Santa Cruz Shakespeare has taken Stephen Sondheim’s great gift to musical theater literally Into the Woods. Brisk, clever, loaded with the potent texture of human fears and dreams
The quests of beloved fairytale characters interweave and interrupt each other, while a witch’s curse commands a baker and his wife to venture into the woods on a mythic scavenger hunt. Do these things in three nights or you will never have a child, she tells them. And so, led by Little Red Riding Hood, we too start off into the woods to meet the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, her stepmother and evil stepsisters, Jack and the Beanstalk, a Giant, Rapunzel, and two princes.
Into the woods, each time you go,
There’s more to learn of what you know
Sondheim’s woods are the dark mysterious place where fears lie in wait and dreams wait to come true. Well, not quite. After a sumptuous taste of “happily ever after,” Into the Woods turns itself inside out in Act 2 and reveals the ambiguity of real life beyond fairytales. Life, where “you decide alone, but no one is alone.” So concept-rich is this masterpiece that opening night’s audience stayed glued to every word, song and caper of the entire two hours and 45 minutes. All of it performed with energy, clarity and stunning visual design.
Very much an ensemble piece, Woods requires all hands on deck. Director Jerry Lee clearly knew his material inside out, trusted his brilliant cast and turned them loose. The master of all of the musical energy was music director Luke Shepherd, who conducted the players’ vocal magic, while weaving in live keyboard riffs with electronic tracks into the illusion of a complete live orchestra. Clearly moved, Shepherd unleashed some memorable keyboard brilliance during the last ensemble piece. Bravo. Kudos too to Barry G. Funderburg, whose sound design produced a wonderfully menacing Giant.
Sondheim is determined to peel back the daydreamy quality of our romantic wishes and show us the messy reality underneath. A messy reality that is, in his book, ours to navigate and cherish. We first follow Little Red (a pert and confident Mai Abe) into the woods after she stops for pastries from the earnest if befuddled Baker (a solid turn by Tyler Nye), and his Wife (an utterly perfect Melissa WolfKlain).
Each trapped in their own dead-end fates are Cinderella (Ciarra Stroud) with her kitchen chores and Rapunzel (also Ciarra Stroud) in her tower. The princes and stepsisters are played by Alex Cook as Rapunzel’s Prince/Florinda and Elliot Sagay as Cinderella’s Prince/Lucinda. Cross-dressing works especially well with doubled casting, and these guys had a ball. Poured into leather pants, high heels and halter top, Sagay unleashed vocal polish while prancing off with his scenes of princely entitlement and cluelessness. Sagay and Cook were given the funniest parts and most agile tongue-twisting puns in a show filled with both.
Austin Blake Conlee’s tasty costuming vocabulary lit up the stage. Adding dashes of spice to Cinderella’s kitchen was Lori Schulman’s tart and bossy Stepmother. As Jack, the accidental giant-killer, Justin Joung gave us the bumpkin with a heart of gold, crossing agendas with the Baker over the matter of a white cow. With each season Joung continues to grow and amaze.
But let me pause for fresh adjectives. Armed with a dazzling suite of songs and lightning fast lines is the Witch, played by Bernadette Peters on Broadway, and Meryl Streep in film. These are hard acts to follow, but Charlotte Munson did just that.
As the hunchback evil witch she put fear into every character, and later transformed into her former beautiful form she pronounced the showstopping incantation, “Last Midnight.” Patti Lupone comes to mind, and so does Peters. Belting without distorting, Munson was a physical phenomenon. She can move, sing and gesture with laser accuracy, simultaneously. One could hear the collective intake of breath in the audience as she snarled, sashayed, flounced, cooed and brought all of the fairytale journeys into collision, laid out like an Auntie Mame banquet. Truly slayed.
So many choice moments, but another standout was the beautiful soliloquy by the Baker’s Wife, wondering how a stolen moment can change a life. Wolfklain was remarkable, as was Lapine’s text. Bringing a tear to my eye was the subtle chagrin of Daniel Harray’s Mysterious Man, reminding the forlorn Baker in a bittersweet singspiel that you can’t run away from what you’ve left undone.
Into the Woods ends with the ensemble reprise of “No One Is Alone,” which in today’s socio-political climate, and probably Sondheim’s as well, surfs an undercurrent of surveillance culture. Not being alone is emotionally reassuring—yet existentially chilling.
I’m still blown away by the professionalism of this production. Art imitates life in a powerful reminder of shared journeys—a vivacious blaze of theater that repays the audience’s willingness to lean into the action, the actors and the depths that pop up through Sondheim’s cleverness. Not possible that there could be a more perfect setting for Into the Woods than these DeLaveaga woods.
Into the Woods, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine. Directed by Jerry Lee. Music direction by Luke Shepherd. Through Sept. 7, in the DeLaveaga Grove. SantaCruzShakespeare.org
