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Preview: Into the Woods

When I arrive at Pembroke auditorium to preview next week’s production of ‘Into the Woods’, the assistant director is a couple of minutes late. When he arrives, he apologises: ‘I’m very sorry, I was just building the beanstalk’. Certainly not an excuse you often hear.

Soon afterwards the characters come flooding in – Cinderella (Olivia Waring), Snow White (Julianna Ko), the Baker (Tommy Siman), the Baker’s Wife (Clemi Collett), Jack of Beanstalk fame (Christopher Breeze) and other fairy tale celebrities. In this 19-part ensemble there are no minor parts, so I am told organising rehearsals was a ‘logistical headache’. After a few vocal exercises to the refrain of ‘pop a caterpillar’, oddly fitting given the play’s subject matter, the cast get down to business.

The musical, which director, Wharton Chan and assistant director, Ross King, describe to me as Stephen Sondheim’s ‘hidden gem’, intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm stories. In the first act Cinderella wants to go to a ball, Jack wants his cow to give milk and the Baker and his wife want a baby. All pretty standard fairy tale stuff. However, in the second act things get a bit out of control, as the narrative explores the real consequences of the characters’ quests and wishes. In the words of Ross King, it’s fairy tale ‘gone a bit mad’.

‘Into the Woods’ may not have as much bloodshed or as many pies as Sondheim’s more famous musical, ‘Sweeney Todd’, but it compensates for this with  its humour. The first song which the cast perform for me is a duet between Little Red Riding (Ella Brown) and the Big Bad Wolf (Chesney Ovsiowitz). The wonderfully creepy wolf minces and growls his way around the stage, while crooning about how ‘there’s no possible way to describe how you feel, when you’re talking to your meal’.

In another scene Cinderella’s Prince (Sammy Breen) and Rapunzel’s Prince (Ross King) have a sing-off, arguing about which of them is experiencing more ‘agony’ at the hands of their fairy tale princesses. Not an inherently hilarious topic, but the boys manage to make it very comic.

Despite the childish guise of fairy tale, the musical is also extremely clever and complex. The storylines twist and weave with plenty of hidden motifs. For example, look out for the beautiful recurring 9-note motif of Rapunzel, played by the classically-trained Betty Makharinsky, or the fact that, unlike all the other characters, Jack doesn’t sing in rhyme, because he’s meant to be a bit dim.

I am assured by Wharton Chan that the production will literally transport the audience ‘into the woods’. Expect a giant beanstalk centre stage, characters hanging off balconies and the narrator getting dragged into the action (so meta).

Let’s hope this production gets the ‘happily ever after’ it deserves. 

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