INTO THE WOODS question
INTO THE WOODS question
Joined: 12/31/69
#1INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 6:40amwhat wouldve happened, if, when The Baker found the magic beans in the pocket of his father's hunting jacket, he gave them back to The Witch immediatley?
Juliash
Broadway Star Joined: 3/6/07
#2re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 9:03am
There wouldn't really be a show now, would there.....
I'd guess she'd just shank him right there.
#2re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 9:20am
Interesting. I don't think it would have changed or reversed the curse.
The witch's mother told the witch that she was never to lose any of the beans. She did and her mother placed the curse as a result with the reversal process (which drives the plot) set in place. The fact that the beans are returned does not take away the fact that she did lose them and should still be punished for the act of losing them. After all it was her mother who cast the spell with a set reversal. It wasn't the actual absence of the beans that created the curse, so returning them wouldn't do anything.
So the only things that would change would be the later details involving the beans, which the baker would no longer have, such as trading for the cow from jack and the slipper from Cinderella.
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
#3re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 9:45am
I guess I'm missing something, and I admit it's been a long time...
...When do they say that the witch is "undoing" her own curse?
I know she creates a powerful potion to make herself beautiful (and inadvertently loses her powers in the process). I don't remember anything in the original production about it making her beautiful AGAIN (implying that she had once been pretty and had been cursed for losing the beans).
She puts a curse on the Baker's family for stealing her greens, but I guess I missed the rest. Too much backstory, somewhere along the way most likely.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#4re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 10:09am
Witch: when I had inherited that garden, my mother had warned me that I would be punished if I ever were to lose any of the Beans.
Baker, Wife: Beans?
Witch: The SPECIAL beans.
I let him go,
I didn't know
He'd stolen my beans!
I was watching him crawl
Back over the wall--!
And then bang! Crash!
the lightning flashed!
And--well, that's another story,
Never mind-- (the above lightening flash happens way before the witch curses the baker, so I always assumed it was the witch's mother cursing the witch)
Later...
Narrator (after transformation): the witch was returned to her former state of youth and beauty.
later....
witch (to Rapunzel): This is who I truly am.
Later, in Last Midnight after throwing away the beans...
Mother, punish me the way you did then,
Give me claws and a hunch...
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
Updated On: 12/31/07 at 10:09 AM
#5re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 10:11am
Well, during "Last Midnight" when she is completely frustrated with all of the remaining living characters, she sings and begs to become ugly again ("give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch"). She sings:
All right, Mother, when?
Lost the beans again!
Punish me the way you did then!
Give me claws and a hunch,
Just away from this bunch!
This implies (at least to me) that part of her original punishment for losing the beans was to become ugly.
#6re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 10:12amYes, you're missing the back story. "I was watching him crawl back over the wall/Then bang, crash, the lightning flash and well that's another story/nevermind/anyway..." The witch's mother gives her claws and a hunch (makes her ugly)and the witch puts a spell on the baker's family. When the witch sees everyone is just trying to put blame on somebody else for everything that is happening with the giant, she says, "Alright Mother when/Lost the beans again/Punish me the way you did then/Give me claws and a hunch/just away from this bunch/and the gloom and the doom/And the boom! Crunch!" She is again transformed and disappears. The whole ist act is the witch trying to get the ingredients for the potion to undo her mother's spell. She can not touch the ingredients herself, which is why the potion doesn't work at first because she touched the hair as yellow as corn. She climbed up that hair! Ouch.
Stand-by Joined: 12/31/69
#8re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 10:31amThanks to all for "putting it together" for me!
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#9re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 11:05am
i sure wish i could hear Cleo Laine's version of GREENS GREENS!
(ya know where to see her version of LAST MIDNIGHT )
#10re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 11:15am
Norn---Cleo was terrific as the Witch, here in L.A.
With another favorite of yours, Charlotte Rae, as Jack's Mother!
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#11re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 11:53amI've always wondered if the Baker and Rapunzel ever knew they were siblings.
