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Aug. 30th, 2012 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsToday I pulled some very complicated procedures to get enough tickets for my whole family to see Into the Woods in the park! (Second time for me, first time for the rest of them.)
I am very tired but I wanted to note down some impressions about the stuff they did before I flee to DragonCon tomorrow, because I found some of their choices super interesting.
First things first: the cast was generally great, except for Denis O'Hare, who was TERRIBLE. I don't know if that's his fault or the director's, but he basically used two expressions for the entirety of the show and completely failed to hit any of the necessary emotional beats. SORRY DUDE. He also had zero chemistry with anybody onstage, including Amy Adams, whose brilliance was slightly dimmed by the fact that she probably would have had more chemistry singing opposite a stick of wood.
NOW WITH THAT COMPLAINT OVER WITH, let's get to the interesting staging stuff!
There are two main threads-of-difference in this show from the standard staging.
1. The child-narrator, who -- spoilers! -- turns out to be the Baker's son, running away to the woods to re-visit his own origin story. This is not the only interpretation; the Baker/father could simply be metaphorical cast doubling, and the story does not have to be the kid's own origin story, but I like it as read that way.
What's interesting is that the child is, even more than usual, not a nice narrator. Throughout the first act, he's constantly affecting the story in gleeful and sometimes unpleasant ways -- pinching Cinderella's stepsister to get her to turn on Cinderella, chomping on a sandwich while the Wolf devours Little Red, puppet-mastering the "Ever After" sequence, and, most tellingly, placing a pair of scissors next to the Witch, interrupting her reconciliation-hug with Rapunzel with a reminder that it's time to cut her hair. (I'll come back to that in a moment.)
The reason I like this as the narrator re-imagining stories about himself he's heard from his parents is that this adds an extra layer of nuance to his story-crafting. The way he's heard his own story from the perspective of one set of characters is probably not the way things looked to another set of characters; he has to constantly interfere to get things to come out the way they're "supposed" to be. And I find that super interesting. It also makes it unsurprising that the Witch is really pissed at him!
2. SO SPEAKING OF THE WITCH. Donna Murphy was amazing, but a large part of the credit here has to go to the direction and staging -- this is a Witch who is older, less sarcastic, less funny, but lonelier, and more afraid, and more heartbreaking. I'm just going to chronicle the changes and bits of staging that strike me as pertinent:
- when the Narrator brings her the scissors, she pulls out of her hug with Rapunzel, and the imminent reconciliation turns into the traumatic hair-cutting scene; her immediate reaction, after she sees what she's done, is to apologize in shock at what she's done. Rapunzel runs away, and the Witch runs after her. We hear her trying to make things right; then we're told that she banished Rapunzel to the desert
- when she finds Rapunzel and the twins at the end of Act I, she specifically begs Rapunzel to come back to her and bring the babies with her; this compared to the Prince's reaction when he sees the twins, which is a giant @______@
- this leads into a gutpunch in the second act: after Rapunzel gets squished by the giant, the Witch finds the pram and tries to pick up one of the babies to hold it . . . and it dissolves into bones and dust as she stares in horror. By the time the second act happens, the twins have been dead for a long time
- in the middle of "Your Fault," while everybody is shouting, the Witch quietly comes down and picks up the Baker's child. The first half of "Last Midnight" is sung to the baby, the world's creepiest lullaby -- only when she gives up hope does she give the baby back, specifically on the line "like your son will be too, so why bother"
What we see in the first act, what's fascinating to me, is the Witch being forced into the role of evil parent, and fighting like hell against it. Of course she's being forced into that role -- the child-Narrator is running away, he's mad at his dad, he needs a scapegoat, and the Witch is the villain of the story.
No wonder she's infuriated enough to throw him to the giant.
I am very tired but I wanted to note down some impressions about the stuff they did before I flee to DragonCon tomorrow, because I found some of their choices super interesting.
