Review: INTO THE WOODS at Union Avenue Opera

The Union Avenue Opera completes its 30th season with a lavish production of Into the Woods.  It’s yet another large challenge for this small company—and once again they meet and conquer it with élan.    

Into the Woods, for those two or three of you who haven’t seen it, is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s vast amalgam of four tales from the Brothers Grimm:  “Rapunzel”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, “Cinderella”, and “Little Red Riding Hood”.  The central figures are a Baker and his Wife; Cinderella; Little Red; and Jack, of beanstalk fame.  The Baker is Rapunzel’s brother (that the Grimm boys didn’t know about).  After the Witch snatched Rapunzel away to a tower she cursed the Baker’s family so they’d be forever barren.  Now she offers the Baker and his Wife a deal:  If they will obtain certain magic things for her, the Witch will lift the curse.  Hence the Quest that brings them Into The Woods.

The Woods become a bit like Grand Central, with the Baker and his Wife desperately seeking (and losing) this and that, with Cinderella and her family going to and from the Ball, with Jack traipsing off to sell his cow, and with Little Red tripping along to Grandmother’s house.  Add to this a couple of prancing Princes and a Mysterious Man who nudges the plot along and it’s quite a complex tale.  Needless to say, magic beans are scattered liberally throughout. 

Artistic director Scott Schoonover has again collected brilliant voices for this cast of nineteen.  (Six are new to the Union Avenue stage.) 

In this show the theatrical and design talents are equally on display.  Scenic designer Laura Skroska, scenic artists Lacy Meschede and Stephanie Robinson, and set decorator Cameron Tesson fill the stage with huge, shaggy, gnarled trees which lighting designer Patrick Huber bathes in eerie purples and blues.  The auditorium itself is in the Woods:  the balcony, which circles the room, is faced with swaths of moss and vines.  We watch the magic great green bean-stalk grow before our very eyes in the shadowy corner—right up into the balcony.  In the opposite corner of the balcony we find Rapunzel’s tower.

Special praise must go to properties designer Jacob Kujath.  He gives us  a wonderful stylized “Milky White” cow (made of nothing but hungry ribs and a friendly face), and he “puppeteers” the cow all through the show.

Costumer Teresa Doggett dresses the cast with fairy-tale authenticity and lovely color.  Cinderella’s ball gown glitters like magical starlight, and the Witch wears a marvelously rag-patch sort of cloak with a grotesque mask.

Stage director Jennifer Wintzer is quite brilliant in her use of this large cast on this small stage.  When many of the cast are on stage singing ensemble Ms. Wintzer and choreographer Hannah Browning give such individual attention to each character that the whole scene sparkles with personalities.

That matchless soprano Brooklyn Snow returns to Union Avenue in the role of Cinderella.  In Candide she was such a porcelain doll;  as Cinderella she is a lovely bit earthier.  And that voice remains sublime.

Brandon Bell brings a strong dramatic baritone to the role of the Baker, the chief questor in the tale.  His voice rises to real glory in his numbers toward the end of the show.  Leann Schuering, a favorite on the UAO stage, sings a beautiful Baker’s Wife.  Hers is the only really grown-up character, and she and Mr. Bell gracefully balance the comic and the strong emotional aspects of this couple.

Cameron Tyler sings a merry, brave—and naïve Jack.  Laura Corina Sanders is a delight as Little Red Ridinghood;  she makes the delicious most of this quick, fearless, spicy, juicy little morsel.  Eric McConnell sings a splendid sly Wolf.  His “Goodbye, little girl, and hallo-o-o-o” becomes a deeply hungry howl at the moon in this enchanted night.  Lauren Nash Silberstein is Rapunzel;  her gorgeous silvery voice drifts down from her balcony tower with a bit of churchy echo.  It’s like a  stream of moonlight from heaven.  (Ms. Silberstein also sings the tree-trapped ghost of Cinderella’s mother.)

Matthew Greenblatt and James Stevens sing the two charming, prancing princes.  These two royal gents are shallow to the bone, but their glorious voices and Sondheim’s music make their final “Agony” almost heart-rending.

The Witch!  Such a Witch!  Taylor-Alexis DuPont triumphs in this role.  She scampers and dances and prods and threatens.  She commands!  And sings!  Most beautifully. 

Christopher Hickey drives the show along with great authority and wit—as the Mysterious Man/Narrator

Fine voices and impressive acting chops appear in all the smaller roles:  Deborah Hillabrand as Cinderella’s Stepmother, Gina Malone and Rebecca Hatlelid as her Stepsisters, Philip Touchette as her Father (and as the royal Steward), Stephanie Tennill as Jack’s Mother.  Gina Malone also plays Little Red’s Granny, and Teresa Doggett gives voice to a marvelously menacing Lady Giant.

Stephen Sondheim gives us a moral tale in Into the Woods.  In Act I we watch the characters deal with moral choices.  “Just what will you pay for what you want?  What moral compromises will you make?”  In Act II they confront a world in which there are not just dreams and goals and quests; here there are disappointments, infidelities, betrayals and deaths—and the catastrophic unintended consequences of one’s actions.  These people—princes and peasants—all made that awful mistake of being born human.  In the end (just as in Candide) the survivors will live simply, lovingly with each other and “do the best they can”.

Now, anyone will agree that Into the Woods is too long; most in the audience would be happy if it were, say, half and hour shorter.  Act II is a little formless, a bit repetitive.  Sondheim goes on well after he’s made his points.  But the man was so bursting with gorgeous music, so overflowing with clever lyrics that he just couldn’t shut off the tap.  However, Act II does have some of the best music;  all the principals have songs to die for:  the disillusioned reprise of the princes’ “Agony”, the Baker’s Wife’s “Moments in the Woods”, the Witch’s “Last Midnight”, the Baker and Jack in “No More”, and the four protagonists in “No One is Alone”.  The entire Company joins in the deeply moving “Children Will Listen”.

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods continues at the Union Avenue Opera through August 24.

(Photos by Dan Donovan)

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