Printer Friendly - re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BlueWizard 2004-12-22 02:09:16
Does anyone else find homoerotic overtones in the way the Witch keeps Rapunzel for herself, is threatened by the Prince, and wants to become young and beautiful again so that Rapunzel will love her? Their relationship feels less like a mother-daughter relationship and more like that of an older, scorned lover and a younger beloved.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by paradox_error 2004-12-22 02:18:12
I never really looked at it that way, but I can definately see where you are coming from. And its not even incestuous...they aren't related.
Interesting theory!!! 
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by TheatreRatinBlue 2004-12-22 02:24:21
that's digging a little deep into the storyline.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Love4Cheno 2004-12-22 10:12:43
It's Sondheim, so you NEVER know. "Johanna" from Sweeney is NOT about just his "love" for her, and "sweetly buried in your yellow hair" does NOT refer to the hair on her head.
Also- he wrote a new song for the witch and Rapunzel for the London staging called "Our Little World." "Our little world is perfect..."
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Rathnait62 2004-12-22 10:16:56
Blue, I've always felt that way.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BlueWizard 2004-12-22 14:14:29
The Witch and Rapunzel reminds me of the relationship in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon between the ingenue and her master Jade Fox. The only thing that makes it a mother-daughter relationship is their difference in age; otherwise, I find that there are very strong lesbian undercurrents that inform the older lover's frustration and anger.
One more question about Into The Woods: how does the Witch still have the power to disappear after "Last Midnight"?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by VIETgrlTerifa 2004-12-22 14:18:49
Plot hole.
I heard that in the revival, she gave up her beauty to get her powers. But then if she had no powers, how can she give up her beauty?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by redhotinnyc2 2004-12-22 14:21:56
I don't want to sound rude - but that incest angle is just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It may be Sondheim, but its a children's fairy-tale, for chrissakes...
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 14:27:20
I don't think it's so ridiculous...and it was actually kinda what I was getting from the revival.
It's an interesting thought, but certainly a squeamish one. Though not blood relatives, the witch certainly did raise Rapunzel from infancy. To explore a sexual relationship between the two would be a bit too Woody/Soon Yee for me.
However...there is no plot hole with her disappearing at the end of LAST MIDNIGHT.
She throws the beans away and becomes an old powerful crone, just like she explains in the opening.
"Alright, mother, when?
Punish me again.
Give me claws and a hunch,
Just away from this bunch
And the gloom.
And the doom.
And the boom.
Crunch."
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BlueWizard 2004-12-22 14:28:29
It's not incest if they were never related.
Besides, the Grimm brothers' fairy-tales are actually quite gory and perverse (before their Disneyfication), and I believe a few of them actually do have incest in them.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 14:30:06
Tell that to Mia Farrow!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by VIETgrlTerifa 2004-12-22 14:30:39
Oh right! But then the original production ever actually showed her getting old. She just did a funny cape dance and disappeared.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Love4Cheno 2004-12-22 14:27:18
I don't think it's ridiculous AT ALL. Into the Woods is NOT a children's fairytale. It's very much grown up. The Baker's Wife has sex with a prince in the middle of the woods, etc.
And if you read any of the original Grimm's Fairytales that Sondheim used as a basis, you'll find they're very dark, sexual, and violent.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 14:32:49
Exactly, Viet.
The original did employ the funny cape dance.
The revival actually had VW turning old before our eyes before she disappeared.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Love4Cheno 2004-12-22 14:29:20
One more thing-
Many people consider the Giant that comes down the beanstalk to be an allegory for the AIDS epidemic. It was just surfacing as Sondheim was writing the show, and I think it's an interesting association to parallel the havoc and death caused by AIDS, and the same caused by the Giant(ess) when she touches ground.
What do you guys think?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by redhotinnyc2 2004-12-22 14:36:52
I know all about the sexual aspects of childrens fairy tales - I've read many of the Grimms tales and loved Into the Woods. I just don't think THAT'S what they were going for in that aspect of the show - It definitely plays like a loving mothe/daughter relationship as opposed to an incestous/homosexual one.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BlueWizard 2004-12-22 14:38:58
Yeah, I heard about the AIDS allegory too. Some of the Witch's comments definitely support it. Do we know for sure, however, if Sondheim/Lapine had that in mind when they were writing?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Rathnait62 2004-12-22 14:43:57
redhot, I've been in both a mother/daughter relationship and a couple (!) of homosexual relationships. The relationship between Rapunzel and the Witch - the jealousy and possessiveness - definitely echoes the latter more than the former.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by PleaseChangeMe 2004-12-22 14:46:32
"It's Sondheim, so you NEVER know. "Johanna" from Sweeney is NOT about just his "love" for her, and "sweetly buried in your yellow hair" does NOT refer to the hair on her head."
Where in the world did you read this? Can anyone else back this up? I find that a little wrong even for Anthony.
And Sondheim has said that the Giant's landing has nothing to do with the AIDS problem.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Love4Cheno 2004-12-22 14:46:42
Regarding the Anthony/Joanna sexual lyric, it came from the mouth of a B'way Musical Director. Not Paul Gemignani, but nonetheless...and I'm not saying who.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 14:51:03
Though I do not think it is what Sondheim/Lapine intended, the idea is not far-fetched.
But Into the Woods has its fair share of sexual undertone.
One could write a book studying the sexual undertone and metaphorical language hidden in the laguage of Sondheim and Lapine.
A fascinating book that I recommend to anyone is a book by Bettelheim called The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
It is a very scholarly and well-educated work on the hidden meanings of children's stories and an incredible study of what they mean to kids who read them. Into the Woods got started by Sondheim falling in love with the book.
Though Bettelheim never suggests that the relationship between Rapunzel and the Witch is an incestuous one, there are many insights he takes with the story.
The one aspect of the story that Bettelheim spends the most time on is Rapunzel's use and need of her own body to protect her and how she uses her body to help those she loves.
This is most evident in her hair that she needs to let people reach her, and she lets those she loves use her hair (re: body) to reach her tower, and also Rapunzel's use of her tears to restore the eyesight of her love.
To summarize nearly ten pages of the book, Bettelheim asserts that the story was primarily to teach young girls on the brink of sexual maturity the value of their body.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 14:52:12
re: Johanna.
That's what I always assumed it was...he's a sailor, for pete's sake. And he's been at sea for a good long time.
What I got from the ITW revival was that the Witch certainly had more than a motherly interest in Rapunzel, though I don't think it ever really came to fruition.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by musicalfandukie 2004-12-22 15:07:33
i've never really thought anything more than a mother daughter type thing.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BroadwayBound06 2004-12-22 15:09:02
Just becasue the Witch raised Rapunzel from infantcy doesn't mean that they can't have a sexaul relationship later. Look at the Judge and Johanna in Sweeney, the Judge wants to marry her.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 15:39:22
And it's CREEPY in that too!!!
It's not like we're rooting for the Judge to get with Johanna!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Rathnait62 2004-12-22 15:41:21
I don't know - I could be completely wrong - it could just be that as I saw Bernadette in the role, I was looking for a little homoeroticism... 
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Eponinez.Rain 2004-12-22 15:43:34
I could see that. I don't think Sondheim originally intended it to be that way, but I think its a valid interpretation.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GovernorSlaton 2004-12-22 15:46:16
Ah, Our Little World. Love it.
I don't think that was the intention, but I could see that.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 15:46:39
It's possible that he intended it.
But the most obvious and interesting sexual metaphor in Into the Woods is that of Jack and the 'Beanstalk'
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 15:50:25
Really? I always thought it was:
CP: If it were not for the thicket
RP: A thicket's no trick
Is It think?
CP: It's the thickest.
RP: The quickest is pick it apart with a stick.
CP: Yes but even one prick...
It's my thing about blood.
RP: Well it's sick.
CP: It's not sicker than your thing with dwarves.
RP: Dwarves?
CP: Dwarves!
RP: Dwarves are very upsetting.
TRIM THAT BUSH, SLEEPING BEAUTY!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by broadwaybaby87 2004-12-22 16:00:35
I never thought of this whole homoerotic relationship between the Witch and Rapunzel, but I watched Into the Woods twice today in two music classes (i brought it in)... and now that it's being discussed it does dawn on me that this is a very strong interpretation.
I honestly don't think Sondheim and Lapine meant for that to be a motif or anything, but there is a lot in the show that supports this argument.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by misterchoi 2004-12-22 16:21:28
and the beanstalk?
I always thought there was much more of a relationship between Jack and the Giantess.
Which might be true, as there are so many parallels between the characters.
Jack betrays Giantess/ Rapunzel betrays Witch
dunno.
All SO valid.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by iluvtheatertrash 2004-12-22 16:30:22
I think there's a lot of homoerotic signals in Sondheim's work.
COMPANY: Why won't Bobby marry? Why is no GIRL ever good enough?
But most of all: INTO THE WOODS: Why is the Baker cursed? Why can't have he a child?
*shrug* Just my two cents.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 16:30:37
Aw come on, Mister!
Jack follows his stalk to the big-titted woman.
Don't even get me started on little Red:
"But he drew me close and he swallowed me down"
FILTH!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GovernorSlaton 2004-12-22 16:37:41
I really don't buy the Bobby is gay theory. It sort of takes away from what the Company (and the character) is about.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by misterchoi 2004-12-22 16:38:30
guess I misworded. I agree with you one hundred percent robbie j. I was just referring to priest in that I thought the beanstalk had nothing to do with it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by robbiej 2004-12-22 16:41:07
Honey.
The stalk has EVERYTHING to do with it.
Sorry...putting away my inner Kim Catrall!
As for Bobby is gay, I completely agree. I don't think it's necessary. But, according to the script available for purchase, it's not so much a theory anymore.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 17:01:33
Well, to put it frankly:
Beanstalk=Penis
Growing Beanstalk=Erect Penis
Bettelheim examines this very deeply.
Here is one of the more controversial topics he gets at:
"On some level, climbing up the beanstalk symbolizes not only the 'magic' power of the phallus to rise, but also a boy's feelings connected with masturbation. The child who masturbates fears that if he is found out, he will suffer terrible punishment, as symbolized by the ogre's doing away with him if he should discover what Jack is up to. But the child also feels as if he is, in masturbating, "stealing" some of his parent's powers. the child who, on an unconcious level, understands this meaning of the story derives reassurance that his masturbation anxieities are invalid. His 'phallic' excursion into the world of the grown-up giant-ogres, far from leading to his destruction, gains him advantage he is able to enjoy permanently.
