INTO THE WOODS
I don’t know Stephen Sondheim personally, so I don’t know if this scenario accurately describes the mindset behind Into the Woods, the fairy-tale musical he wrote with playwright James Lapine. I do know that the brilliant production directed by William Pullinsi at Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre (scheduled for transfer to Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in late June) reveals the work as a captivating exercise in dream theater, as well as a virtuosic showcase for Sondheim’s songwriting genius and the extremely gifted performers Pullinsi has assembled. Far superior to the Broadway production–less strident and stagy, more direct and deeply felt, more comprehensible, and more out-and-out fun–this Into the Woods synthesizes content and style in a way that most shows aim for but very few ever achieve.
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But underneath–propelled by the efforts of the sweet little baker to end his infertility and then cope with parenthood–the interlocking stories strike a series of variations on the themes that dominate all of Sondheim’s mature work: love and commitment, coping with arbitrary disaster and unfair loss, truth versus illusion. In earlier works such as Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music, these themes were explored in the context of romantic relationships and in a vein of lightly venomous sophistication that by Sweeney Todd had become bitterly bloodthirsty. But in his later years, Sondheim has turned his attention to more primal material; Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods are obsessed with parent-child relationships, and Into the Woods explores the related themes of fertility and barrenness. Everywhere is loss. Jack’s cow can’t give milk, so his mother makes him sell it; later, his adventure leads to his mother’s death. Red Ridinghood strays from the path of virtue, and her grandmother gets eaten up. The witch locks Rapunzel in a tower, trying to protect her from the evil world outside; Rapunzel repays her with hatred and heartbreak. The baker, whose childlessness is punishment for his own parents’ greed, stops relying on his wife to be his mother as well, and is eventually reunited with his long-absent father. Cinderella, whose father’s inattention makes her stepmother’s cruelty possible, leaves home for a happy-ever-after marriage to her surrogate-daddy prince, but yearns for the give and take of a real relationship.
