If you thought 42nd Street was revived on Broadway rather soon after the end of its initial run, prepare for an even swifter return. Word came this week that, following its engagement at the Ahmanson in L.A., February 10-March 26, a new production of the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine musical Into the Woods will begin performances on April 13 at the Broadhurst Theatre prior to its official opening on April 25.
A post-modern fable based largely on classic fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, the show originally bowed on Broadway on November 5, 1987 and ran for 764 performances, starring Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, and others. In the new production, Vanessa L. Williams will play The Witch (the Peters role). The cast also includes John McMartin (Narrator/Mysterious Man), Laura Benanti (Cinderella), Gregg Edelman (Cinderella’s Prince), Christopher Sieber (Rapunzel’s Prince), Melissa Dye (Rapunzel), Kerry O’Malley (Baker’s Wife), Stephen DeRosa (Baker), Adam Wylie (Jack), Mary Louise Burke (Jack’s Mother), Molly V. Ephraim (Little Red Riding Hood), Trent Armand Kendall (Steward), Pamela Myers (Cinderella’s Stepmother), Tracy Nicole Chapman (Florinda), Amanda Naughton (Lucinda), Dennis Kelly (Cinderella’s Father), Jennifer Malenke (Sleeping Beauty), and Kate Reinders (Snow White). Book writer Lapine is serving as director, as he did the first time around.
For months, I’ve been saying that I thought this production would never make it to New York. So much for my powers of prognostication! Of course, the fact that the Broadway run is now set doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea from a commercial or artistic standpoint. Though Into the Woods has many wonderful moments, especially in its first half, the second act of the show stumbles in its depiction of a growing sense of community responsibility among its previously self-centered characters; the idea is brilliant, to be sure, but the execution clumsy. When a friend of mine told me years ago that he was going to be a in a community theater production of the show and I said, “I love the first act but I have big problems with the second act,” he responded: “That’s what everybody says.” And though I distinctly remember Frank Rich of The New York Times going into ecstasy over “No One Is Alone,” the show’s pivotal ballad, this is actually one of the least effective numbers in the score and, indeed, one of the most problematic songs Sondheim every wrote. Not only does the repeated, six-note introductory theme sound uncomfortably close to the main tune of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley‘s “The Candy Man” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as has been frequently pointed out, but “No One Is Alone” is also marred by a sentimentality uncommon to the great Sondheim’s work–not to mention some uncharacteristically muddled lyrics.
Speaking of no one being alone, I am apparently not alone in my opinion that Lapine has been one of Sondheim’s least worthy collaborators–and, yes, I’m aware that he won Tony Awards for his work on Into the Woods and Passion and was also nominated for Sunday in the Park With George. Though Woods reportedly had the most commercially successful Broadway run of any Sondheim show and is the most frequently licensed of his musicals for professional and amateur production, Lapine’s book does not compare favorably to the work of such other Sondheim writing partners as George Furth and Hugh Wheeler.
The creative team for the new Woods includes John Carrafa (choreographer), Douglas W. Schmidt (set design), Susan Hilferty (costume design), Brian MacDevitt (lighting), and Dan Moses Schreier (sound design), with Sondheim veteran Paul Gemignani as musical director. Lapine is said to be tweaking the text of the show, so I guess we’ll see if he’s able to fix that frustrating second act. And, after the Sondheim faithful have come and gone, it will be interesting to see if audiences arrive in large numbers for a show that wasn’t a smash hit to begin with, was taped and televised with its original cast, and closed on Broadway just over 12 years ago.
