Into the Woods

Into the Woods: Dallas Observer review

Fairy Tale Follies Roll Merrily Along in Lyric Stage’s Lush, Lively, INTO THE WOODS.

Elaine Liner

The way is clear, the light is good and the singing, acting and comedy in Lyric Stage’s to-the-hilt production of Into the Woods are absolutely enchanting. From the frantic overlapping lyrics of the opening prologue to the sweet, soaring poetry of “No One Is Alone,” the hopeful ballad at the end of the second act, the 1987 musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine gets the labor-of-love treatment by director Harry Parker and a huge cast of top local professionals.

Sondheim fans who’ve never felt the full-on impact of this complex, sung-through musical theater epic should revel in the mighty wallop of Lyric Stage’s. Other recent productions of Into the Woods have been such disappointments. The dour, green-tinged Disney movie adaptation in 2014 was a soulless fever dream. The stripped-down production Fiasco Theater put on in New York City earlier this year was monastic in its lack of frills — just 11 actors, doubling in lots of parts, a few sticks of furniture and two pianos.

Lyric’s Into the Woods heaves with frills. There are 30 musicians in conductor Jay Dias’ pit to play the show’s original orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick. Deep layers of storybook-style scenery by Paul Wonsek (used first by Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera) hint at where the wild things are within. Wending their way out of avenues of twisted trees and drooping vines are 19 singer-actors draped in bright plaids, sassy brocades and tufts of fur designed by Nancy Missimi and coordinated here by Drenda Lewis.

The show is a near-operatic retelling of fairy tales, taking familiar names and plot lines from children’s lit and shuffling them toward surprising ends. The first number introduces the main characters and their heart’s desires. Cinderella (Mary McElree) yearns to go to the royal festival, but is stymied by her stepmother (Lucia Welch) and sneering step-sisters (Danielle Estes, Daron Cockerell). Next door (scenery-wise) are the Baker (Andy Baldwin) and his wife (Mary Gilbreath Grim), who wish to have a baby but can’t because of a witch’s curse. A white cow is all that stands between poor dim-witted Jack (Kyle Montgomery), his mother (Angela Davis) and certain starvation, but Jack is reluctant to sell his beloved pet. If only they were rich…

Others from the canon of the Brothers Grimm appear throughout. Little Red Riding Hood (Amy Button, with a killer voice and menacing way of skipping across the stage) gobbles her basket of sweets on the way to granny’s cottage. She’s lured off the path by a seductive wolf (growl-sexy Christopher J. Deaton) whose aside sung to the audience is, “There’s no possible way/To describe what you feel/When you’re talking to your meal.” How Red escapes being digested by the fuzzy menace is one of the show’s first cute visual tricks.

There must always be a witch, and this show’s crone, played by power-belter Catherine Carpenter Cox, has locked her golden-haired daughter Rapunzel (Kelly Silverthorn) in a tower rather than allow her any independence. Rapunzel is loved from afar by one of two charming princes (Anthony Fortino and Deaton again) who team up to sing the overwrought and hilarious duet “Agony” when their happily-ever-after marriages turn sour.

The first half of Into the Woods plays on the themes of common childhood wishes: to find love, to please parents, to have money without effort. In the second act, Sondheim and Lapine, devious masters of dark musical comedy, flip the script to swerve into the psyches of characters who are, after all, prototypes of abusers and the abused. Cinderella isn’t happy in the palace and seeks to escape. The Baker must face tragedy to find joy. Meek Jack, taken in by the magic bean ruse and missing his cow-pal, has to vanquish a giant to realize he’s a grown-up. Rapunzel fights for her freedom. Little Red, slayer of wolves, becomes a feminist crusader. Death, disappointment, disaster. All the nasty stuff of adulthood.