"The fairy tale represents in images what goes on in the unconcious or preconcious of the child: how his awkening sexuality seems like a miracle that happens in the darkness of the night, or in his dream. Climbing up the beanstalk, and what it symbolizes, creates the anxiety that at the end of this experince he will be destroyed for his daring. The child fears that his desire to become sexually acive amounts to stealing parental powers and prerogatives, and that therefore this can be done only on the sly, when the adults are unable to see what goes on."
Light stuff this ain't.
Of course, Bettelheim's theories rely on the collective-unconscience, which is controversial in of itself.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 17:04:40
You're free to do
Whatever pleases you
Exploring things you'd never dare
'Cause you don't care
Indeed. Afterall, Sondheim did base Into the Woods on Bettelheim's studies.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by misterchoi 2004-12-22 17:34:02
I didn't disagree with the fact that Jack had a sexual relationship with the giantess, which is what take that quote as. I just felt that the beanstalk had nothing to do with it. and of course i got that you meant the beanstalk as penis. I know Into the Woods isn't light stuff. It is perhaps his darkest show, along with Sweeny Todd. Passion is up there too.
But, obviously, your take on the beanstalk is more valid than my believing it has nothing to do with it. 
Priest is awesome, and Bettelheim is awesome and creepy.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by BlueWizard 2004-12-22 17:38:23
That's really interesting, Priest. Maybe I'll pick that book up for summer reading.
Back to the Witch and Rapunzel -- I think "Stay With Me" (especially the way it was originally staged) has the strongest homoerotic undercurrents:
What have I been to you?
What would you have me be?
Handsome like a Prince?
Ah, but I am old.
I am ugly.
I embarrass you.
A mother (even a possessive one) is less likely to banish her child out into a desert with two children than a lover scorned, who develops a much more volatile love-hate dynamic than a mother would.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 17:52:44
Yes, misterchoi, Bettelheim is indeed creepy at times, but quite perceptive.
Perhaps the creepiest point he makes is this:
"The story [Little Red Riding Hood] on this level deals with the daughter's unconscious wish to be seduced by her father, the wolf. with the reactivation in puberty of early oedipal longings, the girl's wish for her father, her inclination to seduce him, and her desire to be seduced by him, also become reactivated. then the girl feels she deserves to punished terribly by the mother"
He goes on at length and makes very interesting and creepy sexual parallels in LRRH.
Mother said straight ahead...
But I do not beleive Bettelheim makes any big allusions to homosexuality being present in these stories.
Although it has been a while since I've really read the book, so I could very well be mistaken.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by jacobtsf 2004-12-22 18:47:45
This is very interesting.
I have always thought that Jack and the Giantess had something going on: him and her breasts.
But I never thought about W&R.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 18:50:06
I think it is less about Jack being intimate with the Giantess and more about Jack being intimate with Jack.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by jacobtsf 2004-12-22 19:27:50
Priest-I thought that too.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Justice 2004-12-22 19:32:19
Into the Woods is a show with a lot of subtle sexual inuendos. The wolf had a penis in the original, and listen to Little Red's song taking it out of the plot - it is completely sexual. "And he showed me things, many beautiful things..."
Although I don't see the witch and Rapunzel that way, it wouldn't surprise me.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 19:33:44
Of course, Bettelheim's funniest point, one which he delves into great detail about, it the "penis envy" of young girl's and how they feel, subconciously, that all people used to have them and that they somehow misbehaved and were castrated.
And he uses the "slipper" in Cinderella to illustarte this point.
"[Cinderella] selects [the Prince] because he appreciates her in her 'dirty' sexual aspects, lovingly accepts her vagina in the form of the slipper, and approves of her desire for a penis, symbolized by her tiny foot fitting within the slipper-vagina"
His words. Not mine.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by CurtainUp 2004-12-22 19:47:10
Interesting idea, Blue, but I don't really see it.
However, it is totally THERE for LRRH. Not just sexual, but a physical, emotional and mental loss of innocence. (Scary is exciting...) - as is discovering sexuality. SHE strayed from the path and learned she could not be sheltered forever, she lost her innocence.
Interesting about Jack. I never saw it but now I totally can!
GOD THIS SHOW IS SO RICH! I LOVE IT!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by CurtainUp 2004-12-22 19:47:11
whoops, double post! Sorry!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by kjklo 2004-12-22 20:00:54
Keep in mind that Bettelheim was an extremely doctrinaire old-school Freudian whose work and theories on autism have since been thoroughly discredited. For what it's worth, back in the fifties and sixties he misdiagnosed many children as autistic and stuck them in a private school that he was running in Chicago where he claimed his methods were successful in helping to "cure" them. Decades later, many of these children (now adults) came forward with vivid descriptions of his brutality and abuse. Additionally, he's now suspected of having fabricated his claim that he was a personal student and colleague of Freud's in the thirties. Bettelheim ended his life by committing suicide. I would exercise extreme skepticism while reading any of his many books.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 20:07:06
Though much of his work has been discredited, The Uses of Enchantment is still used by scholars to study fairy tales and synechdochy.
And I was presenting his views merely as how they corrolate to ITW, as it was Sondheim's inspiration for the show.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by kjklo 2004-12-22 20:20:30
I know. I think your references are compelling and thought-provoking interpretations, some of which I actually agree with. However, I did want to point out Bettelheim's controversial reputation to those who weren't aware of it. He's one of those once fashionable figures in the social sciences who are no longer held in high repute. Freudian thought in general no longer has the authority it once did. Of course, Sondheim is of the generation that was utterly in thrall to those psychoanalytic concepts, so it's no wonder he was so taken with the book.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 21:36:36
I've tended to see more of a Jung influence in Bettelheim's work.
But seeing as Jung stems from Freudian theory, you can say it is one and the same.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Rose_MacShane 2004-12-22 22:15:39
"It's Sondheim, so you NEVER know. "Johanna" from Sweeney is NOT about just his "love" for her, and "sweetly buried in your yellow hair" does NOT refer to the hair on her head."
It took me FAR too long to realize that. I did catch the "thicket" exchange between the Princes, though.
I must be naive, because none of these ideas occured to me after listening to ITW. Not that they aren't valid; on the contrary, it all makes sense now that I think about it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-22 22:19:19
It is not you being naive.
The whole point of Jung and Bettelheim is that these ideas and hidden meanings only reach people and
children through their subconscious.
It all goes back to the collective unconsciousness, and in a certain way, it extends to the id, ego and superego.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2004-12-23 00:02:09
Sondheim has publicly said--as has Lapine that he does NOT agree with most of the thrust of Bettelheim's argument and the show was not instigated by the book (they both said as much as far back as the PBS Great Performance interview they gave when it first aired). This is a common misconception--so common that the souvenir program of the wonderfully dark London original used Bettelheim quotes around the illustrations. this has been discussed, with quotes from Sondheim, a LOT on the forum at sondheim.com.
Ya Sondheim has a great interest in psychoanalysis--the Seacrest bio basically implies it saved his life, and made him finally allow himself to be ok with being attracted to other men. But I don't think it was in the extreme Bettelheim takes it.
E
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by StickToPriest 2004-12-23 00:07:30
Although I agree that it is not taken to the extreme of Bettleheim, I believe that some of his views, albeit the less controversial ones, inevitably found their way into Sondheim and Lapine's music, words and direction.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Mimi Imfurst 2004-12-23 10:48:51
The play is about children and releationships(or lack there of) to their parents. Most, if not all, of the characters are abandonned children. It's a masterpiece really. I do not think that is fair to claim that the witches love for repunzels is of "something more" than an over bearing mother. (its just as unfair as those who claim that there was "something going on" between sam wise and froto- can two people of the same sex show affection without it being "gay" or "sexual"?) The witch was abandonned by her mother and so therefor she is just being an overly protective mother to make up for what she didnt so her "daughter" doesnt become what she is.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Musicaldudepeter 2012-08-05 15:44:47
Just reading this thread, and found it very, very interesting
I just finished watching Regent's Park's video recording of Into the Woods, and noticed that the relationship between the Witch and Rapunzel was very sexual. Hannah Waddingham during Our Little World plays the Witch as very turned on by Rapunzel's singing voice and her hair/beauty. Her orgasmic cries, as Rapunzel lets down her hair to her, are very striking, and made me think about this discussion.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Bob30 2012-08-05 16:22:28
I think the Witch just wants someone to unconditionally love her like a child should, hence why she wants Rapunzle as her daughter but is scared of letting her grow up and leave incase Rapunzel finds someone else to love and shes is trying to convince her to stay ("our little world is perfect") as the Witch is a very insecure person.
Thats if you want to think deep, although i do not think there is any hint of incest, but i prefer to just enjoy it!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by PattisLilKeeper 2012-08-05 16:30:43
Wasn't The Witch portrayed as very much a lesbian in the out of town tryout for the show down in San Diego? I was only 6 when I saw it but I just called and asked my mom and she said that it was Ellen Folly and remembers her acting very "mannish". She said she remembered her having a mullet!
I remember reading here years ago someone saying that a lot of the dialogue that still exists in the show for The Witch and Rapunzel exists from when the character was very different. I know in any picture I've seen of the Old Globe production, the "beautiful" Witch is very punk-rock...
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Musicaldudepeter 2012-08-05 16:38:29
Yes you're right, Foley's interpretation (as was Sondheim's and Lapine's original vision) was very lesbian-ish and punk rock-ish, so that would explain why a lot of us hold this opinion of the Witch/Rapunzel relationship. There is definitely, in my opinion, more to their relationship than just a parent-daughter aspect.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-05 18:55:44
Sorry, but anyone who listens to "Our Little World" and "Stay With Me" and doesn't pick up that the Witch's attachment to Rapunzel is more complex than motherly feelings is, well... living in their own little world. ; )
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Owen22 2012-08-05 18:56:33
Eric22, I think you're wrong about Sondheim and Lapine nixing the Bettelheim influence on the PBS intermission interview, but I can't say 100%. I DO know that every newspaper article at the time of the original production (along, I think, with the "60 Minutes" interview) quoted them with crediting Bettelheim with influencing "Into the Woods".
