Theatre
Review
Review: Into The Woods
The extraordinary Sondheim revival at the Bridge Theatre delivers bittersweet magic
Happy endings are complicated. It’s not a novel idea, and the characters that make up the full and colourful cast of Into The Woods are not unfamiliar. There’s Cinderella, picking lentils from the ashes and dreaming of a night out, and Jack, forced to sell his best friend (a cow) or face starvation. Little Red Riding Hood stuffs her face with sweets, Rapunzel sings alone in her tower, and the Witch screeches on about revenge. These Brothers Grimm stories have been retold time after time, in language after language, with agenda after agenda. What remains fresh about Into The Woods is the question Sondheim poses. What if we’re not supposed to take any lessons from these stories? What if they’re just… things that happen? What if there’s not really much of a point to them at all?
It sounds bleak, and Into The Woods is anything but. Despite the violence – wolf guttings, bird attacks, giant tramplings – Jordan Fein’s version at the Bridge Theatre embraces the warmth and humour in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s extraordinary piece. The fairytale characters we know become real human beings, flawed and complicated, frequently irrational, neither good nor bad but obsessed with their own self-image. Fein’s production recognises that this complex humanity – always crucial in Sondheim’s work – is the entire point here. We know what happens to Cinderella, and to Jack, and to Little Red Riding Hood. What’s interesting is how they feel about what happens, why they make the choices they make, and what happens after the happy ever after.
It’s quite the ensemble cast assembled at the Bridge Theatre, so much so that it’s near impossible to pick standouts. Katie Brayben is incredibly likeable as the Baker’s Wife, gossiping warmly with Chumisa Dornford-May’s conflicted Cinderella. Oliver Savile and Rhys Whitfield bring the house down as the empty-headed, over-sexed princes, whilst Gracie McGonigal and Jo Foster are both hilarious and incredibly touching as Little Red and Jack respectively, coming of age before our eyes. In total command is the excellent Kate Fleetwood as the Witch, working overtime as the boogie man in multiple tales, deeply self-motivated and yet often the only sensible, self-aware person on the stage.
Tom Scutt’s set and costume take the show from memorable to magical – when the forest is revealed for the second time at the beginning of Act Two, it still doesn’t fail to astonish, despite the fact that we’ve already been staring at it for well over an hour. His whimsical, slightly shadowy fairytale world is helped along by Aideen Malone on lighting and Sam Cox on wigs, hair and makeup, every detail in place to create something wholly immersive.
Into The Woods is a feat of writing, and any time its staged it is a feat of performance. A dense ensemble cast and an impossibly deft book and libretto manage to wrangle multiple fully-realised character arcs into a two-and-a-half-hour musical, all whilst singing through a complex, difficult score. Fein’s version more than succeeds – it elevates, justifying Into The Woods’ position in the canon, and reminding us of a fact that feels more pertinent than ever: if we can’t think outside the confines of the story and remember to question the narrative presented to us, we won’t be able to see the wood for the trees.
Into The Woods is now playing at the Bridge Theatre until 30 May – find tickets here
