Into The Woods

I think musical theatre is one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. While I'm no expert on this stuff, I must admit a fondness for Les Miserables, West Side Story, Wicked, and most important of all, Into The Woods. I saw Into The Woods when I was around nine or ten-years-old. PBS was airing a televised version of the Broadway musical with the original cast, including Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason. It was written by Steven Sondheim, who I guess could be considered the Spielberg of Broadway, and the plot is rather ingenious. It basically unites a bunch of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales into one big fairy tale. Included are Rapunzel, the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk. They're all tied together around two original characters, the Baker and his wife, and a wicked witch. The plot basically interweaves each character's desire to have all their wishes fulfilled, with the Baker and his wife's wish to have a child being the central premise of the story. There are some memorable songs as well, like "Agony," "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen." The first act is hilarious, and definitely the most light-hearted of the two-act show, but it's the second act that really delivers. We see one tragedy unfold after another. Good characters die, bad characters live, and the overall tone changes from light to dark. Into The Woods dismantles the sanitized, Disney-version of the Brothers Grimm stories and returns them to their more dark and twisted origins.

This was heavy stuff for a kid, but I still enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it even more as an adult. It's perfect for fans of Wicked or the comic book series Fables.

Check out the original Broadway version on DVD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_woods