the original San Diego production has been referenced a few times in this discussion, and I thought I'd weigh in since I recently had the opportunity to watch a video of that production. (Please note that I am not indicting that I personally own this video, am selling it, or have shared it with others...I am merely stating that I have viewed it.) It was a fascinating experience to see the show in a gestational and much less effective form; Act one is effectively as we know it with a few songs missing and a couple of dialogue changes, but the shape and purpose of act two is significantly different: the Baker's wife dies offstage from eating Snow White's poisoned apple, there is an extended death scene for Little Red's Granny, and there is an explicit romantic pairing at the end of the show between the Baker and Cinderella. The theme of parents and children isn't quite as explicit ("Children Will Listen" is not in the show in any form), although Cinderella's, Red's and Jack's relationships with their absentee fathers get more discussion. The shows doesn't quite have its central point in place, though it comes close, to an extent.
The difference most relevant to this discussion is that Rapunzel never refers to the witch as "mother" at all; she calls her "Dame Gothel." Neither "Stay with me" or "Witch's Lament" are in the show, and the two characters are never onstage together in Act Two. It's not explicitly a mother-daughter relationship; it's not explicitly romantic, either, and Rapunzel discusses the witch as a parental figure but they do not appear to be as close as they were on Broadway.
Significantly, Rapunzel's rant in Act two about her perpetual unhappiness is delivered not to the Witch but to the group that is about to encounter the giant for what is in this version the second time: Her prince, the Baker, Little Red, Cinderella, and the Royal Family. The Witch, hunting for Jack after an early encounter with the giant (in which only the narrator dies), is not even present. Rapunzel's reasons for unhappiness are not leveled solely at the witch here but at her history in general, and she then very explicitly runs in the same direction as the giant, clearly committing suicide. (Cinderella gets a terrific line at her death where, shaking her clothes to get her sister-in-law's blood spatter off them, she complains: "Oh, this dress is RUINED!")
I did not see Ellen Foley's Witch being played as explicitly gay, as some have suggested (she does wear some leather in act one.) She's not very maternal, either...in fact she really doesn't do much with the part. Frankly, when they added the Witch's additional motivations of protecting then avenging Rapunzel, they drastically strengthened a weak character. In the San Diego version, she does very little to "earn" the impact of Boom Crunch (But she does sing the heck out of it.) Rapunzel has even less to do than she does in the finished version, in fact the part is small enough that the role is doubled with one of the stepsisters, Florinda, played by Kay McClelland. this leads, incidentally, to only Lucinda making it out of the Giant's attack on the palace alive so McClelland can do Rapunzel's death scene. (it also leads to a great gag where the Stepmother realizes Rapunzel's tears cure blindness and positions Lucinda so the weeping girl restores her sight.) She's barely onstage at all: with no "Stay with Me" to be sung to her, Rapunzel seems a very minor character indeed.
The whole plot-line really needed a rewrite, and it thankfully got one. You can't really use it to argue for or against a romantic interpretation of their relationship, because in the San Diego version the two women barely have one.
I will say that in the finished version of the show, I've never really considered the lesbian subtext, though I've always believed it apparent in the fairy tale itself (Anne Sexton's treatment of Rapunzel in "Transformations" is especially good reading for those interested in this interpretation.) the subtext is there, but I'd argue against playing a romantic relationship, and if you MUST make it sexual, it should be one-sided and very subtle. The Witch and Rapunzel's relationship is important to the themes of the show as a parent-child relationship, not as a romantic pairing. The Witch's possessive nature can be explored perfectly well with her as a mother, without delving into this particular type of love.
Updated On: 8/7/12 at 04:37 AM
who sees/comes to se his/her unattractiveness as something to work on as it impacts their respective subplot, 9) in each case the character standing in the way of young love is scarred by its progress, and reacts by abandoning his/her child, leaving her alone (in Bedlam/in the desert and ultimately in the world), 10) the antagonist to young love sees controlling and restricting the ingenue as the right and proper thing to do, 11) the reclusiveness and unobtainability of the young woman in her tower is in each case highly significant scenically and musically and 12) the young woman has been wrongly taken from her true parents in the central back story of the play, 13) the ingenue's experiences are so painful that she is extensively scarred by the final curtain, her young man may not be what she thought he was (even in Johanna's case, she grows at least temporarily mad and poignantly distrustful of Anthony), 14) intense rivalry for the maiden's affections and jealousy of the parental figure for the beautiful young man who wants his/her "child." 