And I don't know if it was Sondheim, but I GUARANTEE you the Rapunzel/Witch lesbionic overtones were specifically part of Lapine's direction of the original.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-05 19:43:13
"A fascinating book that I recommend to anyone is a book by Bettelheim called The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales "
Although Sondheim and Lapine claim to have never used it (and I stand by that from their comments--it is true nearly every critic links the book to their show though, but that has more to do with how famous the book is even to non scholars), and while an interesting read, a good part of it is overdone. ie his take that The Frog Princess represents the creepy slimy curiousity kids have with their genitals and that;'s why the Princess is repulsed... Umm she's repulsed because IT'S A FROG, one that's stalker her and crawling into her bed, no less.
The NEw Yorker just had a great piece on this The Lure of the Fairy Tale http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/23/120723crbo_books_acocella
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by chrisampm2 2012-08-05 19:53:42
Followspot, consider me then in my own little world. You really have never heard of a parental bond that smothers, that controls, that overprotects, that invests more emotion in a child than even in a spouse?
Given that nearly every relationship in the piece is defined by a parent-child connection, or lack thereof, it makes sense that Lapine and Sondheim would feature one that is the opposite of that between Cinderella and her father and stepmother and that is also the opposite of blithely letting your child or spouse into the woods.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-05 19:58:48
I'm more curious about Rapunzel's twins... Maybe they're off at her Prince's kingdom.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-05 20:05:23
Chris, of course I understand all you're saying and fully grasp the parent/child themes throughout INTO THE WOODS... and, frankly, I wish the further insinuations regarding the Witch's attachment to Rapunzel weren't there, muddying those themes. But they are there. (Less so when "Our Little World" is omitted from the score it comes and goes depending on the production.) That's my only point.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Musicaldudepeter 2012-08-05 20:16:50
Chris, watch the Regent's Park recording, and watch Ms. Waddingham's movements and reactions during Our Little World, and then tell me there's nothing sexual about her relationship with Rapunzel in that particular version...It's so obvious. I don't think it was necessarily there in the 1987 Peters version of the show, but certainly in this new production, where everything was explicit, that was definitely highlighted.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by LifeisaMusical 2012-08-05 21:58:44
Really enjoyed reading this thread! I never thought about some of these things and it all makes sense!
I've always found it interesting how the wolf and Cinderella's prince are played by the same actor. I think that makes a huge statement.
Also, do the Prince and the Baker's Wife have sex or just make out? From watching the OBC movie I've always interpreted as just kissing but I'm interested to hear how other productions portray it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-05 22:08:49
In the current Shakespeare in the Park production, they've clearly had sex. Both enter putting their clothes back on, the Prince refastening the front of his pants.
For better or worse (in my opinion, for worse), the show began getting more overtly sexualized after the original Broadway production, starting with the 1990 London production.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by CATSNYrevival 2012-08-05 22:13:51
^Please. There's audio of both of them clearly orgasming while Donna is climbing her hair.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-05 22:18:58
^That's actually both of them groaning in pain, a comedy bit that's been in the show since the original Broadway production. There are other times, however, when Rapunzel's singing does cause the Witch to shudder with orgasmic pleasure.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by E.Davis 2012-08-05 22:20:38
^Actually their is an audio of Murphy Ad-libing because the rig got stuck. She is clearly overplaying it to fill the time and added in some hysterical filler.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Musicaldudepeter 2012-08-05 23:03:05
Where is this audio?
And also Yes very interesting re Cinderella's prince/Wolf being played by the same actor - I never thought of this before..
Such a wonderful show with so many depths and layers ... Great to be able to discuss so deeply..
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-05 23:09:22
"It's not incest if they were never related."
Sorry. Parents having sex with their adopted children is incest.
And, no, I have never interpreted the relationship of the witch and Rapunzel in or out of ITW as erotic. Of course, It could be interpreted that way. It could be directed to suggest that. But Is it a valid interpretation? IMHO, not.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by AwesomeDanny 2012-08-06 02:12:36
While it can be played that way, I don't think the Witch has much of a sexual relationship with Rapunzel. She clearly appreciates her beauty, but she does so to protect her from the world--the witch has lost her own beauty, and she doesn't want Rapunzel to make the same mistakes as her. I think, as suggested earlier in this thread, each of the main characters from pre-existing stories (Jack, Little Red, Cinderella, and Rapunzel) comes of age and has some sort of sexual awakening. Rapunzel has an over-protective mother who wants to shield her from the world, locking her in a tower where no man can reach her, keeping her "pure" and beautiful. Of course, Rapunzel gets frustrated with these circumstances and finds a way to rebel against her mother, and she then gets pregnant. If the two had a sort of sexual relationship (of course, with a one-way attraction) wouldn't the witch want to parade Rapunzel around, showing her off? Instead, she locks Rapunzel in a tower where she is hard to find.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by onedaymore 2012-08-06 03:01:27
You make a good point, Danny, about the younger characters' sexual awakenings. Yet I also must ask- don't you think the Witch locking her away could mean that she's trying to keep Rapunzel for herself?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by AwesomeDanny 2012-08-06 03:15:55
That may be so, but the witch makes it clear that she thinks Rapunzel will stay, for lack of a better word, "pure" in the tower. "Our Little World" is about the untainted world they have created. If the witch really wanted Rapunzel sexually, wouldn't that contrast what she was trying to do for Rapunzel? I think that the witch thought that all of her actions were in Rapunzel's best interest.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-06 08:14:52
My theory: it's easy, and in most cases valid, to equate Judge Turpin/Johanna with The Witch/Rapunzel. They have a lot in common:
1) composer/lyricist, 2) hair as a plot point, 3) hair as a lyrical inspiration, and as the ingenue's primary physical feature 4) traumatizing haircuts, 5) a sheltered maiden 6) an overbearing overprotective guardian/adoptive parent 7) who is, to a greater or smaller extent, unsympathetic and unattractive (in the case of ITW about to regain her appeal through magic,in the case of ST, about to (modestly) lose some of his crudeness through better grooming), 
who sees/comes to se his/her unattractiveness as something to work on as it impacts their respective subplot, 9) in each case the character standing in the way of young love is scarred by its progress, and reacts by abandoning his/her child, leaving her alone (in Bedlam/in the desert and ultimately in the world), 10) the antagonist to young love sees controlling and restricting the ingenue as the right and proper thing to do, 11) the reclusiveness and unobtainability of the young woman in her tower is in each case highly significant scenically and musically and 12) the young woman has been wrongly taken from her true parents in the central back story of the play, 13) the ingenue's experiences are so painful that she is extensively scarred by the final curtain, her young man may not be what she thought he was (even in Johanna's case, she grows at least temporarily mad and poignantly distrustful of Anthony), 14) intense rivalry for the maiden's affections and jealousy of the parental figure for the beautiful young man who wants his/her "child."
No wonder many would feel the eroticism that drives Judge Turpin's interest in Johanna would also apply to the Witch's for Rapunzel!
But it doesn't. Or, let me put this less dictatorially. I don't see it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by artscallion 2012-08-06 08:41:14
Very interesting and well thought out comparison!
And I agree that the lesbian thing just isn't there. I don't find any of the arguments for such a thing compelling or able to hold water.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-06 11:50:50
I don't see the incest angle either, in any production of ITW. It's about the Witch's overprotection and overwhelming desire to be a mother.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by My Oh My 2012-08-06 12:05:09
I don't think Sondheim would be foolish enough to give gay people a bad name like that. By making them out to have sexual relations with their adopted kids. Next!
One thing struck me while reading this thread: that people generally think it's somehow better that later productions have literally SPELLED OUT that the Baker's Wife has sex with the prince in the woods. I mean, it's not a bad thing but I got that she was unfaithful and had more than a kiss with him way back when I first saw the taped performance as a kid on my brothers BETAMAX video cassette recorder!
Subtlety. It's gone nowadays.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-06 12:58:10
Whatever happened to class?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-07 01:50:55
Frankly, I am gobsmacked that so many posters I respect refuse to see the homoeroticism in the relationship between the Witch and Rapunzel. I'll admit I saw the San Diego workshop where it was even more obvious, but, henrik and Kad, how do you get past these lyrics (which were quoted above):
"What would you have me be?
Handsome as a prince?
But I am old,
I am ugly,
I embarrass you.
You are ashamed of me."
What sort of mother talks this way? Only one in the Freudian or Bettelhim worlds where the sexual tension supposedly inherent to parent/child relationships is made explicit.
Moreover, the Witch doesn't just say it, she gives up all her supernatural powers to be young and beautiful again. For whose benefit but Rapunzel's? We certainly don't see the Witch express interest in anyone else.
For the record, knowing the above doesn't make "Children Will Listen" any less moving to me. These are allegorical characters; I don't confuse them with real people.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by ChairinMain 2012-08-07 04:37:40
the original San Diego production has been referenced a few times in this discussion, and I thought I'd weigh in since I recently had the opportunity to watch a video of that production. (Please note that I am not indicting that I personally own this video, am selling it, or have shared it with others...I am merely stating that I have viewed it.) It was a fascinating experience to see the show in a gestational and much less effective form; Act one is effectively as we know it with a few songs missing and a couple of dialogue changes, but the shape and purpose of act two is significantly different: the Baker's wife dies offstage from eating Snow White's poisoned apple, there is an extended death scene for Little Red's Granny, and there is an explicit romantic pairing at the end of the show between the Baker and Cinderella. The theme of parents and children isn't quite as explicit ("Children Will Listen" is not in the show in any form), although Cinderella's, Red's and Jack's relationships with their absentee fathers get more discussion. The shows doesn't quite have its central point in place, though it comes close, to an extent.
The difference most relevant to this discussion is that Rapunzel never refers to the witch as "mother" at all; she calls her "Dame Gothel." Neither "Stay with me" or "Witch's Lament" are in the show, and the two characters are never onstage together in Act Two. It's not explicitly a mother-daughter relationship; it's not explicitly romantic, either, and Rapunzel discusses the witch as a parental figure but they do not appear to be as close as they were on Broadway.
Significantly, Rapunzel's rant in Act two about her perpetual unhappiness is delivered not to the Witch but to the group that is about to encounter the giant for what is in this version the second time: Her prince, the Baker, Little Red, Cinderella, and the Royal Family. The Witch, hunting for Jack after an early encounter with the giant (in which only the narrator dies), is not even present. Rapunzel's reasons for unhappiness are not leveled solely at the witch here but at her history in general, and she then very explicitly runs in the same direction as the giant, clearly committing suicide. (Cinderella gets a terrific line at her death where, shaking her clothes to get her sister-in-law's blood spatter off them, she complains: "Oh, this dress is RUINED!")
