|
Into The Woods The sharpest line of Into The Woods has one of several Prince Charmings wandering the stage pointing out to the wife he’s cheated on - this happens to be Cinderella, of which more later - he’s there to be ‘charming, not sincere’. The same potentially goes for this production, which does everything it needs to in being theatrically irresistible: impeccably sung (quite a rarity), choreographed to perfection and charming out all the rich reference-laden textures of the tales its typically intelligent (no one but Sondheim) plot is built on. But it is self-consciously coy of fleshing out the suggestiveness inherent in the perversion of storybook expectation. Into The Woods is a show of two halves: the first sees a baker (David Botham, winning as ever) and his childless wife (a beautifully selfish Chantelle Staynings) sent on a quest to recover Cinderella’s slipper, Little Red Riding Hood’s cape, Jack’s cow and a strand of Rapunzel’s hair, all to lift a Witch’s curse; the second half is far more conceptually ambitious, as the wife of the giant Jack (Jack White, magnetically delightful) killed in the process demands a sacrificial victim: the hunt for a scapegoat is rarely a pretty one. There are gratifyingly intelligent performances to go with some terrific voices: Lily Kennett’s Cinderella, Amy Matthews’ witch, Ben Levine’s wolf being the highlights. My-Hang Doan’s violin stands out, a credit to the music’s being more than a second skin to the stage: it is that too, but never imbalanced. The strengths and weaknesses of a largely unchanged cast and crew - that of last term’s Company - are familiar: little conceptual boldness in the staging, but a definite genius in the sheer quality of musicality - and plastic cows, too: the arrival of a new, decidedly furry, Milky White cow to compensate for the death of the (deeply affecting) cardboard cut-out which is the original object of Jack’s worship is emblematic of that ability to charm the critical faculties off any audience willing to be seduced. This is seriously shrewd pantomime for grown-ups; it could, but need not, pretend to be something more. Into The Woods has moral weight - as a critique of individualism, whichever brand of it may happen to be under Sondheim’s microscope - and moral symbolism: the giant demanding her pound of Jack’s flesh is the hypostasis of any and every indefinite threat - nuclear, environmental, medical - that makes collective organization appear a necessary good. Sondheim and Lapine transcend lower musical fare precisely because the tale is instrumental to the imagination its audience brings to it: a little more help, through a little less self-parody, might not go amiss. Jasper
Milvain 04.06.02 |