Theatre in Review: Into the Woods (Roundabout Theatre Company/Laura Pels Theatre)

	Emily Young, Noah Brody. Photo: Joan Marcus

For nearly a quarter of a century -- trace this phenomenon back to the 1992 revival of The Most Happy Fella -- the idea has been going around that you can cut down any big Broadway musical to a half-size cast and a piano or two and still have an evening that delights. More than that: Those involved in such downsizing efforts make wild claims, asserting that, at long last, the show's true beauties are revealed, being no longer obscured by all those sets and dancers. To me, this has always been the Big Lie of musical theatre, a genre that is, first and foremost, about style. The exception that proves the rule is the Encores! at City Center series, which has gradually moved from staged concert readings to productions that are all but ready for Broadway; everyone involved knows what counts when staging a musical.

These were the thoughts going through my head as I watched the Fiasco Theater Company's vest-pocket staging of Into the Woods. You may wonder why we need another production of the James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim fairy tale extravaganza at all, since it seems to get revived every other month -- this is the fourth major revival in a quarter century, and, of course, currently at a theatre near you is the well-reviewed, star-packed film. But the Fiasco version has come to town largely on the strength of a rave review by Ben Brantley, of the New York Times, who caught it at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton and was deeply moved. (To be fair, many other reviewers have found much to like in Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld's staging.)

As you enter the theatre, the signs are good, beginning with Derek McLane's set design. He has exploded a couple dozen pianos, stacking and layering their sound boards at left and right, creating intricate basket-weaves of rigging ropes gotten up to resemble enormous piano wires; and covering the proscenium with arrays of piano hammers. It's a witty visual pun: If the Fiasco Theater is going to deconstruct this musical, McLane will deconstruct the means by which music is made.

And deconstruction is what the company does, supplying 12 cast members instead of the usual 18 or 19 and relying only on a piano, with occasional contributions from one or two other instruments (trumpet, flute, oboe, guitar, various percussion instruments) played by members of the cast in the manner of a John Doyle production. The libretto has been slimmed down, too; gone is the Narrator, whose lines are spoken by the cast. (The Narrator's alter-ego, the Mysterious Man, who intervenes in the plot for reasons that are not revealed until late in evening, has been retained.) Other nips and tucks in the libretto are noticeable. "Our Little World," a duet for the Witch and Rapunzel, which was added to the 1997 revival and, I suppose, is now part of the standard licensed version of the show, is here, although for all the consideration it gets it could easily have been dropped.

As soon as the show begins, the messy, unfocused staging of the musical's long prologue sends up all sorts of red flags. Into the Woods is an intricate show, weaving several classic fairy-tale narratives around an invented plot about a childless baker and his wife. It's a tricky piece, a series of jump cuts from one satirically rendered plot line to another, marked by a mid-show 180-degree U-turn from farce to something like tragedy. The score includes tongue-twisting patter songs, powerfully understated ballads, and complex sequences that blend several musical lines at once. Like all Sondheim shows, it's a challenging piece and only the experienced need apply.

Fiasco Theater is packed with actors trained in classical theatre; I've heard great things about the company's productions of Cymbeline and Measure for Measure. But musical theatre requires another skill set altogether. Just as it takes time, training, and experience to learn the technical challenges of Elizabethan verse, Restoration comedy, or Shavian or Wildean high comedy, so too it can take years to master the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, and, yes, Lapine and Sondheim -- a proposition that is being proved time and again these nights at the Roundabout.

If, as mentioned above, the opening sequence is a bit of mess, many individual turns prove even more disappointing. The lengthy exposition-filled rap offered by the Witch (Jennifer Mudge), the show's catalyst and sinister presiding figure, is thoroughly compromised here. Mudge is made to wear a hideous crocheted half-mask -- Whitney Locher's costumes feature plenty of crewel work -- that obscures her face; furthermore, her delivery of the all-important lyrics lacks precision and authority. It's the first time ever that my mind wandered during this number. Mudge's performance improves later on, when the Witch regains her youthful allure, but even so, she lacks the vocal power to make much out of "Last Midnight," the denunciatory ballad that, under the right circumstances, can be a show-stopper.

Similarly, "Hello, Little Girl," in which the Wolf makes lascivious overtures to Red Riding Hood, is weakened by Brody's delivery and the decision to have the actor hold a stuffed and mounted wolf head in front of his face. "On the Steps of the Palace," in which Cinderella (Liz Hayes), escaping from the ball, reviews her options, suffers from an overacted and underfelt delivery. The supremely melancholy ballad "No One is Alone" gets such a perfunctory reading that it packs almost no emotional punch. You don't need to ham up the number "Agony," the lament for two romance-struck princes -- the song does that for you -- but nobody told Brody or Andy Grotelueschen.

It's not just that the actors have voices best described as only fair; their phrasing, enunciation, and interpretative abilities are substandard as well, and no one seems to have any idea how to sell a number. It doesn't help that the direction scants the script's native wit for cutesy we're-putting-on-a-show-style gags that draw attention to themselves and away from the story. In addition to the wolf head bit, mentioned above, Brody and Grotelueschen double as Cinderella's sisters, the two men engaging in bits of wildly campy mincing. Grotelueschen also plays Milky White, the cow, who constantly hugs Jack, does double-takes, and indulges in a grossly overextended death scene. And was it really necessary to have Red Riding Hood steal a bottle of booze and stagger drunkenly through the forest?

There are a couple of bright spots in the cast. Patrick Mulryan is a perfectly fine Jack (of beanstalk fame); the rest of the cast could profit from studying his ebullient delivery of "Giants in the Sky." Emily Young's Red Riding Hood has exactly the right don't-mess-with-me attitude and she provides a charming rendition of "I Know Things Now." Steinfeld's Baker is on the drab side, but he makes something touching out of the Act-II ballad "No More."

McLane's set is treated beautifully by Christopher Akerlind's lighting, which adds depth and color to the upstage forest of ropes; he also creates some startling shadow effects, most notably of the female giant who threatens to annihilate the entire cast. If Locher's costumes are a little too much out of the rag bag, she does provide Cinderella with a lovely sparkly gown. The sound designer, Darron L. West, mics the actors, but only for sparingly used reverb effects; otherwise, the show has a pleasingly acoustic feel.

But what has been gained by this vision of Into the Woods that made another revival so necessary? If anything, it exposes the show's most glaring weakness -- Act I is populated by witty cartoons, who are supposed to claim our emotions when, in Act II, they commit adultery and murder and die. The production appears to be a success -- it recently extended its run -- but I hope the members of Fiasco don't let it go to their heads. Next time out, I'd like to see them in something by Shakespeare or another classic playwright. Even more, I'd like to see them leave musical theatre to the professionals.--David Barbour