I did not see Ellen Foley's Witch being played as explicitly gay, as some have suggested (she does wear some leather in act one.) She's not very maternal, either...in fact she really doesn't do much with the part. Frankly, when they added the Witch's additional motivations of protecting then avenging Rapunzel, they drastically strengthened a weak character. In the San Diego version, she does very little to "earn" the impact of Boom Crunch (But she does sing the heck out of it.) Rapunzel has even less to do than she does in the finished version, in fact the part is small enough that the role is doubled with one of the stepsisters, Florinda, played by Kay McClelland. this leads, incidentally, to only Lucinda making it out of the Giant's attack on the palace alive so McClelland can do Rapunzel's death scene. (it also leads to a great gag where the Stepmother realizes Rapunzel's tears cure blindness and positions Lucinda so the weeping girl restores her sight.) She's barely onstage at all: with no "Stay with Me" to be sung to her, Rapunzel seems a very minor character indeed.
The whole plot-line really needed a rewrite, and it thankfully got one. You can't really use it to argue for or against a romantic interpretation of their relationship, because in the San Diego version the two women barely have one.
I will say that in the finished version of the show, I've never really considered the lesbian subtext, though I've always believed it apparent in the fairy tale itself (Anne Sexton's treatment of Rapunzel in "Transformations" is especially good reading for those interested in this interpretation.) the subtext is there, but I'd argue against playing a romantic relationship, and if you MUST make it sexual, it should be one-sided and very subtle. The Witch and Rapunzel's relationship is important to the themes of the show as a parent-child relationship, not as a romantic pairing. The Witch's possessive nature can be explored perfectly well with her as a mother, without delving into this particular type of love.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Brian07663NJ 2012-08-07 08:30:08
Plenty of parents have responded to their children - "I am old, I embarass you" and it has nothing to do with sexual interest. Children grow up and do not want to even stand near their parents. Parents gush over their children all the time. The kid could do the most awful thing and the mamma bear is going to lash everyone to protect and defend the offspring. Watch TLC's Toddlers & Tiara's and you will vomit at the parental fawning. The kid smiles and poses...the parent melts.
When Rapunzel sings the Witch is merely enchanted by her child. Not her biological child but one she raised from an infant so consider it a strong love similiar to an adoption.
I read this post yesterday and was frankly a bit disgusted at the thought. It never even remotely crossed my mind that there was a lesbian relationship either one way or both. I think it is really reaching for straws to think that there is.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-07 08:38:28
That's how I always viewed those lyrics, Brian.
The Witch is playing maternal guilt after feeling she has been replaced as Rapunzel's sole object of affection. It's not necessarily sexual.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by AEA AGMA SM 2012-08-07 09:17:08
I'd also point out that the Witch does not know that restoring her youth and beauty would rob her of her powers, so she is not sacrificing those powers for anyone. Remember that after her transformation she attempts to place a spell on Rapunzel and her Prince and fails, and only THEN learns that she lost her powers in the transformation.
And I agree with Brian, plenty of kids are embarrassed by their parents for any number of reasons, including the way they look. I guess if all children who are ashamed of their parents are having incestuous affairs with them it adds a whole new layer to Judy's character in A Chorus Line.
"But my mother would embarrass me so
When she'd come to pick me up at school
With all those great, big, yellow rollers in her hair
No matter how much I begged her and she'd say:
What are you ashamed of your own mother?"
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by followspot 2012-08-07 09:54:35
No one has suggested that the Witch and Rapunzel are having "an inscestuous affair." Good Lord. It's only been noted that in some productions of ITW the hint of a sexual attraction on the Witch's part (perhaps unacknowledged even to herself) seems layered over the obvious "possessive parent" theme. Oy.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-07 10:53:26
Gaveston, I didn't see the SD workshop. I only saw the original Broadway production - that is until tonight when I'll be in the Park.
I can only repeat that this never occurred to me. To the extent that there is a Freudian/Bettelheimian aura of parent/child sexual dynamic, ok; but if one is a Freudian/Bettelheimian one can justify seeing that in almost every parent/child relationship in any probing psychologically perceptive play. Might there be Oedipal conflict in ITW? - sure - but, if so, it is - like all Oedipal dynamics - subconscious and indistinguishable from any Freudian interpretation of anything else, a reading legitimately rooted in the subconscious and, most importantly for this discussion, the universal - not a reading which could validly distinguish the Witch and Rapunzel relationship from those in the multitude of plays in which a parent raising a child and dealing with letting go is considered in terms of profound underlying sexuality. Not one which would convincingly suggest overt longings and intentions. Sure, a director might impose that. I would vehemently disagree with such an interpretation. I took this thread as a discussion of whether there is something of an overtly incestuous nature about the Witch's longings and needs.
By the way Sondheim asserts that Bettelheim wasn't really the model, but rahter that it was Jung. Jung's collective unconscious, as applied to mythic stories which were one of his motherloads (oops, sorry to be so naughty!), just like Bettelheim's fairy tale theory, supports that the themes here, and their underlying erotic layers, are universal and general, not pointing to a parent/child sexual dynamic between the Witch/Rapunzel which would either exceeds human commonality or imply sexual predation.
The question here is not whether there is actually a sexual relationship between the Witch nd Rapunzel - no one indeed is arguing that - the question - as I understood it - is whether the Witch has a motivating sexual attraction to and sexual intentions for Rapunzel. No.
I agree with Kad that the handsome like a prince lyrics are about guilttripping, embarrassment, a controlling parent's inability to let go when confronted with puberty. When Billy says "many a likely lad pursues her from her faithful dad, but my little girl gets hungry everynight and she comes home to me," that line also projects a father's typical possessiveness and protectiveness of his child from the threat of a lover. The Witch isn't a typical character (neither is Billy for that matter) and she is not typical in her possessiveness, but she is nothing more than archtypal in the underlying subconscious sexuality of her relationship with her daughter. Her possessiveness is raised to a supernatural fairy tale extreme, but the libidinal temperature is no different than Billy's for his unborn child. Rather, she is arcehtypal raised to an extreme - Freud and Bettelheim are interested in the universal and in archetypes. Not in lifetime television incest.
Who is she regaining her beauty for if not Rapunzel? For herself and whatever comes her way.... just like anybody else who longs for his or her youth and the sexual power it restores.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by NoHSMisNotAMusical 2012-08-07 12:14:15
I don't think the San Diego workshop can be considered canon, from the bits I've seen and from what I've heard, it's a very different show than what eventually ended up on Broadway.
I think the argument for there being lesbian undertones is very weak, however I have enjoyed reading this thread very much. The "I am old, I am ugly..." are something a parent would say. I see how some people are equating the Witch/Rapunzel relationship with the Johanna/Turpin relationship, but honestly I think the Witch only loves Rapunzel in a motherly way.
Also if anyone has a video of the SD workshop, I am definitely not interested. Definitely not.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by NoHSMisNotAMusical 2012-08-07 12:14:17
Double post
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 16:25:44
Chunks of the SD production are on youtube. However it seems to be earlier in the run than the video I've seen which includes Children Will Listen as part of the now cut 2nd Midnight. I forgot that the Wife died by eating the poisoned apple...
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 16:27:39
"
Also, do the Prince and the Baker's Wife have sex or just make out? From watching the OBC movie I've always interpreted as just kissing but I'm interested to hear how other productions portray it."
The OBC production does chastely fade the scene away just before the sex, but I've always been sure it was sex there too.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwayphreak234 2012-08-07 16:30:22
The relationship between the witch and Rapunzel has always been odd. I remember the video I had with Shelley Duvall as Rapunzel when I was little... The relationship was just weird.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 16:37:56
that Faerie Tale Theatre episode is a sentimental fave of mine--Jeff Bridges as the prince was one of my first crushes... (And Gena Rowkands as the Witch scared the crap out of me as a kid) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a07JiFr3Ak
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-07 16:50:45
This discussion has been really interesting. But what seems to be missing in the whole 'it's just a motherly love' argument is that it's a REALLY F*CKED UP version of motherly love. It's dark and twisted and manipulative and violent. This isn't M'Lynn and Shelby discussing diabetes here. It's ugly. And the obsession with Rapunzle and the desire to restore her former youth and beauty to please her can certainly add a shade of homoeroticism to the relationship. It's not the whole thing. But it could be one light color in the interplay between them. The exploration of maturing sexuality and its effect family dynamics is old as time itself. What else is the story of Adam and Eve? Eve matures first (by eating the fruit of knowledge) and then lets Adam eat her fruit. Then they realize they're naked and they have to leave their idyllic home and youth, never to return in quite the same way. These themes play out in so much great art and they play out beautifully in Into the Woods.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-07 17:30:56
Of course it's supremely ****ed up. But that's not the issue. The issue isn't really the eroticism in question being homo either.
The issue is whether the underlying erotic tensions are between an outrageously controlling supernatural being and a victimized child or that of an outrageously controlling supernatural being and a victimized child whom she wants to ****.
At least that's how I understood the question. (and, with apologies to OP who may not have meant the question that way, that's how I and many others have interpreted the question).
Choose the former and the erotic tension is a universal parent/child correlative magnified to fairy tale extremes. And highly Bettelheimian.
Choose the latter and it's quite a different story. And quite operatic and fascinating. But not, as far as I can see it, anything having to do with the themes and objectives of Into the Woods or the character of the Witch. The Witch is a lonely, wounded, brilliant, cantankerous, vindictive, needy, funny, narcissistically smothering mother. But she is not a sexual predator.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-07 18:03:08
Any artist--even Mr. Sondheim--sends their creation out into the world and relinquishes control over the meanings and interpretations that people will discover within the Work. Sondheim can state "definitively" that the Giant was not a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, but I cannot hear the line "I warned you that you can't rely on the Royal Family to solve your problems" without picturing Nancy Reagan in her Adolfo suits smiling and waving while my friends got sick and died. A story about people complacently--and misguidedly--waiting for the ruling class to respond to their sorrow is much larger than any one issue or event, but I was a gay man in New York City in the 1980's and that's what the Giant will always mean to me.
As far as the Witch and Rapunzel--I'm with SonofRobbieJ. I've always understood it to be about negotiating the impossibly fine line between protection and isolation, and the ways in which parenting can become pathological out of the best of motives. I've always found it profoundly moving and insightful, and I--personally--don't need to add incest to the mix to regard being a parent as one of the scariest parts of the Woods anyone can wander into.
