BWW Reviews: INTO THE WOODS Tempers Magic with Humanity at St Vincent

Into the Woods may be one of Sondheim's most mainstream of musicals, and it is almost definitely his most popular (thanks in no small part to the Disney film). But don't be mistaken- it's far from his easiest. Trapped in tone between children's theatre and Brecht, not a comedy but funny, not a tragedy, but sad, the piece turns the conventions of fairy tales, folklore and parenting upside down. The melodies (of which there are relatively few, even for a Sondheim score) circle each other endlessly up and down without resolving, as do the characters. The dialogue is forever in transit between down-to-earth modern realism and a kind of olden-times heightened speech. And, of course, there's that infamous Act 2, which tears Act 1 apart note by note.

It takes a special company to make Into the Woods work, and the St. Vincent Summer Theatre company, a Western Pennyslvania institution for some time, is luckily very special. Even before I became a critic, I was a regular theatregoer in their auditorium, and this is easily their largest and most ambitious show of all time. In downtown Pittsburgh, a cast of this caliber would be a godsend. In Latrobe, one of Pittsburgh's more far-flung sub-suburbs, it's nearly miraculous.

Once upon a time (as narrated by Tim Hartman), a young Baker and his Wife (Kevin O'Leary and Daina Griffith, respectively) discover that their childlessness is due to the baker's long-gone father- the unlucky vegetable thief from the fairy tale "Rapunzel," if you're keeping score- inadvertently stealing from the neighborhood's Witch (Renata Marino, in the role she was born to play). In order to lift the curse on the family, the Witch asks them- or forces them, with a number of magical shots to the groin- to lift the curse she herself is under, by gathering seemingly arbitrary items from the woods outside their house. The nature of these items draws the Baker and the Baker's Wife into subversive crossovers with fairy tale superstars Cinderella (Bre Pursell), Jack the Giant Killer (Eddie Brandt) and Little Red Riding Hood (Elly Noble). In keeping with the skewed, mature tone of the piece, Cinderella is not entirely happy with the pursuit of her Prince (a sardonic turn by Joe Ventricelli); similarly, Jack is a sensitive, lonely soul, evidently somewhere on one spectrum or another, unfairly viewed as a halfwit by everyone around him. Only Elly Noble's Little Red is precisely what she appears, a gleefully gluttonous, amoral monster-child resembling Kristen Chenoweth's Sally Brown gone feral. By the end of the show, when she has moved from obsessive consumption of baked goods to the slaying of wolves by the score, what once was cute has become decidedly creepy, just as Sondheim and Lapine surely intended.

Minor characters circle through the story like clockwork, with the Cinderella family (Jon Cannard and Zanna Fredland, with stepsisters Brittany Silver and Erica Vlahinos) serving as something of a Greek chorus. Uniting the Cinderella and Rapunzel story branches is Rapunzel's Prince (Garrett Storm), the near-identical brother of Cinderella's Prince, and the officious royal Steward (Eric Dann), who is about as Nietzschean in his might makes right philosophy as a fairy tale underling can get. Then, of course, there's the whole Tim Hartman track. Pittsburgh's favorite funnyman pulls double duty in Into the Woods, portraying two tenuously linked, fourth-wall-breaking roles that may or may not be the same person: the professorial, somewhat pretentious Narrator with a voice not unlike the famous Walt Disney Pictures preview narrator, and the walking deus ex machina known as the Mysterious Man. Hartman's penchant for the absurd is put to good use here- though his gigantic frame is impossible to overlook, much comedy is made of the Mysterious Man's tendency to hide in plain sight. On a similar note, when the sheer force of Elly Noble's voice shattered a set piece in Act 1, Hartman's Narrator began Act 2 by checking that the set had been properly repaired during intermission, before resuming the show. The exact nature and identy of these two characters is somewhat needlessly complicated- to the point that both characters were cut for the film version- but in the looser, more experimental stage show, the characters provide much-needed exposition and help to keep the plot moving. (Theatre history fans may be amused to hear that both characters were originally written as part of a time paradox subplot that revealed both of characters were secretly the Baker's infant son... who eventually gave birth to the Baker. First drafts are weird.)

The heart of the play, however, is the central trio of Baker, Wife and Witch. Daina Michelle Griffith's Baker's Wife is a perfect balance between comedy and drama, keeping genuine heart in a character who can, all too often, become "the frustrated sitcom wife." As her counterpart, Kevin O'Leary finds the comedy in a sometimes thankless role, never fading into the background as so many Bakers do. Determined but indecisive, sweet but far from bright, it's clear in O'Leary's hands why Jack and the Baker bond so quickly in Act 2- they're kindred spirits. Of course, without a great Witch, the show falls apart, and Renata Marino more than delivers. More comical and yet less broad than Bernadette Peters, Marino eschews much of the peculiar Brooklyn Jewishisms Peters affected in her now-iconic performance. What emerges instead is not a weird old woman from the old neighborhood turned into a beautiful young woman from the new neighborhood, but an inhuman creature who finds herself suddenly mortal. Marino is an old pro with Sondheim, having just portrayed Mrs. Lovett at Stage Right last winter, and she acquits herself well in this titanic role, which offers an actress both one of Sondheim's best songs ("Last Midnight," "Children Will Listen," "Stay With Me," take your pick, really) and one of his worst ("The Witch's Rap" and its uncalled-for reprise, probably the great composer/lyricist's most bizarre piss-take on popular music). As if playing the Witch wasn't enough, Marino also provides the tasteful but minimalist choreography that drives the piece and its changing locales.

Into the Woods is not for everyone- it's a longer-than-average musical with an Act 2 that will either delight or befuddle you depending on your tastes, and its central message of moral ambivalence is similarly divisive. That anyone, let alone Disney, wanted to make a film of it is shocking. Nonetheless, it's no fairy-tale coincidence that despite its intellectual bent, Into the Woods is one of the most popular musicals of the modern era. This weekend, instead of popping in the DVD and relaxing with Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason, or Meryl Streep and James Corden, make the trek out of the city and see what Gregg Brandt and company have done with this timeless new-old tale. They won't live happily ever after- neither will you. But that doesn't mean you'll regret the journey.

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