To lighten the loaded messages, director Parker has laid on more comedy strokes, turning his Into the Woods into A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Spamalot. Parker has the princes leaping on and off the stage like haughty stags, with the Steward (Seth Womack) prancing ahead of them like a show pony. Baldwin, always bringing the snazz as a physically silly actor, tempers his clowning as the Baker with fine singing tinged with touching melancholy, but he’s still crackers-funny when he needs to be. Davis and Montgomery, as Jack’s Mother and Jack, time their bits to the split second, not easy when working around a plywood “cow” on wheeled hooves. Stepsisters, big bad wolf, Rapunzel’s hair — all exaggerated to cartoonish extremes.

Quickening the comedy works, but the decision to slow down Sondheim’s score and tongue-twisting lyrics is this production’s only drawback. The words are easier to discern at the more deliberate tempo, but the run time stretches to a long three hours. Laughs diminish exponentially every minute closer to midnight.

Still it is nice to hear Sondheim’s puns and alliterations expertly enunciated for once. Cox’s witch, given some of the show’s biggest songs, tosses up this word salad perfectly: “Cause I caught him in the autumn in my garden one night! He was robbing me, raping me, rooting through my rutabaga, raiding my arugula and ripping up the rampion (My champion!)” Whew.

With so many Broadway shows and their tours going for minimalism now, a lavish Into the Woods like Lyric Stage’s is a treat. Big cast, big voices, big orchestra, big scenery. Big fun, too, even at marathon length. Consider it a joyous throwback to how American musicals used to look and sound once upon a time.

Into the Woods: CultureMap Dallas review

Lyric Stage’s Into the Woods takes audience on a grand ride

Lindsey Wilson

You can usually count on Lyric Stage in Irving to do it up big, and its latest, Into the Woods, is no exception. A large cast, a larger orchestra, larger-than-life sets, and a giant or two all combine into one of the grandest productions of Stephen Sondheim’s dark fairytale you’re likely to see in Dallas-Fort Worth.

It also highlights everything that was missing from the big-screen adaptation that hit theaters last Christmas. Director Harry Parker, a relative newcomer to Lyric who also chairs the theater department at TCU, has shaped the show into equal parts magical whimsy and realistic cynicism. His sure hand makes it just as easy to get lost in the intertwining stories as it is to see yourself reflected in these fictional, though jarringly human, characters.

Spurred by the wish to have a child, a Baker and his Wife go in search of items commanded by the Witch next door, who years ago placed a curse on the Baker’s family tree. As they venture into the terrifying, exciting woods where “anything can happen,” the pair encounters Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of beanstalk fame), Cinderella, and a host of other Brothers Grimm mainstays. Everything seems nicely tied up by the end of Act I, but Act II cleverly continues the stories to show how “ever after” rarely turns out as expected.

Each actor makes a strong showing, from the greedy Little Red (Amy Button) to the high-stepping Prince’s Steward (Seth Womack). Lyric favorite Catherine Carpenter Cox seems to enjoy the fuzzy eyebrows and ragged cloaks of the Witch more than she does the glamorous persona she’s restored to post-curse, but her delightful cackles are consistent throughout. She keeps the golden-voiced Rapunzel (Kelly Silverthorn) locked in a tower, an irresistible invitation to one ardent prince (Anthony Fortino).

Andy Baldwin and Mary Gilbreath Grim anchor the show as the storybook couple longing to procreate, characters that were invented by Sondheim and book writer James Lapine. Mary McElree is equally down to earth as Cinderella, who realizes quickly that palace life isn’t all she dreamed. As her persistent prince, Christopher J. Deaton is ardent and haughty, but he truly shines when staving off his carnal desires in his other role as the Wolf.

Kyle Montgomery is the jewel of an already sparkling show, playing Jack as an overgrown child who’s unprepared for the harsh realities of the world.

Three hours long but packed with musical theater winners such as “No One Is Alone” and “Children Will Listen,” Into the Woods sounds even more majestic under the baton of Jay Dias. The pace seems a bit slow at times, perhaps to better enunciate each of Sondheim’s tongue-twisting lyrics, but in this case it’s a joy to spend a little more time in these woods.

Into the Woods: TheaterJones review

Trees of Life

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods is a thrilling, ardent journey at Lyric Stage.

