Sara Bareilles, Christian Borle, Ashley Park, and Heather Headley to Lead Encores Into The Woods — Page 11

Well, that was loads of fun. (tl;dr - I loved it)

I should preface by saying that Into the Woods has never been among my favorite Sondheim musicals. I've seen it several times, including the original Broadway production, the first national tour, the 2002 Broadway revival, the 2017 Fiasco Theater production, and the 2019 Hollywood Bowl production. (Plus the movie, but let's not talk about that.) There are parts of the show that always move me deeply (mostly the final 20 minutes or so), but I always feel the first act is overlong and that (with a couple of notable exceptions) the songs aren't among Sondheim's greats. But when I saw the cast announced for this one I knew I had to sign up for one more production. And I'm very glad I did.

I live in Los Angeles so haven't been to previous Encores! productions (we had a similar annual concert series, Reprise, that folded a few years back), but I was tremendously impressed with what they were able to pull together in so short a rehearsal period. The pacing was a bit off, particularly in the first act, which often seemed to drag due to some pregnant pauses between lines, but it picked up as the evening progressed. (The show ran about 2:55, plus some pre-curtain speeches.) The set is nothing to speak of...three small risers leading up to the orchestra, several trees flown in early on, and a couple of small set pieces...but I didn't feel the show suffered for it. The staging of the giant's appearances in Act Two (no spoilers here) was original and extremely effective. The 15-piece orchestra sounded terrific. And although the cast carried scripts or scores in certain scenes, they were decoratively bound in a way that was consistent with the storytelling theme and were completely unobtrusive.

As for the performances, they were everything you would expect from this cast. Everyone was so solid that it's hard to single anyone out, but if I were forced to I would particularly commend the work of Denée Benton (a gorgeously voiced Cinderella), Julia Lester (a hilarious Red Riding Hood), Gavin Creel (Wolf and Cinderella's Prince), Jason Forbach (an excellent understudy performance for the absent Jordan Donica), Cole Thompson (who absolutely nailed "Giants in the Sky" ), and Kennedy Kanagawa (whose puppetry of Milky White and others was consistently artistic, clever, and captivating). Heather Headley was stunning vocally (her "Stay With Me" was everything you would expect if you saw the rehearsal video), but seemed to have the most problems with pacing and line pickups; I'm sure that will improve over the next few days. And although I confess that the Baker and his Wife are forever linked in my mind with Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason - and although I was really looking forward to seeing Christian Borle's take - Neil Patrick Harris and Sara Bareilles both did beautiful jobs, with Sara particularly strong in "Moments in the Woods" and NPH delivering a deeply moving "No More" (with the equally wonderful David Patrick Kelly).

I can attest that there were many sniffles (and a few choked sobs) in my vicinity during "No One is Alone," particularly in Sara's reprise leading into "Children Will Listen." As for the community chorus for the finale, about which some on this board have voiced strong feelings, it was perhaps unnecessary but ultimately sweet and consistent with the intergenerational themes of the show. (Chorus members dressed in black lined the aisles in at least the orchestra and mezzanine and the sides of the stage; there was some minimal echo effect between the chorus members standing immediately next to me and the voices traveling from the stage, which I imagine varies depending on seat location.)

To sum up, the things I love about Into the Woods I loved a lot in this production, and the things I'm not so crazy about I really didn't mind so much because of the tremendous talent involved. And I'm very glad I planned my NY trip around this.

Updated On: 5/5/22 at 11:53 PM