But if you see incest, then you see incest--no-one can tell you you're wrong.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-07 19:54:46
Sorry, but there's a world of difference between:
"I am old. I embarrass you because you and your hipster friends think I'm old-fashioned."
And:
"I am old and ugly. I embarrass you. What would you have me be? Handsome as a prince?"
No woman in my family ever said the latter to any of her children. Yes, we've all known mothers who COMPETE with their daughters by trying to stay too youthful in appearance, but that effort is directed at others in a way we never see the Witch compete directly with Rapunzel.
What mother asks her daughter if she would rather her mother looked like her boyfriend?! Even as a guilt trip, that's weird.
Now what is the witch literally doing in the tower with Rapunzel? I don't know and I don't care. I don't assume it is literally sex any more than I assume the wolf literally has sex with Little Red. But the metaphor is pretty damn obvious unless one just refuses to see it.
For that matter, the Giantess isn't Jack's mother, but what are we talking about with a giant woman who enfolds young Jack in her "giant breast"? The point is that the line between parental love and sexual attraction is blurred throughout the first act.
Oh, and while I'm at it, there's no such thing as Santa Claus.
(Thanks to ChairinMain for the summary of the SD production. It's been 25 years and I'm sure I conflate it with the umpteen productions I've seen. I've long wondered why I don't remember more of Ellen Foley. I love her!)
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-07 20:11:28
I dunno, Gaveston--I'm not sure you can read a sexual subtext into every situation in which the word "breast" appears, especially in a mother/child relationship. Many, many children DO nurse at their Mother's breast with nary a hint of salacious/incestuous intent.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 20:21:12
I think there's no doubt, as originally staged, that there is meant to be a sexual element (granted, a minor one) to breast as used in Giants in the Sky.
Here's Ellen Foley (who I love toothanks to her Steinman work, I wonder if she played the part differently when she was a Broadway replacement?) doing Boom Crunch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9IGLtHQnqc
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 20:22:40
And in equally awful quality, her transformation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frvYKha626M&feature=channel&list=UL
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-07 20:41:30
Interesting--thanks for posting the links, Eric.
I can't honestly say I could understand many of her lines or lyrics, but she clearly inhabits a more sexual/lascivious version of the Witch than any I have seen previously. I can imagine that seeing her performance would lead one to different conclusions about the Witch's relationship with the other characters.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-07 20:44:18
Yah it's a shame that, even for such recordings, the quality is so cruddy, but still interesting to see (as a teen I listened to the much better quality audio bootleg a lot, but it's on casette and I'm not even sure I can play it any more). I agree with you about her portrayal.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-07 20:49:45
There's a lusty, Petra-ish (from 'Little Night Music) quality to the way she carries herself, even when she's not practically nibbling on Cinderella's ear..
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-07 21:08:30
I dunno, Gaveston--I'm not sure you can read a sexual subtext into every situation in which the word "breast" appears, especially in a mother/child relationship. Many, many children DO nurse at their Mother's breast with nary a hint of salacious/incestuous intent.
With all due respect, Addison, I think that's a myth. The most honest women I know admit there is something very near to sexual pleasure in breast feeding. (That does NOT mean they go on to sexually molest their children.)
Our culture is just phobic about sex in general and (more understandably) incest in particular. I don't even want to talk about the supposedly "innocent" interactions one hears about between mothers with their sons. (Obviously, I'm not immune to cultural taboos.)
Another interesting moment in the SD clip is when Cinderella's father tells her he ignored her because she reminds him "too much of (her) mother". (I don't remember if that line made the cut into the final version. I think not.) One reasonable explanation is that he found Cinderella's presence too painful; another equally reasonable explanation is that he didn't trust himself with his own daughter. Either way, we have a daughter compared to a mate and a continuation of the Oedipal/Electra themes that Bettelheim and others find in fairy tales.
-----
I did see Ellen Foley in SD, but I think my understanding of the sexual implications between Witch and Rapunzel come mostly from the lyric quoted above. I don't understand how anybody thinks that's a "non-sexual" remark from a mother to a daughter (and I agree that the fact Rapunzel was "adopted" makes no difference).
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-07 21:14:39
Thanks for the clips, Eric. I've been an Ellen Foley fan since her variety show, "3 Girls 3". I listened to BAT OUT OF HELL for years before I realized it was she on the record. Do you know why she wasn't credited on the vinyl or audiotape versions of the album?
(Please answer quickly before After Eight arrives to accuse me of not doing my own research.)
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-07 22:37:03
I think there's no doubt, as originally staged, that there is meant to be a sexual element (granted, a minor one) to breast as used in Giants in the Sky.
Minor? I don't think it's minor. Whatever the literal circumstances in the plot, I think it's clear that both Little Red's and Jack's solos are reflections on their first sexual experiences.
In Jack's case, it isn't even subtext or metaphor, it's text. (The Oedipal overtones are the subtext.)
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by musicaltheatreman2 2012-08-07 23:21:44
this sound clip is pretty funny. i can see why you think the witch relationship with rapunzel is wierd lol http://****yeahstephensondheim.tumblr.com/post/28442785098/have-you-been-confused-about-the-online-chatter
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 05:00:40
I'm not sure--but even in that old 1970s music video done for Paradise By The Dashboard Lights, they have someone else lip synching to Ellen Folley's stuff (I believe the woman they have did tour it with Meat Loaf, Karla DeVitor, but the recording uses her vocals. Later on with Bat Out of Hell II they used another person lip synching the female part of Anything For Love, so who knows...).
Around the time Foley was back as the Witch on Broadway--1989ish, she was one of the four female vocalists Steinman used for his Original Sin album, as girl group Pandora's Box (although she's not the lead vocalist of the original version of It's All Coming Back to Me Now, she islead on a number of the other songs from the album that Steinman later re-used on other projects once it flopped--it's maybe my fave over the top Steinman album).
I'd never heard of 3 Girls 3--apparently it aired three episodes, so you have a good memory--some cute clips on youtube (Debbie Allen and Mimi Kennedy!)
OK you won me over--Jack's breast line isn't minor. At any rate to suggest there's not meant to be ANY sexual element to it is simply bizarre IMHO--Sondheim even sits that lyric where he does in the music to draw emphasis to it, no matter how it's performed (and it's nearly always performed in a way to draw attention to the line).
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by westcoast_wannabe 2012-08-08 06:12:43
I love this thread. Discussions like this are why Into the Woods is my favorite musical. I was a kid when the OBC performance was first broadcast on PBS and I loved it then just because it was a musical about fairy tales. As a kid I could love it for what it is on the surface... A musical about fairy tales. As I got older I was able to appriciate the more complex issues of loss, personal responsibility, and parent / child dynamics that the show explores. I really love that the show inspires discussions like this one about the subtext and allegorical layers in the show. Just before Into the Woods was on PBS my parents took me to see my first musical, the national tour of Cats. Seeing Cats was a magical experience I sat on the aisle in the third row orchestra and I got to pet a cat. I loved everything about the show and it fostered a life long love of theater. As I got older the magic of Cats wore off. It was a lavish musical about Cats with some catchy tunes when I was a kid and that remains to be all it is. Into the Woods on the other hand is a show that has become more magical with time. I could love it as a kid for what it is on its surface and I love it even more as an adult for all of its layers and nuances. I always say
Cats is a musical I grew out of, Into the Woods is a musical I grew up with.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 07:25:45
"I really love that the show inspires discussions like this one about the subtext and allegorical layers in the show."
It's the original fairy tales, the real ones, the ones as they are SUPPOSED to be, that have the layers. And the magic. The layers and magic that make them timeless and beloved.
The only "layers" provided by these tiresome, mean-spirited distortions are puerile, smug, pretentious pap. And let's not forget ugly. (Would that we could!) Those are layers no show needs. And no audience, either.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Brian07663NJ 2012-08-08 09:25:57
yes there are a multitude of ways to interpret relationships: Witch/Rapunzel, Wolf/Little Red Ridinghood, Jack/Female Giant... and how any could possibly be thought of as sexual.
Just this morning I was thinking and almost shocked that I let out an audible sound of pleasure last night while eating a steak. How my eyes rolled. How I guarded it all to myself and didn't want anyone to even touch it. Then I realized - does this mean I am into bestiality? NO...still think those relationships are all being overanalyzed. Yes Into the Woods has a LOT of awakenings but I don't think it is a lesbian relationship between the witch/Rapunzel.
Will someone please call Stephen and/or James and straighten this out?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-08 09:28:37
AfterEight--As much as I love a wafer-thin chocolate/mint treat, I couldn't disagree with you more than I do, and your use of the phrase "SUPPOSED to be"--with the all-caps emphasis thoughtfully provided by you--is the surest sign that your argument is not strong.
No story is "supposed" to be interpreted in only one way--unless you happen to work for the Vatican Doctrinal tribunal--especially a body of stories as ancient and rooted in the regional, oral tradition as Fairy Tales.
You may well--and understandably--find the sexual, incestuous and political interpretations of 'Into the Woods' discussed in this thread distasteful. You may not see the basis for people's interpretations. I continue to be somewhat mystified by Gaveston's passionate certainty about the line of incest running through the relationship between the Witch and Rapunzel. YOU may find the ideas discussed tiresome and ugly. So much of life is both tiresome and ugly. In fact, some of the ugliest behavior you could ever want to read about is found in the "real" Fairy Tales--Matricide, Patricide, Fratricide, infanticide, infidelity, physical and mental abuse. You may have enjoyed the Disney film "Snow White and the Three Dwarves ("Dwarfs!") but you can't wish away the "ugliness" of the source material's genre. And you cannot--or should not--tell people "how" to interpret a story.
It seems to me that if a show is going to be vital, stimulating and thought-provoking, it--and it's audience--desperately need these layers.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 10:05:49
Addison,
You don't understand. The layers are already in the original tales --the way they were and are supposed to be (no need to capitalize twice) -- and far richer than anything Into the Woods has to offer with its simultaneous juvenile and pretentious take on them. Perrault is beautiful and profound. Into the Woods is trying and sophomoric.
The ugliness derives from splattering mud on characters that are meant to be as they were meant to be.
P.S. There were seven dwarfs. According to Webster, both plurals are correct.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-08 10:27:19
AE--You are correct; I misunderstood your previous comment.