Martha Heimberg

Irving — “Once upon a time,” the narrator begins, and we lean in to watch four familiar fairy tales unfold in a fresh weaving together of plots. We’re embarking deep Into the Woods in Lyric Stage’s witty and handsome production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1987 musical, the critically loved company’s first Sondheim musical with full orchestra. (Lyric did an acclaimed A Little Night Music in the mid-1990s, before its full-orchestra productions began.)

Texas Christian University theater professor and veteran musical director Harry Parker makes his Lyric Stage debut with stylish staging and a superb cast of 19 singers, richly costumed in Nancy Missimi’s jewel-colored outfits. All romp through the tangled paths of this pulsing, lively forest, and deliver Sondheim’s witty, evocative lyrics with great joy and clarity. Jay Dias’ lush 30-member orchestra envelopes the singers precisely, sometimes creating a playful dialogue between singer and cello—and once even handing flowers up to a wandering princess.

Everyone who every wandered in the woods or loved the deep and magical forests of fairytales will instantly thrill to Paul Wonsek’s sylvan set design, a three-layered forest of giant trees, arms entwined over paths, with layers of delicate gossamer leaves, the better to tremble when a giant strides through the woods! Cottages and cows appear right on cue, and the characters skip, stride, leap, bounce or thunder through the woods—depending on the story at hand.

The fairytales intertwined in Lapine’s book are familiar, but here we see these wishful, proud, beauteous, kindly, silly and dangerous characters in a new light as they cross paths in the forest. Lapine adds a Baker (a yeoman-like Andy Baldwin) and the Baker’s wife (versatile Mary Gilbreath Grim), who long to have a child, but the evil Witch (Catherine Carpenter Cox) won’t remove her curse until they produce four iconic items from each tale. The tales are linked by a Narrator/Mysterious Man, played by James Williams.

From the moment she speaks, Cox’s hunched-over, crook-nosed Witch is fairytale-scary, and her laughter chills accordingly. In a later story, her rich soprano voice wraps around “Lament” and “Stay with Me” as she begs her captive daughter Rapunzel (willowy, sad-eyed Kelly Silverthorn) not to leave the her mother’s protective, stairless tower. Still, for now the prize must be won—and there are so many wishes at stake here. “Into the Woods” the company sings, and off we go.

Little Red Riding Hood (pert Amy Button in crack comic mode) is all innocence and curiosity as she sets off to grandma’s house. Button’s blonde curls bounce with her gait, and she’s totally cool with the huge hairy Wolf (Christopher J. Deaton) checking out the goodies in her basket. Deaton, who doubles as Cinderella’s dashing, faithless Prince, is a debonair animal, his appetite for little girls drooling from every word—and he howls sonorously. They’re hilarious singing ”Hello, Little Girl.” Even after her rescue, Red Riding Hood admits that being devoured wasn’t all bad. “He made me feel excited and scared,” she reports, all wide-eyed and eager for her next forest meet-up.

Cinderella (a wistful, light-footed Mary McElree) is a gal on the run, from mean stepsisters and everything else. McElree sings a touching duet with her mother’s ghost (Chelsea Coyne, deploying a hauntingly resonant voice) in a giant tree, their voices blending movingly. Then she’s fleeing through the woods from her charming prince, stopping only long enough to explain her motive to the Baker’s Wife in the witty “A Very Nice Prince.”

Jack (sweet-faced tenor Kyle Montgomery) is a newly minted entrepreneur, trading his beloved cow for a few magic beans, and climbing the beanstalk to seek his fortune. Montgomery’s delivery of  “Giants in the Sky” is pure enthusiastic fun.

Both princes are models of arrogant, handsome, charming, shallow manhood. Deaton, as Cinderella’s Prince, is truly and comically confused by a second-act world where “faithful” and “sincere” are suddenly introduced into the story. Who wished for this? Anthony Fortino, a terrific singer and magnetic stage presence in any role, is marvelously upbeat and determined as Rapunzel’s Prince, leaping ballet-style onto and off the stage, or clawing his way up Rapunzel’s tower-length golden locks. Deaton and Fortino make a wicked comic team, comparing princely notes on the pleasures of chasing women or singing of the “Agony” once you’ve caught one and installed her in the palace.

