INTO THE WOODS
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Directed by Lear deBessonet
St. James Theatre
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
As I never tire of saying, every revival of a musical is a conversation with the original production. Sensibilities change over time and there’s always a negotiation—and often a war—between the sensibility of the original creative team (reflecting their era) and the sensibility of the revival team, years or even generations later.
The rare miracle happens when the two sensibilities meet. When the revival team gets the tone of the original (it’s rare that tone isn’t the whole ball game) and still manages to satisfy the new needs of the new times.
I suppose one might argue that Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods is among the shows least prone to miscalculation of tone, because its reliance on familiar fairy tale characters (mostly) created by the Brothers Grimm, combined with a scripted energy whose cadences are undeniable—a cross-pollination of Lapine’s sassy (but not satirical) irreverence and a score whose lyrics are, in still-surprising proportion, more rapid, packed, at times even more dense (“No More”), and demanding of dexterous rhythmic delivery even for Sondheim—makes the tone insistent. Where usually a revival endeavors to fight a musical’s natural tone at its peril, with Into the Woods it’s impossible to fight the tone without willfully perverting it. (Doesn’t mean it can’t be done; anything can be sabotaged and I can [but won’t] name a few well-known directors likely to do it; but that’s another conversation, and perhaps not for a public forum.)
So when saying a revival is better than the original, you’re actually saying something very complicated, since the improvement would not exist without the original iteration of the thing to have been improved; without the extrapolatable qualities it gives you to examine…and especially when it exists video’d…not only as it was originally presented on Broadway, but in several other mainstream renderings as well. You don’t have to have been there in person to have near-exact comprehension of what being there was like. The director to shy away from (sez me) is the one who refuses to be influenced by what came before. Whereas the director who takers it all in before embarking on her journey is much better equipped to assess her journey.
Can I tell you with assurance that Lear deBessonet studied and borrowed from previous productions? Not with any inside knowledge or documentary evidence, no. But the evidence of her production certainly makes it seem as if she let what came before inspire and guide her. How, then, did she also make it her own?
In two ways:
The first is to strip it down to a minimalist set and costumes that, while specific of detail, are also, to varying degrees, suggestive. For a concert staging, it’s extravagant—halfway to a full(er) production—but it remains a concert staging, with the orchestra very present onstage. And one which seems to have taken inspiration for its puppet techniques—for the giant and the cow in particular—from Lapine’s own 2002 revival and the off-Broadway Fiasco Theatre production (with a cast of 10 also playing the instruments).
The second: Diversity casting. This is, of course, more and more the new normal, and not the first time I’ve encountered mainstream musical theatre blurring what were once the visual boundaries of literalism. Even in the original Broadway production of Into the Woods, having Phylicia Rashad replace Bernadette Peters as the Witch made a statement of sorts, which may have been as much about her stardom, as she was the only PoC ever in the cast (about a decade and a half later, she would replace the matriarch in Tracy Letts’ play August: Osage County, which made even more of a statement in both contexts); but this is 2022 revival represents a next-level push forward/ That we’re in a fairy tale kingdom certainly provides the magic dust permitting any character to be ethnicity, even when the contrast involves characters who are related. But this may nonetheless be the first time I’ve seen the boundary so aggressively eradicated as to obliterate not only literalism, but the moment of adjustment and making the pact with the theatre gods to buy in.
But it does something even more important (and impressive) than that. In abstract ways that affect the visual, the vocal, the totality of design…the eradication of ethnic boundaries opens up colors of the material itself. And I think that’s a huge factor In the impact the show is currently making.
And stem to stern, the cast is quite extraordinary. You don’t need me to sing the praises of Patina Miller’s Witch or the revelatory turn Sara Bareilles is giving as the Baker’s Wife; you can find encomiums for the ensemble elsewhere and just consider them echoed here.
But what is worth mentioning is that the standbys and understudies are just as extraordinary. Because the show was so rock solidly selling out when press dates were scheduled, critics for the night I attended were told there would be no rescheduling, despite some regulars being out. So I got to see Jason Forbach’s sweetly funny and ever-deepening Baker, Alex Joseph Grayson’s charmingly naïve Jack and Delphi Borich’s archly bratty Red Riding Hood. And never felt I was missing a thing. The current cast has extended into September and the revival itself has extended again through October 16. I suspect It won’t matter much who you see; so long as you see.
Add to the splendors that musical director Rob Berman and the Encores! orchestra are doing their typically superb thing; Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations have never sounded better. So hearing isn’t such a bad deal either. (And there’ll be a new cast album.)
Go. Enjoy.