A minimalist 'Into the Woods' draws out the insights in Sondheim's heightened bedtime stories
There’s a reason “Into the Woods” has been produced so often since its regional debut at the Marriott way back in 1990. With a mash-up of reconstructed fairy tales, Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book) crafted a nearly perfect show.
Through Dec. 22 in the Chopin Theatre basement space, Kokandy Productions is delivering a consistently good and occasionally great rendition of the classic. Director-choreographer Derek Van Barham largely succeeds in his minimalist, in-the-round production, hampered primarily by a vexatious structural issue built into the Chopin basement and overacting that leeches some of the enchantment from the mood.
The plot is a glorious tangle. In the first act, Cinderella (Madison Kauffman), Rapunzel (Ismael Garcia), a Baker (Kevin Webb) and his Wife (Sonia Goldberg), a Witch (Stephanie Stockstill), a Mysterious Man/narrator (August Forman) and a host of other familiar fairy-tale types take to the woods to complete the quests required to obtain their happily-ever-after, be it the birth of a child, the hand of a prince, the reversal of a curse.
Post-intermission, “Into the Woods” cracks open the simplistic fiction and digs deep — with tremendous wit, insight and a gorgeous score — into the thorny briars of what happens after all your dreams come true: You realize there is no such thing as happily-ever-after.
What “Into the Woods” offers is an argument for embracing life in all its tragic messiness, even (especially) when a certain giant is coming for you and all you love.
The two halves of the show form a richly realized whole, every song from the first act refracted in the second, seemingly throwaway lines from the first half revealed as puzzle pieces that perfectly align with the developments of the second. It’s a brilliant, melodically rich meditation on loss, grief, family and the power of community to both destroy and uplift.
The biggest problem: Basically every seat in the house has a sometimes obstructed view because of the massive pillars ostensibly holding up the ceiling in the Chopin’s subterranean venue. It is mightily annoying, particularly when entire numbers pass without a glimpse of the soloists.
The second issue is easier to fix. Over-emoting can turn “Into the Woods” into a tale of buffoonery rather than an all-too-relatable fairy-tale mirror held up to the real world. This is a largely young cast, and many of them fall into the trap of playing everything huge. For example: The Wolf (Shea Hopkins, who also plays Cinderella’s prince) is not a seductive menace if he’s bouncing around like Tigger at a Furry Convention. And Syd Genco’s makeup design — think “Euphoria” meets “Corpse Bride” — is also a bit of a distraction.
But there is so very much Van Barham gets absolutely right in his minimalist production. Entering set designer G “Max” Maxim IV’s lushly designed space is like walking into a storybook: Those troublesome pillars are vine-covered and shellacked from floor to ceiling with pages from children’s books. The walls are lined with antiques. A wave of flaxen hair spills from a vanity drawer. A golden shoe sprouts from a coiling foliage.
Dominating the space: a pair of gleaming pianos perched atop a platform, dead center, for the action to swirl around. With music direction by Nick Sula, pianist-orchestrators Ariana Miles and Evelyn Ryan create an entire orchestra in four hands, playing with an expressiveness that is thrilling to witness. They’re the stars here as much as the actors.
The cast has several standouts. As the insatiable Little Red, Anna Seibert morphs from bratty child to bloodthirsty young woman with a slightly kinky passion for skinning predators. Her post-wolf-escape reflection in “I Know Things Now” makes its final, revealing line — “Isn't it nice to know a lot! And a little bit not” -— zings with truth.
Stockstill is at turns brutal, vulnerable, haggish and glamorous as the Witch whose looted garden and magic beans send the story spinning on its axis. And as Cinderella, Kauffman turns her dilemma on the steps of the palace into a funny/beguiling rumination on the perils of making a major life decision — or remaining immobilized about doing so.
Webb and Forman make the 11th-hour duet “No More” absolutely shattering. When Webb unleashes the final stanza — “How do you ignore/All the witches/All the curses/All the wolves/all the lies/The false hopes, the goodbyes” — it hits like a meteor. If there’s a better way to sum up the prevailing questions roiling a country on the brink of a profoundly anguish-inducing election, I can’t think of what it is. Bravo.
Pillars and all, this “Woods” is lovely, dark and deep — and worth the journey.