Let’s be real: Into the Woods walked so Wicked could run.
True, the “fractured fairy-tale” subgenre of musical theater was given a go with 1959’s Once Upon a Mattress (now back on Broadway with a new book by Gilmore Girls’ Amy Sherman-Palladino). However, the aggressively wacky Mattress seeks purely to entertain, as opposed to imparting harsh life lessons using dark origins of fairy tales as a vehicle — a mission both Into the Woods and Wicked take seriously.
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods premiered in 1986 at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre before opening on Broadway in 1987 and has since spawned countless revivals, “junior” and high school versions, and a Disney film adaptation, along with a legion of superfans worldwide. While the 2014 movie leans into a maximalist and moody aesthetic yet Disneyfies some of the story’s darkest aspects, a new, stripped-down interpretation from Chicago’s acclaimed Kokandy Productions offers bright, theater kid energy coupled with realistic soul.
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“I wish …”
For the uninitiated, Into the Woods converges a basketful of familiar fairy tale characters. Cinderella wishes to meet her prince. Little Red Riding Hood wishes to visit her grandmother, and young Jack wishes to keep his beloved cow, Milky White. Most fervently, the Baker and his Wife wish for a child. The Witch next door says she can help if they procure select items to help her lift a curse. Storylines intersect — some get their wish (or so they think), while others fail to make it out alive when a mourning female giant wreaks havoc on those below.
Life lessons abound in Into the Woods. Among them, having a baby will not fix a marriage and will often do the opposite. Nurturing a crush on a cute boy and desiring an escape from day-to-day drudgery are two very different things. Money doesn’t solve everything, and in general, it’s helpful to have birds on your side. “Be careful what you wish for” is a cliché for a reason. And above all, heed the powerful finale: no one is alone, though not in the way you might think.
In a 1991 PBS interview, Sondheim addressed that final life lesson and the powerful penultimate ballad “No One is Alone.” In it, the Baker, now widowed and left to care for a baby, and Cinderella, who has chosen to leave her Prince, comfort the young Little Red and Jack, promising to care for them in the wake of the Giant’s obliteration and subsequent demise at the hands of the unlikely quartet.
Sondheim spoke of the lyrics’ controversy and how many would approach him and argue that we are all, in fact, alone. “No One is Alone,” he posits, is a parent-child song — adults comforting young ones but also reminding themselves that everyone is part of a community and individual decisions affect the collective for better and for worse. “We are all responsible for each other,” Sondheim told journalist Edwin Newman. It is a harsh truism in some ways, a comforting reassurance in others in light of the recent election.
In terms of dark relatability, Into the Woods has something for everyone, so much so that a common misconception that the musical is an allegory for the AIDS crisis forced Sondheim to debunk this claim publically. We all grew up with the stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood, whether the Disney versions or the original Grimm’s stories involving severed, bloody heels of evil stepsisters. Some of us might have been given these stories in lieu of responsible, loving parenting. But what we take from these childhood tales, each with a healthy dose of darkness is up to us.
A movie adaptation even Meryl Streep couldn’t save
Darkness dominates the film version of Into the Woods and not just the film’s art direction (though that is plenty dim). Anticipation was nearly of Wicked proportion: a cast of then extremely hot — now, in the case of Johnny Depp and James Corden, extremely canceled — A-listers bringing a beloved musical classic to the silver screen. Director Rob Marshall’s adaptation winks at the audience, presenting a counterargument to the happily-ever-after tales that have been Disney’s bread and butter. (It’s also worth noting that according to Sondheim and Lapine, old-school Disney movies used Charles Perrault’s interpretations of fairy tales, while Into the Woods takes its cues from the Brothers Grimm.)
Despite its enchanted cast of characters, anyone who has seen or listened to Into the Woods knows it’s not necessarily family-friendly unless you see the Jr. version. (Neither is Wicked, no matter what the pink- and green-saturated merchandising would have non-theater folk believe.) Though the first act ends with happily-ever-afters, the show’s second half rapidly descends into darkness as the grieving wife of the Giant slayed by Jack wreaks havoc.
Ultimately, only the Baker, Cinderella, Jack, and Little Red Riding Hood are left standing and must band together to take down the surviving Giant after trapping her, still weeping for her lost love, in a tower. Not exactly the stuff of old-school Disney. The film softens a few of the show’s harsher plot points (including Rapunzel’s unwanted pregnancy and subsequent murder), cuts several songs, disregards the traditional double-casting (the same actor typically plays the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince), and eliminates the character of the Mysterious Man, who serves as both a narrator and audience proxy.
Sondheim scores are notoriously complex, and that is never more evident than the film’s mostly-miscast ensemble. Of the many big names, only Anna Kendrick, who began her career as a child on Broadway in the short-lived High Society, capably handles the material.
