THEATRE REVIEW: Into the Woods brings Sondheim’s dark, unhinged fairy tales to Cape Town

A new production of Into the Woods, the madcap Sondheim-scored reimagining of various intertwined fairy tales, has opened in Cape Town. It’s directed by Sylvaine Strike and is in so many ways a reminder that the theatre is a place where absolutely anything can happen. And, in this show, performed by a richly talented ensemble of 25 students (all studying at Lamta, a musical theatre academy in Camps Bay), just about everything does in fact happen. It’s got a Giant stomping on villagers, a Wolf gobbling down a rambunctious Little Red Riding Hood, Jack ascending that beanstalk, a Witch magicking her way back from old age, and a pair of head-in-the-clouds princes riding their imaginary horses in and out of the proverbial forest. Because, yes, there are also trees. Trees as far as the eye can see. Only, there are no trees, only actors holding blackened planks, bringing the show’s ominously dark and perilous woods to life, making it twitter and breathe and occasionally roll its eyeballs or swoon at the handsome Prince. These woods are full of personality, in fact, interactive, and gushing with possibility. Also on stage are plenty more fairy tale familiars. Cows, magic beans, an anthropomorphised magical harp, a sparkly slipper that will lead the Prince to Cinderella’s foot, and those long blonde tresses leading up the lonely tower where Rapunzel has been locked away from the world, without human company her entire life.Darling Fransman as the Witch and Gaby Sampson as Rapunzel. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red and Jack are but a handful of the characters whose oft-repeated sagas get a modern update in this revisionist story by James Lapine. There are plenty more who come into view fully formed, and others who pop up in brief cameos, or are maybe hidden mysteriously among those trees.Lapine revives the original spirit of fairy tales and characters attributed to the Brothers Grimm and reunites them with their darker, pre-Disney underbelly, often to great comedic effect. Sometimes the treatment is wonderfully sordid, such as when Cinderella’s stepsisters, Florinda and Lucinda, have their feet cheerfully mutilated in a grisly attempt to squeeze them into that legendary slipper.Add to this a rich repository of pitch-black ironies, winking innuendo and actors given permission to let their most playful instincts run wild, and the result is a magnificently deranged show with a lot going on, not all of it explicitly explained. Much of the magic lies in the unspoken details, the relentless theatricality; blink too often and you’re liable to miss a nugget or two, pay close attention and you will get more than your money’s worth. None of this marvellous mayhem could have been achieved without the young actors who populate the stage. They have, under Strike’s direction, mastered the art of presence, making sure that whether they are playing a tree or becoming a funky chicken, they are always performing, always attending to the job of keeping the stage alive.Into the Woods, with Pride Ncube as the Narrator (centre) and Matt Blerk as the Baker (far right). (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) Though it’s a conceptually dilly show, packed with pleasurable nonsense, it is equally full of heart. Its action is driven by human-scale problems that have fairy-tale-sized consequences. In Act Two it’s the moral outrage and retribution resulting from Jack’s crimes against the Giant. And much of the palaver in Act One stems from the fact that the Baker and his wife can’t seem to fall pregnant.And thus it is a musical that matters, its psychological truth-bombs just as meaningful as the laughs it chases.It’s difficult to ignore the emotional depth brought to the role of the Baker’s Wife by Mia Dippenaar. She’s not only a gifted singer, but gives everything of herself to this character, who is desperate for a child and underappreciated by her husband. As the Baker, I’ve so far watched Benjamin Stannard, who is both excellent and charmingly human in the role, which is shared in alternate performances with Matt Blerk.Blerk and Stannard also share performances as Cinderella’s Prince, a serial womaniser who at one point glibly confesses that he was raised to be charming rather than sincere. It’s among many moments when the musical uses comedy to remind us of some deeper lesson in life that fairy tales are meant to convey. Blerk’s Prince, by the way, is one of those wayward, wackadoodle, slightly pathological characters you can’t help adoring. Like the various women, men and trees who fall for his charms, he will make you love him, too, never mind his many flaws.Across the board, in fact, these actors have made a meal of creating characters who take us by surprise. Just as the Prince is a bit of a prick, Kristin Murison’s Little Red Riding Hood is performed not as a meek, mild or timid little girl, but as a precocious tomboy in a perpetually foul mood.Jude Bunyan’s Wolf, meanwhile, is as charming and hilarious as he is sly and hungry. And Darling Fransman brings such a deliciously offbeat malevolence to her interpretation of the Witch (a role she alternates with Xivono Olive), who, in turn, does a pretty convincing job of playing the victim card. Overseeing all of these shenanigans is Pride Ncube’s clear-voiced Narrator, who commands the stage like a wizard or shaman, endeavouring to stay out of the narrative she spins. It’s no spoiler to say that she’s ultimately unable to divorce herself entirely from the story.The show is packed with satisfying key performances, and there are no small parts. Even relatively fleeting vignettes, such as the moments of blind bewilderment experienced by the Ugly Stepsisters (Ashlee Austin and Jaimee Coxwell) and Bunyan’s cameo as the Hen who pops out a golden egg, prove to be scene-stealers. As are the various unacknowledged actors who take turns embodying the hindquarters of Jack’s cow, Milky White. Characterisations aside, it’s a joy to hear this company sing Sondheim’s lyrics; they’re full of natural talent, so painstakingly rehearsed (by musical director Amy Campbell), and give themselves over to the task with such abandon and feeling.There’s talent in spades behind the scenes, too. Naoline Quinzin’s choreography is perfectly energising, and Marcel Meyer’s simplified costumes (and slightly unhinged accessories) help the production achieve just the right balance between the sublime and the ridiculous.Strike has risen to the challenge of wrangling this monster of a show into a truly distinctive experience, one that delivers the audience deep into the heart and soul of “Once Upon A Time”.More than a musical, it’s a kind of thesis statement, a big, fat middle finger to mediocrity, almost three hours of unbridled entertainment, every scene chockfull of fascinating detail, beautiful voices and committed performances, all of it designed to stretch the actors (and the audience) in ways you probably never dreamed possible. It is a masterclass in bringing words to life, telling stories in ways that make them resonate somewhere in the deepest parts of us. DMInto the Woods is playing at Theatre on the Bay through 14 November.