The first, longer act moved a bit slowly on opening night, but the tempo picked up in the second act, when we follow the characters from the happily-ever-after of the first act, to the poignant and touching consequences of their wishes expressed in some of Sondheim’s best ballads. Things change, stuff happens and all the actors in this ensemble handle the shifts nimbly. Andy Baldwin’s Baker grows from confused schlep to proud father to grieving widower, expressing the despair and loss they all feel in “No More.”  But, of course, there is more. The moving and rousing “No One Is Alone” is a wonderfully life-affirming hymn—and the finale reminds us to truly live we must leave the tower and take our chances in the woods.

The fun is in the journey, so follow the breadcrumbs Into the Woods.

Into the Woods: The Dallas Morning News review

Lyric’s lavish ‘Into the Woods’ restores musical to original glory

Nancy Churnin

IRVING — The paths to Into the Woods are multiplying.

Last year, we had the film adaptation, which added the magic of a sweeping countryside, but sacrificed the tale of the mysterious man. This year in New York, Fiasco Theater’s stripped-down version scored a hit using 10 actors and two pianos at Roundabout Theatre Company.

Here, Lyric Stage in Irving does what it does best. It restores Stephen Sondheim’s 1988 Tony Award winner (which won again for Best Musical Revival in 2002) to its original costly glory, in a way you’re not likely to see anywhere else.

Just as less can be more, more can be more. Weaving the deliciously detailed nuances afforded by the 29-person orchestra helmed by Jay Dias with the soaring voices in this 19-person cast offers a complexity that honors the story.

As in any good fairy tale, Into the Woods becomes more gripping as emotional truths bubble through the fantastical plot. A narrator, genially portrayed by James Williams, tells the story of a baker and his wife who long for a child, Cinderella, who wishes to go to the ball, and Jack, who wants to keep the cow he’s told to sell.

A witch tells the couple she’ll help them become parents if they bring her four objects from the woods. The quest, which takes them on a journey through a winding storybook forest designed by Paul Wonsek for the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, puts them on a collision course with the other characters in a place where “anything can happen.” The couple’s bargain turns Mephistophelean as they justify trickery to get what they need.

Andy Baldwin and Mary Giilbreath Grim in Lyric Stage’s INTO THE WOODS. Photo: Michael C. Foster.

Under Harry Parker’s direction, each character finds a vulnerable arc under a fairy-tale persona. As the witch, Catherine Carpenter Cox brings a vivid voice and the exasperation of a logical being having to deal with deceitful humans. As the baker, Andy Baldwin, ever nimble with comic delivery, proves just as skillful conveying the pain of a man wrestling with fear, pain and the price he ultimately has to pay for his prize.

Mary Gilbreath Grim charms as the practical wife with a weakness for royalty, as does Mary McElree as a wistful Cinderella and Kyle Montgomery as Jack, a boy enraptured but unnerved by the possibilities of a beanstalk that leads to the sky.

Lucia Welch, Daron Cockerell and Danielle Estes in Lyric Stage’s INTO THE WOODS. Photo: Michael C. Foster.

Christopher J. Deaton and Anthony Fortino steal scenes as charming princes whose eyes twinkle and legs leap rather than walk. Deaton’s deep, fine voice proves riveting in his double role as the lascivious wolf. “Hello, Little Girl,” he sings and hello, wolf, you can feel the audience respond.

The cast takes its time enunciating Sondheim’s usually swiftly pattered lyrics, rendering them refreshingly clear. On Friday’s opening night, some singers shifted pace, occasionally losing step with the orchestra, a problem likely to smooth in upcoming performances.

The slowed pace makes the show clock in at almost three hours. Still, with a show as rich as this, you shouldn’t mind a little extra time in the woods.