Shubshri Kandiah, Justin Smith, Tamsin Carroll, Esther Hannaford and Marty Alix get ready to go into the woods. Photo: Christopher Hayles
Once upon a time… so begins Peter Carroll, suavely dressed in black and white, in his role as Narrator in Into The Woods, Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical that takes characters from such Grimm fairytales as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Cinderella – and turns them on their heads. In a nutshell: be careful what you wish for!
Carroll stands, like the emcee in an intimate cabaret club, alongside a raised circular podium with two pianos, as one by one key players – among them Cinderella (Shubshri Kandiah), Little Red Riding Hood (Mo Lovegrove), Jack (Marty Alix) and his Mother (Lena Cruz) – come on stage to tell us what they wish for. Tying the whole tale together is the story of a childless Baker and his Wife and their quest to build a family, a desire they soon learn has been thwarted by a Witch who has placed a curse on them.
Tamsin Carroll is that Witch, and what a wonderful witch she is. Menacing but with great comic timing and wonderfully dismissive getures, Carroll has the audience entranced as she lays out her terms for lifting the curse. The Baker (Justin Smith) and his wife (Esther Hannaford) have approximately 70 hours (or three midnights in fairytale parlance) to bring to the Witch: a cape as red as blood; hair the colour of corn; a cow as white as milk; and a golden slipper. It is a fine beginning to a musical that runs for nearly three hours and which sustains its brisk initial pace.
And into the woods the characters go. Much hilarity is had with Lovegrove’s Red Riding Hood encounter with the Wolf and Tim Draxl’s suitably sleazily performance of ‘Hello, Little Girl’. (And it’s no coincidence that Draxl also plays Cinderella’s prince.) The fairy tales are familiar: Cinderella does go the ball; Red Riding Hood’s Granny (Stefanie Caccamo, who also plays Rapunzel and Florinda) lives to see another day; the Baker and his Wife beg, cajole and swindle the required goods for the Witch, who continues to harangue them (and make us laugh). All seems to be going well. The Baker and his Wife are proud parents, Cinderella’s in her castle and no one pays much attention to Jack’s Mothers’ report that there is a dead Giant in her garden. Or that the Witch has lost her powers. Why would that matter in the ‘living happily ever after stakes’?
And so to Act 2, a highlight of which is the song ‘Agony’, a duet between Draxl as Cinderella’s prince and Andrew Coshan as Rapunzel’s prince. The lyrics are very funny as the pair complain about their misery and unrequited lust for Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. (Complaining princes are so on trend: it is hard not to think of the misery felt by Britain’s most famous prince, his non HRH Prince Harry.) Another line, later in the act – ‘I was brought up to be charming, not sincere’ – induced much laughter.
But by now an enraged Giantess (voiced by Pamela Rabe) is on the loose, making the earth shudder and destroying everyone and everything in her path. We learn the back story of Jack’s stolen beans. The Giantess is out for revenge. Will our fairytale characters stand on their principles or give up one of their own? What do they wish for now? And whose fault is it, anyway?
Directed by Eamon Flack, this Into the Woods is a tight, colourful extravaganza, all the more noteworthy given the size of the Belvoir St stage. There are some wonderful voices. On the piano is the show’s musical director Simon Holt, who is a character in his own right. On the second piano is Anne-Maree McDonald, who doubles as Cinderella’s Stepmother. Most of the cast play multiple roles, and as good times turn bad their costumes become muddled. All the performances are strong, but for me the most memorable is Tamsin Carroll’s Witch, in both her personas, and Lovegrove’s Red Riding Hood. As for the Narrator, I cannot imagine anyone other than Peter Carroll in the role.
Until 18 March. Tickets: Full price from $72, Seniors from $62, Concession from $52, 30-Down from $50, Student Saver from $37
https://belvoir.com.au/productions/into-the-woods or (02) 9699 3444