First things first: the cast was generally great, except for Denis O'Hare, who was TERRIBLE. I don't know if that's his fault or the director's, but he basically used two expressions for the entirety of the show and completely failed to hit any of the necessary emotional beats. SORRY DUDE. He also had zero chemistry with anybody onstage, including Amy Adams, whose brilliance was slightly dimmed by the fact that she probably would have had more chemistry singing opposite a stick of wood.
NOW WITH THAT COMPLAINT OVER WITH, let's get to the interesting staging stuff!
There are two main threads-of-difference in this show from the standard staging.
1. The child-narrator, who -- spoilers! -- turns out to be the Baker's son, running away to the woods to re-visit his own origin story. This is not the only interpretation; the Baker/father could simply be metaphorical cast doubling, and the story does not have to be the kid's own origin story, but I like it as read that way.
What's interesting is that the child is, even more than usual, not a nice narrator. Throughout the first act, he's constantly affecting the story in gleeful and sometimes unpleasant ways -- pinching Cinderella's stepsister to get her to turn on Cinderella, chomping on a sandwich while the Wolf devours Little Red, puppet-mastering the "Ever After" sequence, and, most tellingly, placing a pair of scissors next to the Witch, interrupting her reconciliation-hug with Rapunzel with a reminder that it's time to cut her hair. (I'll come back to that in a moment.)
The reason I like this as the narrator re-imagining stories about himself he's heard from his parents is that this adds an extra layer of nuance to his story-crafting. The way he's heard his own story from the perspective of one set of characters is probably not the way things looked to another set of characters; he has to constantly interfere to get things to come out the way they're "supposed" to be. And I find that super interesting. It also makes it unsurprising that the Witch is really pissed at him!
2. SO SPEAKING OF THE WITCH. Donna Murphy was amazing, but a large part of the credit here has to go to the direction and staging -- this is a Witch who is older, less sarcastic, less funny, but lonelier, and more afraid, and more heartbreaking. I'm just going to chronicle the changes and bits of staging that strike me as pertinent:
- when the Narrator brings her the scissors, she pulls out of her hug with Rapunzel, and the imminent reconciliation turns into the traumatic hair-cutting scene; her immediate reaction, after she sees what she's done, is to apologize in shock at what she's done. Rapunzel runs away, and the Witch runs after her. We hear her trying to make things right; then we're told that she banished Rapunzel to the desert
- when she finds Rapunzel and the twins at the end of Act I, she specifically begs Rapunzel to come back to her and bring the babies with her; this compared to the Prince's reaction when he sees the twins, which is a giant @______@
- this leads into a gutpunch in the second act: after Rapunzel gets squished by the giant, the Witch finds the pram and tries to pick up one of the babies to hold it . . . and it dissolves into bones and dust as she stares in horror. By the time the second act happens, the twins have been dead for a long time
- in the middle of "Your Fault," while everybody is shouting, the Witch quietly comes down and picks up the Baker's child. The first half of "Last Midnight" is sung to the baby, the world's creepiest lullaby -- only when she gives up hope does she give the baby back, specifically on the line "like your son will be too, so why bother"
What we see in the first act, what's fascinating to me, is the Witch being forced into the role of evil parent, and fighting like hell against it. Of course she's being forced into that role -- the child-Narrator is running away, he's mad at his dad, he needs a scapegoat, and the Witch is the villain of the story.
No wonder she's infuriated enough to throw him to the giant.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 07:06 am (UTC)(In a sort of humbling way; how can I have the moral high ground ever if I was one of those terrible things once?)
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Date: 2012-08-30 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 01:14 pm (UTC)And he COULDN'T SING. He sounded like he was mumbling through a mouthful of cotton after getting his wisdom teeth extracted.
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Date: 2012-08-30 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 02:16 pm (UTC)But I think the set/staging is actually transported from a London production, actually, so hey, who knows where this version could end up!
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Date: 2012-08-30 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 04:01 am (UTC)EITHER WAY: SO HORRIFYING D: D: D:
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Date: 2012-08-31 01:44 pm (UTC)BUT EITHER WAY YEAH. D: D: D:
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Date: 2012-08-31 07:57 pm (UTC)