Changes to INTO THE WOODS for the 2002 Revival — Page 2

I thought "Our Little World" worked very well in the show. It added a little bit more depth to Rapunzel and the Witch's relationship, and made it a little harder to swallow when you-know-who comes upon Rapunzel in Act II.

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^SHH! He-who-must-not-be-named will hear you!

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but at the end of "Step Of The Palace" Jack and Little Red join in..."In the land of the giant...""in the belly of the wolf...""On the steps on the palace..."and scene: the one change I despised!!! It always felt like a sing along to me, plus I didn't want anyone messing with Laura's numbers! At least "No One Is Alone" wasn't tampered with. (maybe it just irked me because I really didn't care for either Jake or LR in the revival...they were fine but not my fav.)

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Question: I know that in the prologue the Narrator had some birds on the end of a stick, but how did they do the birds at the end of the show when the Narrator was dead?

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bump

The revival was a conundrum, and I agree with those who have said that Lapine shouldn't have directed the revival. It seemed forced, like he was making sporadic changes just to be able to say he made changes. Little Red and Jack interupting Cindy's song was distracting and rude. We get it, they've all grown and learned through their experiences, but they already had their friggin' numbers! The extra wolf and especially the Three Little Pigs was not necesary. The lyric change in Last Midnight wasn't bad, but not as good as the original. Vanessa Williams gave one of the worst performances I've ever seen on a Broadway stage. And the fact that Little Red and Jack were played much younger was disturbing. There is a major sexual overtone to this show. And to see these young kids go through some of these things was uncomforting (ie the Wolf's "seduction" of Little Red). Plus, since this was very obviously directed towards a more "family" market, the occasional blue jokes were hard to take as well (like the large, flaccid penis joke mentioned earlier).
The only change I really liked about this production was Milky White. But I think it is quite telling when the stupid COW is the thing that steals the show and all that the reviewers wrote about!

And the set being made of books wasn't all that innovative. My community theater used the same concept back in 1992. I will say though, the set was beautiful. I especially loved the intermission curtain that looked like a huge pile of giant fairy tale books.

VW's hair stood on end during the Witch's trance in the middle of her opening rap. She hissed like a snake, her snake like staff came to life and its eyes glowed red (which just made me think of Jafar from Disney's Aladdin) and her hair went crazy.

I just felt that the whole revival was lifeless and flat. I got a MUCH better sense of fairy tale and wonder in the first act of the original than I did in the revival, hence the second act was that much more heart breaking originally. In the revival I almost didn't care about the people as they died.

Anyway, that being said, INTO THE WOODS is one of my all time favorite shows and I did like the revival. I just felt it didn't hold a candle to the original.

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I never understood the appeal of Joanna Gleason as the Baker's Wife.

I believe people love Joanna in the role so much because she was so natural in the character. You really believed you were seeing a woman going through these events and emotions, you didn't see an actress playing a part. You saw the Baker's Wife. Her comedic timing and live delivery was more realistic and less like "acting".


That's why the original cast worked so perfectly. You believed they were these characters, not actors playing parts.

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It was WAY, WAY, WAY too set reliant and extravagant. The song "Our Little World" was not really important and dragged out the first act.
And The Wife was played by a bland actress who really brought nothing to the part. Joanna Gleason was so perfect, but surely they could have gotten someone as good as her.

I heard, and maybe this was incorrect, that the revival was mounted as a direct response to 9/11 - was that reflected at all on stage or just in the general feeling of the show?

The version I would have loved to have seen was at the Stratford Festival (I think) in Canada a couple of years ago - I read about it online - all black and white and red costumes and scenery and imagery pulled from Magritte paintings. Sounds SO good.

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I acutally alwasy thougth Bernie was slightly miscast--though i still love her in the role.

the stratford ITW was indeed visually magnificent (http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2006-21,RNWE:en&q=stratford%20into%20the%20woods&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)