Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Book by James Lapine
Reviewed by Gary McMillan
Cast of Into the Woods with [front] Donna Migliaccio as Jack’s Mom (Photo: Carol Pratt)
Welcome to the same old, brand new Signature. With the same old commitment to quality, Signature co-founder and impresario Eric Schaeffer, well, Poppa’s Got A Brand New Box – a gorgeous new theatre complex with all the technological bells and whistles for the 21st Century.
For his inaugural show, director Schaeffer has chosen to revisit Into the Woods, a show with which he had much success in the 1994-1995 season. He also included Into the Woods in the Kennedy Center’s 2002 Sondheim Celebration — for which he served as artistic director — although in a Junior version partnered with young students from the DC Public Schools which resulted in the delightful documentary, Children Will Listen.
Inspired by the psychoanalytically-oriented The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim, Into the Woods is not remotely to be confused with Disney fare. Yes, fairy tales do come true in James Lapine’s witty book, and Cinderella, Rapunzel, and their princes, Jack and his mother, Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, and the rest of the company overcome obstacles to live “Happy now and happy hence / And happy ever after!” What more could one want? How about an Act II which explores the perils of success and the vagaries of adult discontent.
The show uses a single forest set (designed by Robert Perdziola) as dark and gnarled as the fantasies that unfold. With vines and trees surrounding and reaching to the rafters, the audience is as much in the woods as the cast. Perdziola also designed the costumes, including glamorous gowns for Cinderella and the Witch, and hilariously demented couture for Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters.
Schaeffer has a knack for getting to the heart, the immediacy of a Sondheim musical – a seemingly singular gift until John Doyle crossed the Atlantic. To his great credit, Schaeffer can work his intimate magic even with Sondheim’s big shows, Follies and Into the Woods. Here he has called on frequent collaborator, Karma Camp, who picked up a Helen Hayes Award for Urinetown, to choreograph the show. If directing a large cast on a huge Broadway stage is a challenge, managing the ebb and flow of seventeen actors on a comparatively small space requires choreographic talent akin to that of an air traffic controller. My seat in the Dress Circle (balcony) proved an excellent vantage point for appreciating the staging.
Eleasha Gamble as the Witch (Photo: Carol Pratt)
Eleasha Gamble is surprisingly good as the Witch – surprising because I thought she would be too young for the role. But acting, singing, and growling her way through the Witch’s opening tongue-twisting, rap-like riff ( … robbing me, / Raping me, / Rooting through my rutabaga, / Raiding my arugala and / Ripping up the rampion …), Gamble dropped not a syllable, thus easing nicely into the difficult role. Earning high marks for technical difficulty, she also scored artistically with the poignant mother-daughter (Erin Driscoll as Rapunzel) numbers, “Our Little World” and “Stay With Me.” Even when she was not the focus of the action on stage, the thoughts and emotions Gamble registered gave her character a depth and sympathy.
Stephanie Waters (Cinderella) and April Harr Blandin (Baker’s Wife) anchor the lead story lines of pursuit of love and happiness, illusions lost, and lessons learned on the road to inner strength; Donna Migliaccio (Jack’s mother) and Lauren Williams (Little Red) have their familial burdens to bear. Migliaccio alternates between an exasperated and a protective mother with her usual flair for musical comedy. And Williams can be quite the viscous hood at times when not noshing her way through the woods – she may well follow in Megan Lawrence’s footsteps with a Helen Hayes nomination for the role. She and James Moye as the Wolf, of the Big Bad and Hound Dog varieties, rollick through the epicurean “Hello, Little Girl” seduction number. As in Sweeney Todd, it was a full day of eating for some. Interestingly, Blandin and Migliaccio (then The Witch) both received lead actress Helen Hayes nominations for their roles in the earlier Signature production, while Dana Krueger (Cinderella’s Mother/Red Riding Hoods grandmother) received the award for Wings.
Both princes, Moye (Cinderella’s Prince as well as the Wolf) and Sean MacLaughlin (Rapunzel’s prince), cut a cartoon-ish swath through their scenes. Their duet, “Agony,” is one of Sondheim’s funniest songs and is hilarious here, though I wish they had shown less cheer and more angst in the delivery.
Daniel Cooney (Baker) and Stephen Gregory Smith (Jack) have fleshed out and humanized their respective characters to a degree I have not seen in previous Woods productions, which undoubtedly reflects Schaeffer’s attention to staging intimate moments in otherwise busy productions. It is also a treat to have Harry Winter in his dual roles as Narrator/Mysterious Man. As with the Gamble/Driscoll pairing, Cooney and Winter share one of the show’s more sorrowful and moving songs, “No More.”
Fans of Sondheim and Schaeffer already have their tickets, no doubt. If you’ve not seen Into the Woods before, this is sure to be one of the best shows in town this season. Be advised that this is the first production in Signature’s new space and technical problems will likely take a bit of time to resolve. For some performers accustomed to performing with a mic, lines may fade toward the end; for many, their singing may be swallowed by the scenery whenever they turn away from the audience. Also, in my Dress Circle seat, I could hear technicians moving about periodically as well as continuously whispering cues into their headset, especially throughout the first act. Fortunately, I know the lyrics well, so it wasn’t an insurmountable distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
Into the Woods plays at the new Signature Theatre in Shirlington Village now through February 25th. Performances: Tuesdays through Sundays. Tickets: $45-$57. Signature Theatre
I just realized that what I wrote about Cinderella sounded mean, but I’m unable to edit the post. That wasn’t my intention. Sorry.
Gary, your review makes me want to see the show again! I have actually seen it one and 1/2 times; that is to say the full show and the second part (after the intermission) with The Ushers last Sunday. All of the reviews I’ve read have touched on the sound problems. Hopefully, those problems are being worked. Really, I wish that they would mic the actors. It could be done tastefully, because I acknowledge that loud is not the goal. The goal is that a person with reasonally good hearing can distinguish most of the words from all the actors. As for what I was able to hear, I also enjoyed The Witch, although I liked her better in her “old and ugly” stage. I couldn’t get enough of The Wolf. He made me laugh out loud. Jack and his Mother had great chemistry. Little Red Riding “Hood” was hilarious, but there were times when I couldn’t hear her-mostly when she first came on stage. Cinderella was inaudible to me and bland. This is where micing might have helped. The Stepmother and Stepsisters were a hoot. The costumes and set were great. I didn’t care for the piped in Giantess’ voice; although I can understand why I should. Celebrity doesn’t impress me. I’d rather have had a live stock actor.