I can't defend 'Into the Woods' against charges of being both 'juvenile' and 'pretentious' because I take you at your word that that is how the show strikes you. I don't experience it in those terms, but I might grow to find it so if I were better-versed than I am in Perrault, Hoffmann, et.al.
For me, the show has proven to be a reference point that I return to--literally--constantly. In particular, the way that Cinderella's character discovers and explores the ironic emptiness of "getting" her wish. I understand that ALL of the characters make that discovery, but--for me--her lines/lyrics resonate especially powerfully (see my signature line, below).
'Into the Woods' continues to give me real, visceral pleasure. I'm sorry it doesn't do the same for you. Please read that line without a trace of sarcasm of irony. I really do wish that everyone got as much from this show as I do--it pains me when I play the OCR or the DVD for someone and they are not moved and transfixed as I am.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 11:25:44
"I really do wish that everyone got as much from this show as I do--it pains me when I play the OCR or the DVD for someone and they are not moved and transfixed as I am."
Addison,
I wholly understand these feelings, and I applaud them. We all would love to have our family, friends, and other theatre-lovers love the plays we love, and experience the same joy that we do. That's the good part of human nature. And it hurts when you recommend something you love to another who then doesn't like it. It's deflating. I'm sure, in part, it's a blow to our ego. (and there are some very fragile egos on BWW.) But more so, I think, it's due to the thought of letting someone else down, and the idea of their missing out on something wonderful.
So it pains me to offer dissenting opinions on shows that other people love. I don't enjoy spoiling other people's fun, though I've been accused of just that. But as painful as it is for me, if a theatre discussion group is to have any validity, there has to be honest expressions of opinions.
I waited until there were over a thousand posts on Into the Woods before I ventured my comments, precisely so as not to rain on other people's parade.
But when I read about the multiple "layers" in Into the Woods, I felt the need to respond.
You had a visceral reaction to Into the Woods. Mine was no less visceral. Just of another sort.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 11:59:57
I actually was lucky enough to see Ellen Foley's interpretation of the Witch during the end of the run on Broadway. Though I wouldn't say it was a 'dykey' interpretation, it certainly did have a hard edge. Rock 'n Roll, certainly. And I thought it worked very well. My guess is any inherent qualities an actress has will come through the role of the Witch (which is not particularly well defined...that's a feature, not a bug. It allows the actress to bring the full force of her personality to bear, which is why it's considered the 'star' part). Peters has great warmth, and so the relationship with Rapunzel appeared more maternal and loving. Rashad had a regal, imperious tone which made her seem like a neglectful mother. Foley was both younger and harder-edged, so there seemed to be a sexual aspect in the relationship that wasn't fully explored by the other two women.
I'm very interested to see what Murphy brings, as I find her an interesting combination of Peters' warmth and Rashad's imperiousness. I also would have been fascinated by Zeta Jones or even Menzel's Witch.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by westcoast_wannabe 2012-08-08 12:35:06
After Eight I realize that many of the layers in Into the Woods are intrinsic the source material and fairy tales in general. But one of my favorite discussions about Into the Woods was what character represented God. Some thought that it was the Witch, others thought the giantess, I argued the Narrater (though I argued that point more for arguments sake than as my personal belief). All the arguments were valid and it made for great conversation. I've also appreciated (though I don't subscribe to) the idea that the giantess represents the AIDS crisis of the eighties. All great fairy tales should have multiple layers and there are lines in Into the Woods that propel discussions intrinsic to the source material as well as create new aligories specific to Into the Woods.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by FANtomFollies 2012-08-08 13:18:30
SonofRobbieJ- i love your analysis of the Witch. I agree with everything you're saying. I found Donna Murphy's Witch to be the most selfish of any witch I have seen/heard. That's not to say her interactions with the other characters weren't as interesting, but her motives were more clear to me than previous interpretations. I also found her transformation to have waaaaay more contrast than normal. While 'ugly' her mobility is very limited and she is forced to use her 'crutches' to hobble around very slowly. Once 'beautiful' she became very agile and physical which I found kind of fascinating. I knew she'd be phenomonal vocally but I wasn't expecting her to be so impressive with her movement.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by FANtomFollies 2012-08-08 13:18:50
double post
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 14:00:48
Well...I'm seeing her next Wednesday night, barring rain. I'm very excited to see it!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwaydreamer 2012-08-08 16:25:59
I dont' know if this has been said or not yet but Bluewizard - re your question about how the Witch gets her power back at the end of Last Midnight. She loses the beans again when she throws them around during the song "here you want a bean... beans are made for making you rich". Then the curse comes back that her mother placed long ago, "alright mother when, lost the beans again. Give me claws and a hunch just away from this bunch...". She gets her powers back and BOOM. Hope that helps
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwayphreak234 2012-08-08 16:44:57
While we are on the topic of the different witches, what did people think about Vanessa Williams?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-08 16:51:48
I may be late to the game thinking about all of this but I'm suddenly a bit confused.
Is this the order of the back story?
The Baker's father takes the beans.
The Witch's mother punished her for "losing the beans" when the Baker's father took them (i.e., the Witch was responsible for guarding the beans and she was blamed for having them stolen).
This punishment was to make her ugly.
She then curses the Baker's father's house with infertility.
If you're with me so far, then it strikes me as interesting that the Witch would have chosen this specific curse. Could it be that the Witch felt that she lost her mother's love when her mother punished her, and that her justice was to deprive the Baker's children of the love between parents and children?
Also Rapunzel would have been cursed as well. But the curse is lifted at the end of Act I. But when does Rapunzel conceive (or not) the twins? Is it before the curse was lifted? Is that why the babies are dust?
If so, is the Witch wounded by her own curse when she, alone without anyone, goes to take the babies, but there are none because Rapunzel could not bear live children?
Also, could the Witch's shielding Rapunzel from the world have an added motive. Does the Witch see Rapunzel's infertility as making her unfit to be a wife, let alone a consort for a prince? Or at least does that justify in the Witch's mind her keeping Rapunzel all to herself, because no one would want a barren woman as his wife? Therefore, the Witch feels there is something benign in her smothering Rapunzel and shielding her from the world? That it's for her own good?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 16:56:55
Ellen Foley is 3 years younger than Bernadette Peters and 7 years older than Phylicia Rashad (at least per Wiki). The differences between their performances came from the choices they made, not their ages. (ETA Oops! Got my decades confused: Peters and Rashad are the same age, 3 years older than Foley.)
***
Eric, that is Karla DeVito lip-synching for Foley in the Meat Loaf videos. DeVito did do the tour, as you point out, and later covered for and replaced Linda Ronstadt on Broadway in PIRATES OF PENZANCE. DeVito later married her co-star, Robby Benson (whom I'm sure you remember from countless movies of the 1970s). They are still married (and happily so according to mutual friends).
***
Addison, have you read much Freud? Psychoanalysis is practically based on the idea that all human affection is fundamentally erotic, and fairy tales are frequently used as examples. It would only be surprising if Lapine and Sondheim did NOT acknowledge the eros in familial love.
***
Dear After Eight,
I'm sorry Stephen Sondheim killed your dog. I'm sure it was an accident. And it's time to get a new dog.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-08 17:08:38
Gaveston, I didn't see this thread as being just about the overtones of eros in parent/child relationships. If that's the question, I think I agree with you completely. Those overtones are certainly there in the Witch's and Rapunzel's relationship, and they are not there by accident. And probably have always been there from the first telling of the tale of Rapunzel.
But it seemed many here were also discussing whether the Witch's interest in Rapunzel is consciously and or primarily sexual (as opposed to subconsciously in a garden variety - pun intended - Oedipal mode). I don't see it as being consciously and or primarily or predatorially sexual. And I'm not sure you do either.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 17:17:18
Well...her actual age doesn't matter. Foley's witch appeared younger and harder-edged than either of the other Witches I saw (Peters and Rashad). I mean...at the time, Rashad was convincingly playing the mother of a brood of five ranging from toddler to college aged. Perhaps that shaded it. Or perhaps that's just something inherent in the actor.
Foley, whatever her age, had a younger, more vibrant and combative feel. Almost punk.
Did I REALLY need to go into that much further of an explanation just so you could show that you knew the actresses' ages? Was I really not clear enough in my original post that the point was the Witch is a bit amorphous and therefore takes on the strong characteristics of the star actresses that are usually cast in the role?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 17:33:22
Robbie, I apologize. I thought you were attributing performance choices to chronological ages and I got to thinking, "Wait a minute. Is Peters really that much older than Foley?"
Which sent me to Wikipedia to check, as I mentioned. So I certainly wasn't "bragging" that I can find that site. I just misunderstood your point. My bad.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 17:38:46
No worries. I thought my point was clear...that it was the essence of what the actress brings to the role whether it's a youthful edge or matronly warmth. But I can see how that was misread.
Bygones, as Peter MacNicol used to say. 
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-08 17:42:29
Hannah Waddingham's Witch is creepily obsessed with being a mother, from her cry of "Look what you made me do!" when she hacks off Rapunzel's hair to the predatory way she says "..and those beautiful babies." Even when she's beautiful again, her twisted version of motherhood makes her ugly.
It's predatory but not sexual... it's almost about controlling beauty in her life. She was unable to control her own, so she possessively takes control of others.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 17:47:48
I'm going to watch the Regent's Park...but only after I see the Delacorte production next week.
Question! If one has Apple TV, can one download the Regent's Park production to the computer and then watch on the flatscreen?
I'm not particularly tech savvy. I still miss my abacus and butter churn.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 17:53:03
Yes, Henrik, you are correct. I'm talking about subconscious motives. The first post here began, "Does anyone else find homoerotic overtones in the way the Witch keeps Rapunzel for herself...." Maybe the OP meant hints at sexual behavior, but I took the post to mean references to sexual motives, not behavior.
That being said and since I just skimmed through the published libretto in response to your question about the curse, it's hard to say whether the Witch has a true, three-part human psyche.
She's rather clear late in Act II:
"I'm the witch. You're the world.
I'm the hitch, I'm what no one believes...."
Of course that's when she wants to do the practical thing and give Jack to the Giantess. But she does make it clear she isn't bound by conventional human morality.
But, no, I don't imagine her and Rapunzel "going at it" in the tower. In fact, the Witch sings, "Stay a child while you can stay a child." And the world of the play seems to see seclusion at home with parents as chaste. Sex is associated with going "into the woods".
