Into the Woods

If you go into the woods today, you're in for a big surprise.

A few years after the success of Assassins, Greystone Theatre continues its love affair with Stephen Sondheim with this dazzling production of Into the Woods. But before I get into discussing the show, I have to mention how unprecedented its success has been. Selling out tickets a week before opening has never happened as long as I have been around this campus, and not, I'm told, since long before that. The flurry of ticket sales caught me so by surprise that I was not able to get tickets for both shows, so I will not get the chance to see the alternate cast. I regret this deeply, and I apologise to those actors I've missed.

Back to the show: Into the Woods is about a group of teenagers who embark on a fun-filled weekend in the wilderness, but little do they know their actions are being secretly manipulated by a clandestine agency whose mission is to.... Sorry. Got my note cards messed up.

Into the Woods is a piece of musical theatre based on a book by James Lapine and adapted by Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim. The story is a mash-up of several fairy tales, predominantly "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rapunzel", and "Jack & the Beanstalk". These tales all swirl around each other, with the focal point of the play being a separate story involving a baker and his wife trying to lift a curse that prevents them from having children. An eccentric witch sends them on a fetch quest to retrieve four items, and in doing so come in contact with each of the four fairy tales. The first act progresses in this vein until each story gets its customary happy ending. But after intermission things take a bit of a turn.

The play is shaped by its music, and vice versa. There is little in the way of show-stopping numbers, but rather the music wraps tightly around the narrative. The two flow into each other so that there is never a moment of noticeable transition. For the music itself, it is a bit like soaking in a warm bath with a rather friendly python. The songs are rich and deep; they wash over you with a sense of warmth and comfort, but it also breaks into long sections of staccato rhythms and quick rhymes, occasionally pulsating with sustained notes so it gives the impression that the music is alive, slithering around us, coiling tightly and then letting go. It can become frenetic, with interludes that see all the characters cross rapidly across the stage one or two at a time, each one shouting out a single line and disappearing; it produces a dizzying effect that continues to build upon itself, spiralling upward like a great whirlwind, then sending us crashing back down.

This production has been helmed by Julia Jamison, who also directed 2010's Assassins. The production she pulls together is both grandiose and intimate. Into the Woods captures the orality central to the fairy tale culture and blends it with the visual spectacle. As with any musical, the story is told on three levels: spoken word, physicality, and music, and these levels have to operate around the movements of a lot of people. Kudos to those performers who were already triple-threats when rehearsal began, there were many music students without acting experience, and many drama students without music experience. In Jamison's hands the students were moulded, as the squishy bits of clay they are, into a solid ensemble who could carry the different elements in stride.

Jenna Maren's set design creates a very dark and forbidding depiction of the forest, savage and dangerous, but also magical. The thick, gnarled trees growing on either side of the stage are at first terrifying, but also evince a trace of wisdom and ancient power. Other set pieces may be moved off and on, but are generally kept at the centre of the stage, to give a sense of the tremendous strength of the forest. Human society is kept small, surrounded on all sides by the savage wilderness, and the many entrances and exits on the stage compound the labyrinthian feel of the woods. But as time goes on, as characters move in and out, they begin to enmesh themselves with the forest and create a sense of unity.

Jamison pulls together these sundry elements to create a show remarkably sparse in stops and starts. This didn't really hit me until I was asked what my favourite song was, and I realised how difficult it was for me to pick one. Aside from the darkly comical centrepiece "Agony" Into the Woods did not feel much like a collection of songs. Rather it seemed to have a continuous progression that occasionally twisted and turned back on itself but never felt like it was dividing itself into segments. Music and drama intertwine very naturally so the whole experience builds the same story. The same rule applies to the actors. With the many — and, at times, frantic — entrances and exits, the show maintains a fluid narrative, while also extending to us the sensation of being, like the characters, lost in the woods, uncertain of what we would see next.

The cast of characters is vast, and works in a harmonious rhythm. The principal actors (in the show I witnessed) all bring different energies but collaborate into an effective ensemble. Rohan Keenan is a touching Baker, with a similar sort of roiling intensity that he had in All My Sons, where it seems he wants to lash out in anger but doesn't understand where or how. In contrast Miranda Hughes is his devoted wife, annoyed at her husband's inept bravado, but driven and compassionate. Greystone Theatre mainstay Anna Seibel tackles Cinderella, giving the character less of a sugar&spice fairy tale attitude and more of a deep sense of yearning, as a woman who is struggling to learn what it means to be her own person. Robert Grier is a simple and loveable Jack, with a doe-eyed sense of innocence but also unerring determination. He adds his own comic touch with the exuberant progress reports on his adventures offstage. Joanna Munholland, after two years of patiently saying very little in her Greystone stage credits, shines in her central role as Little Red Riding Hood. She is flighty and bouncy in her movements, and she radiates a child-like curiosity. In the plays darker moments, she accesses a soft, fearful side, but nevertheless charges ahead with the grim determination of Arya Stark.

Chris Donlevy and Connor Brousseau, as our two dashing princes, steal the spotlight with their show-stopping number "Agony" (so I lied when I said there were no show-stopping numbers), a song which plays to a macho competition and merciless fairy tale satire. Their stern poise somehow plays earnestly while simultaneously parodying themselves. Donlevy plays double duty between Prince Charming and the Wolf, occupying both roles with tremendous gravitas, while turning some excellent moments of humour along the way. Torien Cafferata is the dapper narrator, who floats on and off the stage to order characters about. He is rigid and professorial, which adds to the humour of his sudden vulnerability when he is confronted by his own characters. Vernon Boldick and Colin Gibbings both give hilarious and energetic performances as Red Riding Hood's grandmother and the Mystery Man, respectively. There was generally great cohesion by all the cast, too numerous to mention individually. Michelle Todd was a curious addition as a professional actress in the otherwise student cast. She has a thunderous presence as the Witch, both eye-catching and heart-breaking. And of course, I'm sure all the actors I didn't see were terrific as well.

Fuelling the actors onstage was the live band, led by musical director Debra Buck. They operated behind a translucent scrim toward the back of the stage, where their music could waft outwards as if generated by the wood sprites. The small orchestra (and this is where the music students chastise me for misusing the word orchestra) kept the show brimming with vitality.

All told, this is a show where everything works. While it doesn't have the same edgy panache as Assassins, Into the Woods tells a remarkably complex story in a remarkably simple way (or perhaps vice versa). It takes something very familiar, then spins it around a bunch of times and paints it a crazy colour with a name like "aqua sunset". It is charming, energetic, and heartfelt, combining a pre-9/11 sense of wonder with a post-9/11 sense of disillusionment. Somewhere in the spiralling miasma of music and rhythm, person and place, madness and fantasy, you will land on a safe and inviting path ... into the woods.