper, an opium-addicted choirmaster who lusts after Rosa Bud, his music pupil who just happens to be Drood’s fiancée. Drugs, crypts, murders and poverty do not scream musical comedy, so to make Drood more suitable and less dour for American audiences, Holmes cleverly conceived of the work as a show-within-a-show. The result: a troupe of English music-hall players who are doing their musical comedy version of Drood, replete with audience members voting after intermission for outcomes of their choosing, including Drood’s murderer.

The show has had two Broadway productions — the most recent revival was at Studio 54 in 2013 — but now J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company is giving New York theatergoers the opportunity to experience Drood much more intimately at the 99-seat AMT Theater on 45th Street. The result is a reminder that this delightful show with a practically flawless score should be revived more often.

The tone is established the minute audience members enter the venue. The music hall players greet and interact with arrivals before the show, and once the show officially begins with the rousing “There You Are”, director Robert W. Schneider doesn’t miss a trick, embracing the silliness and bawdiness that the show requires. Fortunately, he’s assembled a fearless cast to see his vision through, foremost Quinn Corcoran as Clive Paget/John Jasper. Corcoran brilliantly jumps back and forth between hammy-actor Paget and the tortured, drug-addled Jasper, starting with his solo “A Man Could Go Quite Mad”, giving the production a terrific jumpstart.

The entire cast often manages to match his comic gusto, with special mentions going to Wesley Slade, Elbi Cespedes, Robert Hooghkirk, Madeline Grace Smith, and Nicole Vazquez (that accent!), who all manage to make their smaller roles feel larger. Princess Puffer is a part that gets to showboat in the second act, and Sierra Rein does not let that opportunity pass her by, especially in “The Garden Path to Hell”. The other two female leads — Jodi Bluestein as Drood, Megan Hasse as Rosa Bud — both sing beautifully but often not loud enough, especially in their lower registers. That issue of volume felt odd given the size of the theater, but they made up for it with their strong grasp of character.

Two-time Tony nominee Joel Blum, a true NYC stage veteran perfectly cast here, expectedly makes a strong impression as the Chairman of the players. One drawback: As the emcee of the evening, it’s up to his character to keep things moving along, especially after intermission when the Chairman has to give instructions to the audience about how the voting is going to work. But Blum is not off book for most of the second half of the show, which slows the momentum down at the worst possible point in the production, especially because Drood’s first act does not suffer from brevity.

Fortunately, the show’s slight longueur is easily offset by the joviality of the occasion. And helping matters are the designers, all in top form. Ryan Howell’s grin-inducing set is minimal but highly effective, costume designer Mark Pearson’s terrific costumes feel like they came right out of a genuine English music hall, and Christian Specht’s lighting successfully creates different ambiances on a very small stage, all the better to see Josh Zacher’s zippy, clever choreography.