The rest of the film’s stars do their best, including Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, but merely plod along in a landscape of garish CGI. If Into the Woods proves anything as a film, it’s that Sondheim and Lapine’s brilliance is meant to be experienced live and in the moment — or at the very least, with the 1987 PBS pro-shot of the original Broadway cast.
A basement production reaches for giants in the sky
Google “Into the Woods,” and you’ll find every kind of production on budgets from shoestring to multi-million. Recent revivals have gravitated toward a more stripped-down approach, emphasizing the story’s inherent darkness and harsh but hopeful takeaways.
In May 2022, a revival premiered as part of New York City Center’s Encores! Series. The two-week limited engagement featured stage and screen luminaries like Neil Patrick Harris, Heather Headley, and the late Gavin Creel. A Broadway transfer and national tour ensued with a rotating cast that included Sara Bareilles, Hamilton’s Philippa Soo.
Chicago’s Kokandy Productions, known for innovative takes on modern classics (including an award-winning revival of the musical adaption of American Psycho), riffs on this stripped-down approach. Sondheim’s score has been re-orchestrated for dueling pianos, and half of the 12-person cast play dual roles in an in-the-round staging in the small basement studio of the Chopin Theatre. “Our hope is that…we can focus on the intimate and immersive nature of the show, capturing the desperate need to be seen, to be remembered, and to gather to share — and receive — a good story,” said director and choreographer Derek Van Barham.
Indeed, Kokandy’s Into the Woods borders on immersive theater in the best possible way. The two pianos, expertly wielded by Ariana Miles and Evelyn Ryan, are set in the middle of the space, with a few toy pianos often plunked by musicians and actors to make a point. Audience members sit in folding chairs or brocaded couches that feel straight out of Little Red’s grandmother’s house, and a lucky few spectators perch on stools throughout the space where characters frolic in pursuit of wishes. Because of the tight quarters, every movement is deliberate: actors deftly switch hats and wigs before our eyes, and Jakob Abderhalden’s innovative props design includes Jack’s beloved cow Milky White as a papier-mache head that conveniently hangs on a hook when not in use. No inch of space is wasted: the scenery is minimal, with G. “Max” Maxin IV’s atmospheric lighting relying on colored bulbs and simple chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, adding to the feeling that magic, both light and dark, is all around.
Kokandy attracts Chicago’s best and brightest musical theater talent, and overall, the ensemble is beautifully suited to Sondheim’s challenging score. The performances give a “play within a play” vibe that sits well with the production’s scrappy, grassroots approach: Everything is heightened, from Jack’s conflicts with his overbearing mother to the Baker’s Wife’s amorous encounter with Cinderella’s rogue Prince.
Director Van Barham never lets us forget that these are fairy tales: even if they don’t end happily ever after, they are stories of mythic proportions where drama is always high. Standouts include Madison Kauffman’s Cinderella, who pairs spot-on dulcet vocals with a compelling progression of a naive young girl to bruised but optimistic de facto guardian, and Sonia Goldberg in a deeply felt, powerful rendition of the Baker’s Wife’s ambivalence toward the motherhood she thought she badly desired. More than anything, thanks to Van Barham’s “close-up” approach, Kokandy’s Into the Woods presents its fairy tale characters as the living, breathing humans they are, and this sometimes-brutal honesty with a healthy dose of humor would make the late Sondheim proud.
A Sondheim confession
Until these recent viewings, my only exposure to Into the Woods was listening to the original Broadway cast recording. While I’d enjoyed the score, I never thought the show was for me. Its devoted fan base repelled my contrarian nature, and more than that, I didn’t feel I needed to spend two-plus hours being told that what I’d wished for wasn’t necessarily what was best for me. Plus, I’ve never wanted a child. I avoided the recent acclaimed revival for these reasons, but when Kokandy announced a revamped production, I decided it was time to rethink my stance. Dueling pianos and additional double-casting, all in an intimate space slightly bigger than a black box? Color this critic intrigued.
As a proudly single woman living in a city 200 miles and a world away from my small hometown, I’m most drawn to the arc of Into the Woods’s Cinderella, who wishes most fervently to escape her hellish existence as a scullery maid and dance with the handsome Prince at a festival, only to discover that rather than a dream come true, the Prince is just … tall. In reality, it was a new life Cinderella craved (and a gorgeous dress, to which I also relate), and despite warnings from her mother’s spirit to be specific with what she truly wants, Cinderella ends up married to a man she doesn’t love and stuck in yet another world where she doesn’t fit in.
After banding together with other characters to defeat a mourning vengeful giant, Cinderella tells the Prince, “My father’s house was a nightmare. Yours was a dream. Now I want something in between.” While I’ve never been a scullery maid who sped away from royalty, I have bought into the patriarchal edict that all I need to be happy is a man — when really, all I needed was a place and community where I felt truly at home. And a closetful of dresses.
Into the Woods plays at Chicago’s Chopin Theatre through December 22. Tickets are available here.
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