Into the Woods at The Theatre Royal, Bath: Gilliam and Sondheim Are a Dream Pairing
Into The Woods, which is playing at the Theatre Royal in Bath, is a revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical fairy-tale mash-up, that had its debut on Broadway back in 1987. The present production is co-directed by the animator and movie director Terry Gilliam, and Leah Housman, who previously worked with Gilliam on the opera The Damnation of Faust. Hausman is also the choreographer.
The plot of Into The Woods combines the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and Rapunzel. Each character sings of their dissatisfaction with their lives and then goes off, into the woods, on their seemingly familiar adventures. Less familiar are the baker and his wife, who want nothing more than to have a baby. However, they are under a witch’s curse and will remain childless unless they too go into the woods and steal a red cape, a golden slipper, a milk white cow, and hair as yellow as corn. Narrating all of this is a mysterious spectral figure, who weaves in and out of the story.
From the very start the show could be called Gilliamesque. In the centre of the stage is a small box which displays a tiny theatre set. A little girl walks on the stage, up to the box, and asks us if we’re ready, then the show begins. Several of Gilliam’s most famous works contain dreams, or dreamlike sequences. Brazil, for example, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, present dreams in a way that, while cinematic, is also artificial and quite theatrical. It is this that makes Gilliam’s take on Into The Woods such an exciting proposition. And so here we are, about to experience another dream served up by Gilliam, in this case that of the little girl on stage before us.
The conceit that the show is being controlled by a child, played out on a tiny scale, is developed in many visually arresting, and unexpected ways. The dead mother of one character is represented by a giant pot plant that rears its face, and opens and closes its petals as it sings. While the entrance to Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother’s house is a toy teapot. Gilliam, Hausman and co. have clearly let their fertile imaginations loose on the material. In fact, the set as a whole is a wonder. Trees move about the stage, and digital projection creates clouds and smoke, and shows us some of the grislier elements of the story in silhouette. There is about this production a genuine feeling of enchantment, with several moments clearly designed to make the audience laugh and say wow.
Since Gilliam was and shall always be a member of the Monty Python troupe, it’s also worth pointing out that his absurd, at times taste-defying sense of humour is clearly on display. One gag, which plays throughout the show, involves the witch blasting the baker and his wife in the private parts with little balls of fire as a reminder of their curse. It’s true that some may find the humour a little broad, but it befits Sondheim and Lapine’s loose, fun, jumble of a story, where, despite the familiarity of the source material, one is always aware of the subversive nature of the show. There is throughout Into The Woods a palpable sense that anything could happen, a feeling of danger and uncertainty that deepens as the show develops
The music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim are intoxicating. The music swells gorgeously, while the lyrics are clever, by turns acid and hilarious. Most impressively they reveal the complex, often ambiguous nature of the characters who are singing. The baker’s wife, for example, exhorts her husband to ignore his morality and do whatever it takes to lift the curse. The right thing to do, she sings, is the thing that must be done. While Little Red Riding Hood confesses to have found her run in with the big bad wolf, who charmed her at first, rather exciting, but now knows the difference between nice and good people. Perhaps the most memorable, certainly the funniest number, involves two princes singing of the women they wish to seduce. One prince fancies Cinderella but can’t catch her at the end of a night’s dancing, while the other is frustrated by the long climb up Rapunzel’s hair. However, in a reprise later in the show the two princes have clearly let their eyes wander to other damsels. This is a most mature musical, dealing with human motivations and relationships in a way more nuanced than is often dared nowadays.
Leah Hausman, who is both co-director and choreographer, has done an excellent job. This writer’s abiding memory is of the entire cast wheeling through the theatre, holding hands in a line. At another climactic moment, the cast seemed almost to pulsate in the centre of the stage, singing the theme Into The Woods, while other members of the ensemble wheeled about them like a gleeful game of ring around the roses. Stunning.
And the cast are absolutely top-notch, without exception. However, special mention must go to Alex Young as the baker’s wife, who manages to be sympathetic, even when her behaviour is dubious, and her morals suspect. She is an actor with excellent comic timing and a lovely singing voice. Julian Bleach, who weaves in and out of the show as the mysterious narrator, also merits additional praise, as he holds the show together, and plays his part with a kind of sinuous, intriguing spookiness, without ever over doing it. Congratulations must also go to Henry Jenkinson as Cinderella’s Prince, who is charming, preening, hilarious and eminently watchable. Finally, Lauren Conroy, who makes her theatrical debut as Little Red Riding Hood, delivers a little firecracker of a performance; she is by turns naïve, provocative, wilful and downright tough. It is the performance of a very talented young actor, perfectly cast, having a lot of fun with a plum comic role.
It is a rare experience, when a writer and critic has supremely high expectations, and has them met and then exceeded. But that is the case here. Gilliam has taken Sondheim and Lapine’s great show, and made it the playground for his most distinctive artistic attributes. It is the perfect marriage of visionary artist and material.
Into The Woods is playing at the Theatre Royal in Bath until September 10th.