"Writing is like prostitution. First, you do it for love, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money." ~ Moliere
#12re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 12:02pm
The interesting thing is, probably nothing would have changed in the first act. The only help the beans provide is in obtaining the cow, which given the Baker's Wife's scruples at that moment could have been done in many other ways. The other bean doesn't actually obtain the shoe - Cinderella throws it away.
The main difference is that there wouldn't be all that suffering in act 2 since there wouldn't have been a giant.
I wonder though, if all the beans had been returned if the Witch would have returned to her former state of beauty anyways - however she then wouldn't have been able to undo the curse on the Baker because she would have lost her powers...
Madame Morrible: "So you take the chicken, now it must be a white chicken. The corpse can be any color. And that is the spell for lost luggage!" - The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken
#13re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 12:51pm
Actually. the witch loses her powers when she becomes beautiful and the spell is undone. No more powers. No more spells. Since she loses her powers at that moment, she still wouldn't have them to undo the spell. Sorta like in the movie the Lost Boys, when they kill the lead Vampire, all the others return to their innocent human form.
I don't know if the Baker ever makes the connection about who his sister is. That's a really interesting question. I mean, the information is there for him, but he's not the swiftest of the bunch. Even more interesting is if the Baker's father knows, why the heck didn't he get her out of that tower.
Funny stuff. I love this show. I'm imagining myself trying to have this conversation with the people in my every day life and they would likely have an intervention. Happy New Year everyone!
#14re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 1:59pm
Another thing that's always fascinated me about this show...Why did the witch's mother set up that particular method of reversing her spell? Did she just happen to pick things in the neighborhood and think you'll never get these morons to cooperate enough to do this for you. Did she anticipate the kind of things that would happen and set it up this way in order to teach her daughter, the witch, some particular lesson? Was she trying to set something else in motion?
I think the show is generally seen as a set of lessons for the other characters. But I like to think that those are all ancillary. And that it was all set up by the witch's mother as a lesson for the witch. The witch watches all of this running around and learns many small lessons as well as some major ones. She also has the opportuniy to translate this all to one important "big picture' lesson. Or maybe I'm just doing some random musings as I avoid getting ready for New Years Eve dinner.
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
Updated On: 12/31/07 at 01:59 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#15re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 2:05pmartscallion, i think you are on to something, & i would like to hear more!
#16re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 2:57pm
Yes, Arts, God I've been trying to say this to everyone who doesn't get Sondheim. He's brilliant. They all had to get their little piece of the world. Careful the wishes you make. Because they "told a little lie, broke a little vow, stole a little gold..." to get them and where are they? Smushed, alone, or in dysfunctional mourning. It's poetic. But they all draw the line when it comes to throwing Jack to the giant, even though it probably crossed their mind a thousand times. Even the giants are willing to crush and destroy everything in their path because someone stole their gold.
At first I thought Sondheim was trying to say, don't go into the world (woods.) It's too scary. But I think it actually may tie more into what your saying. There are these tests and trials out there and exactly how much of your moral structure are you willing to give away in order to get what you want. I think the structure of how to get the spell reversed was intentional. The witch had to venture out and get some help from other people in order to get what she wanted. She got what she wanted and lost some of what she already had. Definetly calculated.
Janean
Chorus Member Joined: 10/4/05
#17re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 4:18pm
Sondheim's saying "you have to [go into the woods] every now and then" even if - especially if - you don't want to. The woods are where you change, you learn, you find wisdom even if you don't find happiness.
A good acquaintance of mine was interning for Sondheim while Into the Woods was being written, and the narrator was going to be the Baker's son all grown up! (at least they kept the Baker telling the story to his infant son). But they realized they needed to get rid of the narrator and really force the characters to fend for themselves, learn their own lessons without someone to guide them.
BroadwayMatinee.com - The radio show for show tune lovers, Wednesdays at 11a PT via KPBX.org
#18re: INTO THE WOODS question
Posted: 12/31/07 at 6:02pm
artscallion said everything I was going to say *lol* 
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
Videos