***
As for the curse, it is written somewhat obliquely and seems to be at least in part triggered by the Baker's Father's attempt to go back on the deal to give up his first born, but your sequence is right.
I think it makes perfect sense that the Witch's mother makes her "old and ugly" which is the equivalent of "barren" in this world; so the Witch barters for a child from the Baker's Father.
I don't know about Rapunzel's children turning to dust. Was that just an expression? In the published libretto, they simply aren't seen again in Act II.
***
Thanks, Robbie.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 17:57:21
Are you all talking about added lines in the Regent Park version? I don't see anything about the Witch trying to take Rapunzel's babies or the babies turning into dust.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by ChairinMain 2012-08-08 18:03:36
Henrik:
I've figured that The Witch cursed the Baker and his father but not Rapunzel, since she had already taken possesion of the baby. And I assume Rapunzel concieves on her first tryst with the Prince (probably on the second day of the three midnights.)
Gaveston:
The child turning to dust is a reference to a really cool bit of staging in the Regent's Park version, and I am assuming its being done in NY., so Possible SPOILER ALERT:
Rapunzel had a baby carriage with one of her children in it when she comes on in act two (in this staging very drunk.) The carriage is abandoned by Rapunzel when she runs away from the Witch and under the Giant's foot. Then, as the Witch sings her Lament, she goes to pick up her grandchild, and as she sings "Children can only grow from something you love to something you loose), the blanket unravels and some dust falls out of it, prompting the Witch to scream in horror.
My reading of this was not that the child had turned to dust but that Rapunzel had abandoned or lost it somewhere in her insanity/inebriation, and had wrapped an empty blanket as if there was still a child there. It was a knockout moment when I saw it on the video.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 18:11:25
Wow and thanks, ChairinMain, that IS good! And gives that number an ending, which it never really had.
And how apropos! I was just rereading the Witch's line:
"Sometimes the things you most wish for
Are not to be touched!"
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwayphreak234 2012-08-08 18:13:25
i just went back and watched Hannah Waddingham do that number. It is truly brilliant.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by westcoast_wannabe 2012-08-08 20:01:17
I've seen a lot of productions of Into the Woods and no performance of the Witch was able to make me forget Bernadette's until I watched Hannah Waddingham in the Regent Park video.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 20:03:51
It really was a big hole (yet one that never bothered me, or I even noticed really, when watching) that Rapunzel's twins are never mentioned in Act II of the original production. As I've said elsewhere, I guess it could be assumed they'r ebeing looked after at whatever neighbouring kingdom her Prince runs, or something?
Henrik--I think Rapounzel does give birth to relatively healthy twins--the original production makes that fairly clear anyway, so if we assume this whole curse thing is as well thought out as you make it (it's always been kinda unclear to me), I can only assume she conceived of the baby just as the curse was broken (I know she gives birth once banished to the desert, but actually doesn't the Witch banish her BEFORE the curse is lifted and she's re-found her blind prince? so... Hrmm. And speaking of blindness, love the little bit of business in the Regent's Park video with the Step Mom trying to get Rapunzel to cry on her blind daughters...)
Sorry Gaveston, I was unclear--I knew that was Karla who lipsynched to Foley's vocals. Maybe they simply were too lazy to film a new performance, and so used the concert footage for the video but to get better sound used the album recording. Anyway, cool that she's married to Benson (who actually I know mainly as the voice of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast--though I know he was something of a teen idol int he 70s and did a bunchof youth movies, I'm not actually sure I ever saw any of them).
AfterEight, just since you tend to like to correct, and I also share your love of fairy tales, it should be pointed out that ITW doesn't use Perrault as a source. At all. Perrault was an author, like Hans Christian Anderson who did use folk sources for many of his stories, but re-wrote them as literature. The Grimm Bros collections purported to be faithful written copies of the original oral stories (although its since been proven that over the various editions the Grimm bros both started to make the stories more kid-friendly for the time and more CHristian, partly due to the original editions aimed at adults not selling). That's why they don't have the fairy godmother and glass slipper in CInderella (Perrault inventions), nor do they use Perrault's version of Little Red (which ends with the wolf eating her up and... that's it. No happy ending, no being saved).
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 20:08:24
She doesn't curse the Baker's mother and father (as well as the Baker) until she had removed Rapunzel from the house and 'hid her where she'll never be reached.' It was only after that she cursed the rest of the family. So...if we go by the chronology of the Witch's Rap, Rapunzel was safely locked away when the spell was cast only the the Baker and his parents. At least, that's how I always read it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 20:16:08
Good explanation!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-08 20:20:43
Sonof Is that clear? The curse is that "your family tree will always be a barren one" not that "your family tree minus the baby I just stole will always be a barren one." Perhaps the Witch didn't mean to include Rapunzel on the sterility chant but perhaps she didn't choose her curse words carefully.
(All of this would seem hyper academic, of course, but it has been rendered worth discussing by those two dust babies.) Eric, the original production may have made it clear that the twins were born healthy (although I don't recall that), but I didn't catch that at all last night.
Gaveston, i really wish you could see the production in the park. Murphy's discovery of the twins turned to dust is pretty amazing stuff. Mysterious, macabre, dangerous and the kind of wtf moment to give wtf moments a good name.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2012-08-08 20:22:42
The line that always bugged me was 'Your father cried, your mother died.' I mean...what's the definition of 'died' here? Like, put her in the ground? Or more like, 'That chicken parm was so good I DIED!' Cause if she really was dead, the line would have been 'I laid a little spell on HIM'....not 'them'. Right? Have I gone down the rabbit hole??
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-08 20:26:05
At the risk of being accused (possibly with a good deal of justification) of being just a trite, Woody Allen stereotype, I thought I'd just mention that there happens to be an interesting Joan Acocella essay on "The Lure of the Fairy Tale" in the July 23rd 'New Yorker'.
Just in case anyone wants to to some extra-credit reading...
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 20:37:45
Yes and I linked to it about 5 pages back Good read (Sondheim and Lapine shoulda really adapted the Junniper Tree ).
Henrik, I got that assumption because in the OBCR the Prince seems happy enough when he can see and looks at his twins in Rapunzel's arms... And agreed about the moment in this production with the "dust baby"--at least on video with the London production (which Gaveston *could* see ), though it's probably even better live.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Addison D. 2012-08-08 20:53:55
Oops. I apologize, Eric--I missed your link.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-08 20:59:48
I should mention that Rapunzel's twins are more than just dust... there are bones. They don't necessarily read well from a distance and may get tangled in the blanket, but there are in fact dust and bones. I believe they were also present in Regent's Park.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 21:10:19
It's fine, I think everyonbe missed it and it's worth sharing again, in terms of this discussion.
Kad on video it was bones as well, certainly. I know people who saw this staging live and weren't sure if it was just dust or not, so thanks for clarifying.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwayphreak234 2012-08-08 21:48:42
I should mention that Rapunzel's twins are more than just dust... there are bones. They don't necessarily read well from a distance and may get tangled in the blanket, but there are in fact dust and bones. I believe they were also present in Regent's Park.
That makes the effect and impact even more powerful. Rapunzel was in fact actually pushing around dead babies. In the Regent's Park video, the Witch cradles the baby's skull at the end.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 21:56:16
Jeeze, Louise, Eric! I just today found out that the Regent Park version is available on line! I can barely stand the shame of not having watched it in the four hours since I learned of its existence. :roll eyes:
Henrick, in the original Broadway version (per the video I watched again the other night (Eric, please take note) and the published libretto, Rapunzel's twins seem healthy enough. They are just dolls in her arms at the end of Act I and then forgotten in Act II.
The Regent Park solution seems much, much better.
I suppose you might blame the dead babies on the witch's curse, though giving birth to babies that die is a different definition of "barren" than we would apply to the Baker's Wife. I think I'd rather believe the dead grandchildren are the result of years of banishment in the desert or Rapunzel's madness rather than a sloppy curse. But your way works, too.
Either way, what a chilling moment!
***
Robbie, I think "and your mother died" has to be literal, since it isn't mentioned anywhere else and the Baker doesn't seem to feel abandoned by his mother as he does by his father. So either the "them" is a mistake, or it refers to the Baker's Father and the young Baker himself, the two remaining members of the clan.
"So I laid a little spell on them--
You, too, Son!"
could mean them "and you in addition", or them "including you". After all, the curse ends up including the Baker's wife as well, even if she isn't physically sterile. So "them" includes at least three people, even without counting Rapunzel.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-08 22:19:17
Gaveston, I think I also like the idea that her touching them might have been what killed them. Not sure but I think you might have suggested that in a post below. Of course she can touch Rapunzel before she loses her powers, but after may be a different story.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 22:26:58
I always took the "died" as literal, as well, though now that I think about it, I can see where there's some confusion...
" Jeeze, Louise, Eric! I just today found out that the Regent Park version is available on line! I can barely stand the shame of not having watched it in the four hours since I learned of its existence. :roll eyes: "
Don't you roll your eyes at me, young man! :P Seriously, if you did just find out it was available, I completely missed that post, so I'm sorry--I only meant that you *could* see the scene in a way, despite Henrik pointing out that it was too bad you couldn't see the production in New York... :P
I stay with my interpretation that the deluded, completely destroyed Rapunzel has been carting around dead babies for a while (we certainly never hear any crying, unlike with Cinderella's child), but it's definitely interesting to see how everyone reads the moment.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 22:44:24
"it should be pointed out that ITW doesn't use Perrault as a source."
Duh, obviously. That's the problem!
It's all fine and dandy to state that this is not based on Perrault, but that's the version that is part of the accepted, universal collective consciousness. And it's the understanding of this fact by the creators of Into the Woods that provides them with the groundwork for their rancid subversion.
What it all boils down to is this. Let us have us the characters and stories as they are universally known and loved. They have no need of reinvention, reconstruction, deconstruction, or subversion. We don't give a good God damn about their Freudian, Jungian, or dime-store-psychologist's subtext, intertext, metatext, or microtext. Nor do we want to listen to pretentious lectures about how children will listen.
All we want is the one thing they refuse to give us: a good time.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 23:06:05
Gaveston, I think I also like the idea that her touching them might have been what killed them. Not sure but I think you might have suggested that in a post below. Of course she can touch Rapunzel before she loses her powers, but after may be a different story.
