Into the Woods - Reviews

I was at the opening night too, and absolutely agree with your praise. Didn't spot Daniel Evans, but Julia McKenzie was sat two rows behind me, and I sat near Tim McInnerny outside the theatre. I look forward to reading the critics' reviews... and I think I might have to see this again.

Good start

Whats On Stage****
http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/london/E8831282037161/Into+the+Woods.html

Evening Standard***
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/review-23867816-go-down-into-the-woods-but-be-prepared-to-leave-with-mixed-feelings.do

Updated On: 8/17/10 at 02:50 AM

Sam, what are you doing to yourself? All that hard drinking and you end up walking into the wrong sex toilets!!!!!!!!!

haha no i was waiting outside for my sister and she walked out before my sister! :)

Scripps! 4 inches taller? don't tell me you pulled one of the munchkins from Wizrard of Oz!?

Saw it Saturday and loved it - what a magical setting and a fine cast led by the excellent Hannah Waddingham in fine form and the utterly subline Jenna Russell

Yes the boy is the narrator

"at 1min 39 there is a brief performance from Legallysam in a nice pink shirt"

But not in focus and not in close-up.

I'll take the guy in the purple shirt at 1:15.

I have two questions to ask. How was Helen Dallimore and was Cinderella's father cut from this production?

Daily Mail****

Now in his 80th year, Stephen Sondheim has never knowingly made life easy for anyone in theatre.
His musicals are notoriously hard to sing, as there are so few melodies - the last discernible tune he wrote being Send In The Clowns back in the Seventies. His stories, meanwhile, are long and rambling - even for musicals. And his flat, conversational lyrics revel in nerdish rhymes.
What, then, does he have to recommend him? How is it he inspires such devotion and is considered so marvellous?
The answer is surely that his admirers love his eccentricity, which breaks free of the jailhouse of convention.
But that doesn’t make his work any easier and Into The Woods is one of the toughest. That’s why Timothy Sheader deserves an award for making Sondheim’s fairytale musical seem jolly, fleet of foot and entirely accessible.
The key is Soutra Gilmour’s design, which exploits the natural setting of London’s Regent’s Park.
How else but with a strong design do you integrate a cast of 20 fairytale characters, each plugging their own yarn? How else are you to get Jack of the Beanstalk to do business with Little Red Riding Hood? How else can you get Cinderella on the same stage as Rapunzel?
Gilmour's answer is to build a gigantic rigging among the trees of Regent’s Park that makes the stage look like a vast thicket of rusty fire escapes rising from the woodland floor. It allows the squadron of fantastically dressed actors to to-and-fro for scenes, some barely five lines long.
Even this leaves Sheader and his tireless cast much work to do, but their application is admirable and panoramic.
Mark Hadfield and Jenna Russell provide the main focus of the story as the Baker and his wife who strike a deal with The Witch so they can have a baby. All they have to do is find a white cow, a red cape, some yellow corn and a golden slipper.
This locks them into the story of Jack, who’s trying to flog his heifer; Little Red Riding Hood; Rapunzel, with her creepily long hair; and Cinderella of the legendary slipper.
The stage is then dotted with neat cameos from high up in the trees all the way down to ground level. Beverly Rudd’s Red Riding Hood is a plump, polka-dot creation shuddering with pleasure as the drooling Wolf eyes her ample flesh.
Hannah Waddingham’s Witch is a crabby woodland granny overgrown with ivy, scurrying about on crutches made of twisted branches.
Helen Dallimore’s Cinderella is a comely milk maid bemused by everyone else’s neuroses and the competing Princes, played by Michael Xavier and Simon Thomas, are a couple of Russell Brand replicants -long hair, tight jeans and empty heads.
Much of the action is resolved by the end of a long, 90-minute first half. But Sondheim never sends anyone home early and it starts all over again, with Judi Dench supplying a pre-recorded voice for a vengeful female giant. She is constructed with umbrella eyelids and picket fence teeth smeared in lipstick up in the tree tops, while nail varnished earth digger hands writhe below and her booming footsteps shake the set.
And by the end, some of Sondheim’s rambling refrains have finally lodged in your head thanks to Gareth Valentine’s invisible but hard-working band.
As the sun goes down, enchantment sets into the verdant scenery and the show becomes a must-see for Sondheim fans and a definitely-could-see for everyone else.

Saw the matinee performance today.

I'll start by saying, that I thought the setting for this production was absolute perfection and an obvious choice for the Open Air Theatre. What might seem like distractions (wind, very light rain, birds flying past etc) completely added to the magic of seeing this production come to life - watching the fairy tale characters emerge from the trees made me really suspend my disbelief and seeing a Sondheim musical performing in the supposed enviroment - this type of thing doesn't happen often!!

A great cast, some projected their singing/acing a lot better than others, but the absolute standout was Hannah Waddingham. A powerhouse voice which I bet even stretched out to the front entrance gates of Regents Park, not forgetting to mention very believeable characterisation as the Witch.

A very ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

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Sorry...not familiar with this venue. Do Open Air Theater productions ever transfer to the West End (say, in the same manner that Shakespeare in the Park productions transfer to Broadway)?

I saw the last performance of this on Saturday: it was the best of the four productions of Into The Woods that I have seen and it sets the standard by which I will judge all other productions.

I thought having the narrator as a little boy and the way they followed through and developed this idea in Act II elevated the show to a whole new level. Children Will Listen took on a whole new meaning and moved to the core of the show rather than being the sentimental ballad/anthem thrown in to a dark comedy that I have previously regarded it as.

It also has to be said, straight out, that the costumes were extraordinary. Instead of Grimm or Disney these seemed to come from folklore, myths and legends by way of Goth, Punk and Russell Brand.

And the set - where did it end and the park begin? And the brilliance of the giant, and the goose that lays the golden eggs: superb! And exactly the way a dreaming child might combine reality and fantasy.

And the cast were superb too. My only slight complaint is that Judi was acting the heart out of the giant when being a mere villainess would have been appropriate.

And, yes, the script took on a whole new meaning about the awful and awesome journey from childhood through adolescence. I was in shreds by the end and was keen to join in the prompt and spontaneous standing ovation. This was an experience for the heart and mind that only theatre can give.

For me, this production moved one of the Sondheim shows that I was less appreciative of right into the centre of the Sondheim canon.

Updated On: 9/16/10 at 03:16 PM