Into the Woods, yet another of Stephen Sondheim’s wonderous musicals, is now on stage at the Great Lakes Theater’s Hanna Theatre.
Sondheim is credited with reinventing the American musical with shows that tackle unexpected themes, as well as music and lyrics of such complexity and sophistication that they challenge performers and musicians who take Sondheim off the page and into the world of production.
Sondheim, often ignored the genre’s traditional subjects, such as the complications of love and teen-angst, wrote instead of attempted killers (Assassins, unmarried men (Company), has-been performers (Follies), revenge (Sweeney Todd), national isolationism (Pacific Overtures) and the foibles of fables (Into the Woods).
With a book by James Lapine, Into the Woods intertwines the plots of several Grimm fairy tales by exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and desires. The main characters are taken from “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Cinderella,” with guest performances by Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
The musical is tied together by a story involving a childless baker and his wife and their quest to have a child, which is actually the original beginning of “Rapunzel,” confronting the witch who placed a curse on them, and their interaction with storybook characters during their journey searching for things a witch requires to withdraw a curse.
The joyous first act ends with the traditional “happily ever after” conclusion, while the dramatic second act illustrates that real life is not a fairy tale, but that there is a price to be paid for having wishes granted.
The show’s themes include the angst of growing up, the relationship between parents and children, the difficulties of accepting responsibility, morality and, most importantly, wish fulfillment and its consequences.
Some theatre experts have opined that, since the show was conceived in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis, the show is a parable about the disease. They perceive that the Giant’s Wife serves as a metaphor for HIV/AIDS, killing good and bad characters indiscriminately and forcing the survivors to band together to stop the threat and move on from the devastation. The modern-day parallel is the implications of the COVID crisis.
“Sondheim drew on parts of his troubled childhood when writing the show. In 1987, he told Time Magazine that the father uncomfortable with babies [was] his father, and [the] mother who regrets having had children [was] his mother.”
Into the Woods had a 1987-89 Broadway run of 765 performances and was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning three.
The Great Lakes Theater production is under the creative direction of Victoria Bussert, who will soon be joining the Oberlin College faculty as the director of its new music theatre program. She presented an all-student production at her present college home, Baldwin Wallace University, several years ago. I wrote that that production was, “sprightly, fresh, well done, and a must see!” The same, and a lot more, can be said of the Great Lakes production.
Joe Wegner gives a unique slant to role of the Baker. He creates a frustrated man whose relationship with his father was stressing (much like Sondheim), but through a series of incidents realizes his role as husband and father. “It Takes Two,” his duet with his wife, the perfectly cast Jodi Dominick, is delightful. Her “Moments in the Woods” is a show highlight.
Lovely and talented RhonniRose Mantilla (Cinderella), one of the many Baldwin Wallace musical theatre grads, displays a wonderful comic timing sense, especially in doing pratfalls. Her “On the Steps of the Palace” illustrates not only her strong singing voice but her music storytelling abilities. She shines, as does Jodi Dominick in “A Very Nice Prince.”
A vision of big-eyed wonder, Nic Scott Hermick (Jack) displays a keen child-sensitive quality and naivity, which is well-expressed in the plaintive “Giants in the Sky.”
“Agony” is a crowd-pleaser nicely sung by Cinderella’s studly overly-dramatic Prince (Dan Hoy) and Rapunzel’s dedicated Prince (Benjamin Michael Hall). Jillian Kates, the witch, made “Children Will Listen” one of the greatest songs in the Broadway musical lexicon, a meaningful show closer.
The rest of the leading players and chorus were excellent.
Courtney O’Neill’s set design, cleverly created with multi-colored Lincoln Log-like poles, makes for a flexible playground for Bussert’s creative stage movements and Jaclyn Miller’s well-conceived choreography. Tesia Dugan Benson’s costumes, David Gotwald’s sound design, and Trad A Burns lighting all added to wonders of the production.
Capsule Judgment: Into the Woods is a well-conceived script, which gets a fine GLT production. There has been, and will be many presentations of this musical, but few will match this one.
For tickets to Into the Woods which runs through November 10, go to greatlakestheater.org or call 216-241-6000.
[Written by Roy Berko, member: Cleveland Critics Circle, American Theater Critics Association]