How it’s New York: Encores! is a beloved New York tradition, performing at New York City Center since 1994, with a mission to perform rarely heard American musicals.
How it’s Irish: Don’t the Irish love a good fairy tale. (OK, these are based on Grimm’s, but still.)
Had you wandered into an all-star basketball game by mistake? No, it was just an all-star production of a beloved musical by Stephen Sondheim. The audience shrieked as each star appeared– and what fun that is because these were Broadway stars, not movie stars. It was a Broadway audience! Shrieking its approval! And who can blame them? There’s a reason that Encores! productions sell out so quickly and are often starry: they have very short runs. Even stars as much in demand as Gavin Creel and Sarah Bareilles can commit to a weekend or two.
But what if the show transfers? That’s just what happened to Sondheim’s 1987 Into the Woods. It began its run at Encores! in May, transferred to Broadway on June 28, and has now extended its run until Oct. 18. And the starriness got even brighter: Patina Miller, Brian d’Arcy James, Philippa Soo and Joshua Henry signed on.
How Into the Woods ended up at Encores! is stretching the point a bit (although as someone who makes everything Irish just because, who am I to talk)– while it hasn’t been on Broadway since 2002, it is not a seldom heard score. New York City had Off-Broadway revivals in 2012 and 2015, and it’s one of the most popular high school musicals, no doubt at least in part because it has a large cast with terrific roles. I have seen it several times. This production was by far the best. The cast was as good as their reputations; Sondheim’s music seemed to be at the exact right tempo (thank you Music Director Rob Berman); Sondheim’s lyrics witty- somehow even the book and its many storylines by James Lapine seemed more subtle and nuanced than I’d seen before. Director Lear deBessonet elicited perfection all around. This show can easily become a little cloying: not here. The fateful words “I wish’ (angelically sung by Soo) are not ponderous and full of meaning– but almost throwaways.
As they are. “I wish–” it’s the beginning of something. Brava.
The premise is simple: various fairytales intersect in the woods. Got Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and the Baker and his Wife – a sort of Everycouple who get sent on the Witch’s quest. They want a baby. (You’d think they were part of Rapunzel’s tale, but that tale already exists).
An evil witch sends the baker (d’Arcy James) on a quest to get a bunch of magical items: one of them is a cow as white as snow. But wait ,who has a cow? Why Jack, of course (played with lovable idiocy by Cole Thompson). And you might not think of Cinderella as being in the woods but many versions of the stories to have her praying to her dead mother in a tree in the woods, which is where her fairy godmother first shows up. Philippa Soo plays Cinderella as a young lady with a romantic heart and ambivalent sensibilities.
Despite an angry giant and some bumps along the way things seem to have a perfectly happy ending at the end of act one. But it’s Sondheim, so come on I literally had to lean over to my companion and say “this is not the end.”
Everything is perfection. That amazing cast: Gavin Creel hams it up with foppish gestures as a sneaky Wolf. His Prince charming seems a less original iteration but still lovable as he seems to know himself that he’s pretty shallow. Nobody does dandy like Gavin Creel. His duet with Rapunzel’s Prince (an engagingly sincerely shallow Joshua Henry), “Agony,” is hilarious in how narcisissitic they both are. Julia Lester’s knowing, sulky Little Red Riding Hood steals every scene she’s in — and we told you some of the people she is on stage with. Keep your eye on this newcomer. Her every eyeroll had the audience helpless. The cow, Milky White, is a bunraku puppet brought to amazing life by Kennedy Kanagawa (puppet design by James Ortiz) To the point where when the couch trembled at the thought of Jack selling her the audience audibly “awwww-d.”
Then there’s the glorious glorious Patina Miller as an old witch, and I don’t think it’s too cute just spoiler to say she doesn’t stay old the entire time. She’s as seductive to and frustrated by the stupid humans she hast to rely on, as she was in Pippin. d’Arcy James’ Baker tries to do the right thing– and basically succeeds. Not everyone gets their desired happy ending, but there is happiness to hope for. The night I attended, the Baker’s Wife, Bareilles’ role, was played by Felicia Curry; she brought a sweet vulnerability to her desperate magical housewife role.
As is par for the course at Encores!, the orchestra is onstage, upstage of the main action. The “script in hand” idea at Encores! has been largely ceremonial for sometime, and who cares, really, when the choreography by Lorin Latarro is so much fun, the stage pictures so delightful. Encores! writes on their website that the production of Into the Woods marks a new tradition, “celebrating the community-building potential of iconic American musicals.”
In a time when a real kickline is often too expensive for producers, when a musical with five people (each playing three roles) is common, this is a welcome proposition. I look forward to it!
David Rockwell’s sets are simple and lovely. There are three small houses Hanging in a row as the plate begins to indicate different spaces. Birch trees descend to be the woods. Andrea Hood’s costumes hit the right note of generic middle ages fairy tale glamor. Saturated lighting by Tyler Micoleau sets the mood for “Once Upon a Time.”.
DeBessonet’s direction highlights the goofiness of both the lyrics and the book. So often this show can be maudlen or even preachy: the song “Children Will Listen,” for example, so touching, has become a bit overdone in its message. Here, sung by the cast at the finale, it’s more wry than tragic. Life goes on.
What the score is the star here despite the cheers and shrieks for the stars on stage, and Berman,the conductor, earns his bow at the end.
There are cast changes for the extension so be sure to check who you will be seeing.
But whatever you do, don’t miss it.
Or a giant might eat you.
Into the Woods runs at the St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th St., through Oct. 18.
