Into the Woods, Opera House, Kennedy Center, Washington, DC

Montego Glover as the Witch, Gavin Creel as Cinderella's Prince, and Stephanie J. Block as the Baker's Wife in the National Tour cast of Into the Woods. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

I have seen Into the Woods now five times: the original Broadway production in 1988, at the Civic Light Opera in Pittsburgh (with my friend Beth Leavel as the Witch) in 2009, a slimmed-down touring production at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre in 2017, at Arlington’s Signature Theatre last November (see https://theatregoerthoughts.blogspot.com/2022/11/into-woods-signature-theatre-arlington.html for my response), and the National Tour of last year’s City Center Encores! and Broadway production at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, making its first tour stop February 23-March 19. Add to that the 1991 television version of the original production aired by PBS and the 2014 film. You may surmise from all that, Into the Woods is a show I enjoy enough to see over and over again.

Like all meaningful works of art, each time I experience this show, I gain a new perspective and appreciation for it.

As I recounted in my post about the Signature production in November, Into the Woods interweaves aspects of four familiar fairy tales (Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel) with a “new” fairytale about a Baker and his Wife, concocted by librettist James Lapine and composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. There are even a couple of passing references to Snow White.

But these are definitely not the Disney-fied versions of these iconic characters, and though these are fairytale stories, this version may be too dark for children. In Act I, we see the stories’ events pretty much as they have always unfolded. Act II gives us twists and turns of what happens after those fairytales end, reminding us that, in the real world, there are few “fairytale” endings. Actions have consequences. As the characters sing, “Dreams come true / Not free.”

Into the Woods premiered on Broadway 35 years ago. While it had a respectable almost-two-years run, it was never the “smash” hit that its same-season competitor The Phantom of the Opera has been. Nevertheless, Into the Woods has retained its appeal and popularity.

And small wonder, because the play’s message transcends time and still resonates, perhaps even more so in the era of a global pandemic. Its reflections on our collective need for each other and the primacy of the relationship between parents and children bring all of the loose ends together in the final two songs, “No One Is Alone” and “Children Will Listen.”

This particular production originated as part of the New York City Center’s Encores! concert series. In this series, classic and rarely staged musicals are presented in more of a concert format than a fully-staged production for a handful of performances. (This is essentially the same concept behind the Kennedy Center’s Center Stage series.) The Encores! series has produced several productions that have moved to the Broadway stage, including the revival of Chicago that transferred in 1996 and is still running more than 16 years later. Originally transferred to Broadway for a “limited engagement” of eight weeks, Into the Woods ran instead for 44 previews and 179 performances, closing on January 8.

The current production in the Kennedy Center’s Opera House features eight of the original Broadway revival cast (out of 18), joined by notable performers who replaced the originals during the Broadway run.

Although Into the Woods is a musical with dark moments, this production found more humor in the play than I remember from previous productions. Director Lear deBessonet is responsible for this “lighter” touch. In previous productions I have seen, there has been much more spectacle, detailed scenery and special effects, that the production seemed (by hindsight) to be heavier. This newfound buoyancy allows us to focus on Sondheim’s masterful wordplay and the warmth and sincerity of the characters. One of the trickiest “characters” of the play is Jack’s beloved cow, Milky White. Here, Milky White is masterfully and hilariously rendered by Kennedy Kanagawa, part puppetmaster and part expressive actor, manipulating a collection of “bones” designed by James Ortiz. By far, this is the most memorable Milky White I have seen.

Montego Glover is fetching as the Witch, wielding her staff menacingly at the Baker and his wife, until she loses her powers. Glover, a Tony nominee for Memphis, is slight of stature but unmistakably strong. Her transition from the grotesquely masked Witch to the beautiful visage of her youth is dramatic. (In previous productions, this transition has always occurred onstage; this time it was not, which slightly diminished its dramatic impact.)

Stephanie J. Block, the Tony-winner who earlier this month was a formidable, memorable Norma Desmond in the Center Stage production of Sunset Boulevard, commands the stage as the Baker’s Wife. Her command is more light-hearted than in Sunset, but still full-dimensional: earnest, playful, flirtatious. The role of the Baker was to have been played by Block’s husband, Sebastian Arcelus, but due to an injury to Arcelus, was played at the performance I saw by understudy Jason Formbach, who normally plays Rapunzel’s Prince. An uninformed audience member would have had no idea that Formbach was an understudy, since he gives a fully-realized characterization, meshing well with Block.

Tony-winner Gavin Creel is obviously having a ball in his roles as the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince. His characterization of the Wolf is just dangerous enough to be threatening, but not so much as to lose the comic impact of the part. As Cinderella’s Prince, who explains that he was “raised to be charming, not sincere,” he is the ultimate, unrepentant narcissist, moving from one self-serving pose to the next. He is matched in his posing narcissism by Andy Karl as Rapunzel’s Prince. (Karl, another Tony nominee, played the role on Broadway October and November 2022, and was inserted just for the performances on February 25 and 26. You would never have known that he hadn’t played the role in two months.)

Cole Thompson is engaging as Jack, walking the fine line between childish and child-like and landing on the right side. His mother is played by DC theatre regular Rayanne Gonzales, who convincingly conveys parental concern and frustration. Alysia Velez demonstrates a hauntingly beautiful voice as Rapunzel. Diane Phelan is a beautiful, determined Cinderella. Daniel Patrick Kelly is the eerily Mysterious Man and Narrator. As for Katy Geraghty, her Little Red Ridinghood is on-target; her delivery is bitingly sarcastic, perfectly timed, and very funny.

The simplified set, with conductor John Bell and the small orchestra ever-present upstage, includes miniature houses for Cinderella, the Baker and his wife, and Jack and his mother suspended from above, as well as by large tree trunks that are flown in as the characters enter the woods. David Rockwell is responsible for the scenic designs and Tyler Micoleau for the evocative lighting. Andrea Hood’s costumes are striking and witty, particularly those for the Wolf, Little Red, and the two Princes. This is not a dance-heavy show, but choreographer Lorin Latarro assists director deBessonet in keeping things moving.

Someone may ask which of the two most recent Into the Woods productions I preferred, the Signature production in November or this National Tour of the Broadway revival of 2022. I will answer, quite honestly, that comparing an intimate, fully-staged production in a 276-seat black box theatre and a modified concert production in a 2364-seat opera house is inherently unfair. Each was a superior example of production under its circumstances. It is a testament to both the Signature company and the National Tour company, as well as to Sondheim and Lapine, who created Into the Woods, that both affected me deeply and in different ways. The Signature production is now a pleasant memory, but the National Tour production continues here through March 19 and may be enjoyed by audiences through July in Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Chicago, Nashville, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.