Reviewed by: Shixin Wang

Edited by: Aditi Acharla

It seems like every fairy tale has a woods full of stories. Little Red Riding Hood is seduced by the Big Bad Wolf and deviates from the correct route on the way to her grandmother’s house and enters the woods; Rapunzel lives in a tower deep within the forest; Snow White is driven into the darkness and coaxed by a witch to eat a poisoned apple. Fairy tale protagonists always have all sorts of strange encounters when they enter the woods. But what happens when they get out of the woods? The musical Into the Woods shows us one possible answer.

Originally directed on Broadway by James Lapine in 1986, Into the Woods is a musical that connects the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel which take place in the woods. A new dark fairy tale is told as the plots intertwine with each other. The play has two acts, the first of which concludes with the original stories’ happy endings; the second unfolds a bold imagination based reality, depicting the possible lives of the protagonists after they come out of the forest. The play begins with the characters’ “I wish” prayer and ends abruptly with “I wish”, leaving the audience with an infinite space to reminisce.

I was amazed by Ormond Drama’s production, directed by Sarah McNulty, Scarlett McLellan and Tara Scott. Firstly, the animal characters were personified: in the original Broadway production, Jack’s cow and Cinderella’s bird friend were props, but this time, all the animal characters were cast with real people as well. The personification of these added a lot of humour and comedy to the show, and there were many times when the audience was amused by Milky White the cow (Izzy Stephens) and the three birds (Issy Campbell, Kite Stephens, Jayden Filleul).

The arrangements and other cast are also stunning. The prologue of Into the Woods is joyful, harmonious, and easily brings the audience into the purity of a fairy tale. The Witch (Ciara Hardy), Jack’s Mother (Piper Markson), and the Baker’s Wife (Laura Vivian) have beautiful singing voices and have a clear likeliness to the characters of the play. Interestingly, the play actually sets up the role of Narrator (Max McKenzie), which seems to differentiate between fairy tales and reality through the narrator’s explanations to the audience. However, Mr Narrator is dragged into the story and [SPOILERS] killed off in the second act, and the rest of the direct audience narration is done by Little Red Riding Hood (Dylan McCarney). This direct dialogue between actor and audience is known in theatre as ‘breaking the fourth wall’.

I was also impressed by the unique setting (Meagan Hansen). The stage set had its highlights and minor flaws. At the beginning of the first act, the three story scenes and characters were divided and shifted through lighting changes, which cleverly juxtaposed the three different stories, and then intersected together in the set of the Woods. When the audience got bored with the relatively monotonous forest set, the pea vines suddenly ‘grew’ on the stage, breaking the static set and bringing dynamic vigour to the audience. Unfortunately, most of the characters didn’t interact enough with this captivating vine, and there were a few mistakes when switching between sets and props.

One of my favourite things about this musical is the process of building and breaking down a simply beautiful fairy tale, and finally establishing faith and hope in a new reality. In traditional fairy tales, witches are always bad, princes and princesses always fall in love at first sight, and everyone lives happily ever after in the end. But in reality, romance and ideals are never easily realised. It is the complexity of human nature and the limitations of various environmental conditions that set the tone for real life. As the theme song ‘Into the Woods’ says, “into the woods and out of the woods”: we will one day grow up and come out of magic and fairy tales to face the realities and complexities of life. The only truly brave thing to do is to recognise life for what it is and then love it.

Into The Woods played on August 8th-12th at the Union Theatre.

The Dialog is supported by Union House Theatre.