How would've

Why, thanks for the spoilers, since I've never seen INTO THE WOODS.

Wait the NARRATOR dies? How the hell can that be! He's outside the action- he tells the story! How can he die? I feel like the show is ruined for me. I missed the Original Broadway run, the video, the tour, the revival and numerous local productions, but I WAS planning on seeing it sometime and NOW you've ruined it for me! Thanks a lot! Go ahead and ruin Assassins, too- does Oswald kill Kennedy or not??? I'm seeing 1776 next month- PLEASE do not spoil that for me, OK?

OH MY GOD! DAMN YOU!


Wait- do you mean the Movie Titanic or the Musical Titanic? no, no no, don't tell me! DON'T TELL ME!

Sure, it's been out for fifteen years.

It's been on broadway from 1987-1989, and again in 2002. However, if you don't live in New York, this does you no good.

It's been done since ad nauseum by community and children's theater groups. However, if you live in a cultural wasteland (e.g., Burbank, California), there hasn't been one nearby. So, this does you no good.

You could pick up the CD, like the songs, and not know the Narrator died because there's no song specifically about the event.

You could like fairy tales, and hear there's a musical about them, and not know the Narrator died because there's no Narrator in most of Grimm.

You could develop an interest in Sondheim (say, from the recent revivals of Assassins, Sweeney Todd, or Company), and want to explore further his oeuvre. But, then you find out the Narrator died and there goes a major plot point.

There's a million different ways to be unaware of the plot of Into the Woods despite its existance for the past twenty years. Most of them involve people not spoiling it for others. Putting the information in a post marked as a spoiler is one thing, but using a spoiler as the title catches those among us who aren't familiar with the show unaware.

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Joe- your first post is my new signature.

I have actually never thought of the Narrator as a symbol for God. I'll have to think on that. My father has always thought the giant was the Witches mother I don't know if I believe that. I have always wanted a sequel where we see what happens when the Baker marries Cinderella and Jack and Little Red end up together.

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oh, come on!!! as was earlier posted, there is a video, and dvd of the show, and a little thing called amazon.com, so if you do live in Antartica, or in a barren wasteland where you have no access to a public Library, where most of them are able to get a copy for rent, you should have no problem getting hold of this story.

In September, it will have been out for 20 years. I think that entitles it to be fair ground to assume that it is public knowledge, especially on a broadway message board where Sondheim is our God.

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"I have always wanted a sequel where we see what happens when the Baker marries Cinderella and Jack and Little Red end up together."

I'm not sure if I could see them pairing off like that. I could see them forming a family, but not nessacarily married.

Interesting thought about the Narrator=God. I actually think that that makes a lot of sense. I think it could be interpreted in relation to growing up. The rules and regulations of childhood and our parents become hated and are then dissmissed. We then have to figure out our own rules, which we impart to our children (who will listen), and then the cycle begins AGAIN. Think of of the finale:

Into the woods/then out of the woods/and happy ever after!

I wish . . .

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Updated On: 8/2/07 at 02:03 PM

Since the narrator works to rather cliched predispositions- especially in Act 1, I suspect that given free reign in Act 2 the Narrator would have engineered a rather bland, unsatisfying ending in which no character learned to make autonomous decisions.

I definitely see the narrator-god analogy, and the overall message of the show takes a Humanist viewpoint: it is in the hands of people to solve the world's problems without relying on other-worldly intervention.

I think I heard that in an EARLY version of the show, the narrator was actually the baker's child...recounting the story he had been told. Obviously, that changed and the character became something/someone else...but I LOVED the idea of the story going full circle.

"oh, come on!!! as was earlier posted, there is a video, and dvd of the show, and a little thing called amazon.com, so if you do live in Antartica, or in a barren wasteland where you have no access to a public Library, where most of them are able to get a copy for rent, you should have no problem getting hold of this story."

You're right, but those are things people do out of their own choosing and can control what information they seek out. If you want to make a post about the narrator dying, go ahead, but at least post a spoiler warning out of courtesy.

"I think that entitles it to be fair ground to assume that it is public knowledge, especially on a broadway message board where Sondheim is our God."

This is where people are ignorant...

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Okay.

SPOILERS!

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"So just because something has been out a while means everyone automatically should know what happens?"

no, but the people that were upset seemed to show some interest in the show, and when I show some interest in something, I look it up. In this day you can easily find out anything you want to. So if they hadn't known about it by now, they were never gonna know it. and the show isn't ruined becuase these people now know that the narrator died. they still don't know how he died, and it is only a plot point, not the entirety of the story.

get over yourself.

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