What a relief it is, then, for anyone who might not have seen a stage version since then, to re-experience all the chortle-out-loud moments that got undercut for the purpose of screen realism. It’s not that Rob Marshall’s adaptation was a total disaster (the lingering general consensus among “Into the Woods” fans mostly amounts to: “Not nearly as bad as I expected”), but it was a filmic treatment of a tragicomedy that seemed to be about equally afraid of both slapstick and sorrow, favoring an inoffensive, mushy middle. There is, and part of that is finally, once and for all, wiping the taste of the 2014 Disney movie adaptation out of everyone’s minds. At the Ahmanson, the show can still have that effect on newbies, as one first-timer could be heard in the lobby telling friends there could not possibly be anything left to settle in a final hour. The legend (which is true, according to Lapine!) is that during the show’s very first run in the ‘80s, a busload’s worth of theatergoers thought the whole thing was over at intermission and headed across the parking lot to go home when they were coaxed back into the theater. In Act 2, “Into the Woods” has a body count almost like a slasher movie, which can be a little startling to anyone who got too lulled by the relatively more benign shenanigans of Act 1, which only has happy-go-lucky stuff like people getting their eyes pecked out or heels sawed off. Will they all live (or die) unhappily ever after? Does a giant shmush in the woods? The severity of their fates is fairly unpredictable even if you’ve seen the show before, the sudden death of one of the most sympathetic characters still has the power to draw a gasp. Tertiary players include a narrator (David Patrick Kelly), who… well, let’s just say that if you ever thought narration in a play was expendable, so does the fourth-wall-breaking cast here, literally and a sibling pair of princes (Creel, again, and Jason Forbach) whose shared vanity in their show-stopper, “Agony,” probably set the standard for latter-day Disney schmuck-hunk villains like Gaston and Prince Hans. There’s Cinderella, with her special slipper (Diane Phelan) Rapunzel, aka sister-golden-hair surprise (Alysia Velez) Jack, of “…and the beanstalk” fame (Cole Thompson), with his sickly pet cow in tow and Ridinghood (Katy Geraghty), snacking away like a pubescent stoner, oblivious to why this couple lusts after her red coat even more than the Wolf (Gavin Creel) craves her pasty flesh. These instructions amount to grand-theft-Grimm, as the baby coveters go on an epic journey and find that everyone they need to steal from or swindle is on a woodsy journey of their own and not eager to give up their precious. Block and Sebastian Arcelus) all too desperate to follow the directions of a proudly wicked witch (Montego Glover) about how to undo a fertility curse. At the heart of the ensemble piece is a childless couple (played by IRL marrieds Stephanie J. The conceit - no longer as novel as it was in 1987, though just as clever in execution - is that the world of fantasy bedtime tales is really an intersectional novel rather than a series of short stories, with four main storylines and about as many diversionary branches. But as the show makes it its mission to remind, endings are fleeting, not ever-after, so four weeks is all anyone has got to enjoy an incarnation so happy it’s like the living embodiment of the end of Act 1.Īs the recent run of “Sunday in the Park With George” at the Pasadena Playhouse reminded Angelenos, Sondheim has a thing for shows in which the second act is very different from the first, with “Into the Woods” as the more universally famous example. Sondheim fans could stop in every six months or so for a spiritual booster shot against the pandemic of giants in the land. How often, as a non-New Yorker, do you get to tell people that one of the half-dozen greatest American musicals has landed locally in a version that’s as world-class and close to flawless as any modern version is ever likely to get? If this were truly a fairy tale, “Into the Woods” would extend at the Music Center for years, and L.A. A national tour of last year’s much-loved Broadway revival has just touched down at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre for its final stop, and boy, is everyone doing their job right.
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