Obviously, the context in Act II is quite different. But, yes, it was I who noted her lines in Act I:
"Sometimes the things you most wish for
Are not to be touched!"
The fact that she can't touch the ingredients for her own restoration spell is a major plot point in Act I.
At the very least, the Act II effect is heavy with irony.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 23:08:04
I think your entire post is fair and fine, as long as you change those plurals to the singular. I do think there's some truth that the show takes some delight in going back to the often lesser known Grimm versions of the stories, though I don't see that in and of itself as a problem (though as stated, Red Riding Hood is much better known now in the Grimm version with the Huntsman ending rather than the, pardon me, grim ending Perrault gave it as a cautionary tale).
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by westcoast_wannabe 2012-08-08 23:08:07
Speak for yourself. I consider Into te Woods a good time and have since I was a child.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-08 23:16:51
All we want is the one thing they refuse to give us: a good time.
Oh, Mary, please! Yes, ITW offers such a crummy time that all of us have seen it at least a dozen times, masochists that we are.
Perrault's version is the "accepted, universal collective unconscious"? Try telling that to Germans or anyone in a Germanic country. I have no idea what the Slavs read, but I know Africans have their own equivalents to myths and fairy tales.
Even in the U.S., most of us read Grimm and know Perrault only by way of Disney adaptations.
And "nobody cares about Freud and Jung"? Nobody on Mars, perhaps, but in the modern world, especially in the West, everything in the past century has been based on or refers to their work.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by westcoast_wannabe 2012-08-08 23:18:41
As for the babies the first time I saw it my first thought was that they turned to dust when she touched them, not that Rapunzil had been pushing around dead babies. Rapunzil pushing around dead babies is a more reality based explanation but in this staging act 2 is being presented as a nightmare in which the people the characters love most are all dying and being taken from them. In this dream scape you don't a need tidy explanation of how, when, or why the babies died.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 23:19:28
"I think your entire post is fair and fine, "
Wow! I am so thrilled to have your approval!
"as long as you change those plurals to the singular"
Sorry, I'm not taking your orders today.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-08-08 23:22:36
As opposed to taking all my orders in the past, hey? (Actually that sounds far more inappropriate than I meant to). It's a discussion forum, if you post something I feel alright saying if I agree or disagree with it--no worries.
(Oh, and I happen to think ITW is a good time as well...)
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by After Eight 2012-08-08 23:47:51
"Yes, ITW offers such a crummy time that all of us have seen it at least a dozen times, masochists that we are. "
You said it.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by bwayphreak234 2012-08-09 00:08:01
I think it's interesting that in the 2002 revival, the Witch ate the beans before turning ugly and vanishing. That is one way she could have gotten her powers back!
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-09 00:59:07
Oh, Gaveston. How naive you are to think that After Eight lives in the modern world.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by artscallion 2012-08-09 09:35:19
"what would you have me be, handsome like a prince"
To me this does not mean she is asking if Rapun wants her to look like her boyfriend. In those times, the word handsome also was used for women. To me it means she is asking if Rapun wants her to be beautiful like the prince is beautiful. She sees Rapun's leaving as a rejection of the quality of her love and protection for the shallowness of the glamor of a handsome prince. And she believes it's because she is old, ugly and embarrasses Rapun...a common dynamic as children reach a certain age. The witch is asking would Rapun rather have beauty (a mother she wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with) over substance (the witch's warped perception of substance anyway)
Of course, anyone can interpret these things any way they want. And certainly, if people feel there is a sexual undertone, sure, why not? But I don't see it as being necessary to interpret it so. I don't see it as a definite undertone. It's not that I "refuse to see it" It's that I don't see it.
I'm an artist and I Believe that a work of art is only partially what the artists thinks it is, or created it to be. Most of what the work of art means actually comes from what the viewer brings to the table...their experience, values, baggage, etc. Good art allows us to explore ourselves. And that exploration is not the same for everyone.
I don't think Gaveston is wrong. But I don't think those who don't see the sexual undertones are wrong either.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-09 19:33:50
Of course, artscallion is right: we can agree to disagree. But as I said above, the Freudian belief that eros is at the heart of the universal Oedipal and Electra complexes is pretty much the basis of all psychoanalytic thinking.
And, pardon me, but ya'll come from some weird families. I swear none of my grandmothers, mother, or many aunts has ever expressed concern as to whether I thought she looked "old". Of course they look older than I, they are of different generations!
And by the same token, it wouldn't occur to me to worry about looking old next to my children or grandchildren. I just assume I do! So what? They don't love me because I look young, I hope, because they can only wind up disappointed!
Behavior is another matter entirely; one generation is always embarrassing another with behavior and that must go double when your mother is a witch. And it is behavior, not appearance, about which Rapunzel complains.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-09 19:38:11
But Gaveston, your mother, grandmothers, and aunts, I presume, didn't have a hump and claws. Your argument would make a great deal more sense if Rapunzel's guardian were a normal woman.
She's not.
She's a beautiful woman who was turned into a witch. It's no mystery why she's self-conscious about her appearance and wants to regain her youth and beauty. It's no mystery why she would have an inferiority complex about her looks and how it affects her daughter.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-09 19:44:30
Then why, henrik, doesn't she say,
"What would you have me be?
As beautiful as a princess?"
I realize the prince reference is a result of Rapunzel's recent dating, but as I've said, what woman uses her daughter's boyfriend as the rule of beauty? I know the adjective "handsome" used to be used for women, as artscallion points out, but it was already passe and a surprise in 1988.
I think it's a miss to ignore the oedipal implications in all the young people, but particularly in Rapunzel, whose mother doesn't feel bound by human conventions.
***
But as for "claws and a hump", I had this one grandmother-- Never mind. That's another story.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-09 19:50:14
Kad, thanks for the comment last night. I lost my head.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-09 22:43:50
"Then why, henrik, doesn't she say,
"What would you have me be?
As beautiful as a princess?""
If Rapunzel were being courted by a princess, she might very well say that. But the Witch's little girl is being taken from her not by a princess but by a prince.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by best12bars 2012-08-09 23:29:25
I do think the lyric, "What would you have me be, handsome like a prince?" is saying exactly that. The Witch realizes she "was not company enough."
Rapunzel is now seeking male companionship and romance. That's something the Witch cannot give her. She isn't enough for Rapunzel anymore.
It's not a sexual competition in question, it's a competition for Rapunzel's attention and affection. And if you don't think "mothers in law" can become hugely jealous of a daughter's affection toward a boyfriend or husband, you haven't "been out there in the world" long enough.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Brian07663NJ 2012-08-10 08:42:43
best12bars hit it - I agree - the Witch is using sarcasm to alert Rapunzel that she knows about the Prince visiting her in the tower. If the word was princess then it wouldn't alert Rapunzel that her mother is aware of her sneaking around. Simple as that.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by GavestonPS 2012-08-10 17:49:35
And if you don't think "mothers in law" can become hugely jealous of a daughter's affection toward a boyfriend or husband, you haven't "been out there in the world" long enough.
Yes, but what would Freud and Bettelheim say about such mothers, best12?
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by Kad 2012-08-10 17:51:50
Freud would say parents and children all secretly want to **** each other.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by justoldbill 2012-08-10 18:28:54
I swear to Heaven, people on this thread would probably find something smutty in Frank Morgan's line, "Well, bust my buttons!"
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by henrikegerman 2012-08-10 19:02:56
Let's define our terms, Gaveston. Because I don't know if you are saying:
1) there's an insidious sexual component to all possessive parents' resentment and sabotage of their children's love lives. "Sexual" as in the complexity of human sexuality including the Oedipal dynamic. "Sexual" as in psychosexual longings to be wanted, joined with, cared for, not abandoned by, loved, accepted and desired (as a human being, not as a piece of &*()).
In which case we all agree with you, or at least understand what Freud would say about it (even if we don't agree with Freud).
2) that when the Witch asks Rapunzel if she would have her be "handsome as a Prince" that she is revealing a sexual attraction to Rapunzel in the common sense of the phrase. As in an unquenchable and marked (as in driving her crazy hot) longing - conscious or subconscious - to make love to her daughter.
In which case I, and it seems the majority of people posting here, don't agree with you.
Sometimes in this thread, I thought you were suggesting 1) and other times it seems you are suggesting 2). And because of that I have the profound and aggravating sense that we are going around in circles.
Put more simply, is ITW more like "Bewitched" or "Lolita'? Which character does the Witch resemble more?
I realize you agree that there is no actual sex between the Witch and Rapunzel, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if you think the Witch more closely resembles Nikolai Bolkonsky (who's neediness keeps Princess Marya unmarried, and I'm sure Freud would have a psychosexual field day with that), or Nicole Diver's father who wanted to (and, as it happens did, &*()) his daughter), which eventually leads to her nervous breakdown.
In thought rather than in deed, Is she more like Jessica Tandy in The Birds or John Huston in Chinatown? And, anticipating how you might respond, if your answer be that considering their thoughts and or desires (conscious or un) concerning, respectively, their son and daughter, Tandy in The Birds and Huston in Chinatown are exactly the same. I beg to differ.
re: Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel
Posted by My Oh My 2012-08-10 19:17:46
When I was a tyke and my older sis would have the boyfriend over, I'd often see a figure lurking about the keyhole to the door of the living room where they'd be smooching, no doubt. The egregious voyeur was none other than mother. I'd catch her and she'd shush me and run away red as a tomato with awkward smile on her face. I'd go back awhile later, and sure enough, that figure in the dark was once again at the damned keyhole!
Say what you will, my mother is not a lesbian, a pervert, or scandalous voyeur for cheap thrills as I'm sure Freud would have had us believe. She's an over protective mother who was watching over her daughter in a erm...unconventional way.
Overly protective parents can and will do things that seem a bit extreme, even inappropriate. Don't know why that's so apparently far-fetched, something incestuous seems like the only answer.
I don't really blame those who are interpreting it that way though. Not if they're getting that message from directors of productions that clearly suggests that. And that's why I just won't shut up when it comes to the things that make musical theatre lousy, like egocentric directors with Madonna reinvention complexes.
I don't consider distraction tacked onto a proven piece to be the least bit inventive or creative. Not if it detracts from a show's basic message by pointing to an outrageous one. I know the sexual angle was courtesy of another production and not so much this one. Just thought I'd make that clear as I haven't seen this current revival and wasn't necessarily referring to its director, even if I'm so far not too thrilled with some of the things I've read on it.
