"I would say it's more than a bit odd that she doesn't realize it for nine months or so. It's very sloppy writing, and I'm not surprised audiences are confused."
I've never known anyone to be confused about it in the show. For one thing, the narrator explains it. (And this could easily have been solved in the film by Rapunzel taking a second to figure it our herself and then saying, "Ha! You've lost your powers!") And I doubt many people think "Why did it her so long to realize it?" That would probably only occur to someone who really thought about the show afterward. Or maybe to Sherlock Holmes.
It's in the movie, where the time lapse is gone altogether, that the problem comes up. When it comes to this question, however, it's not so much because of the loss of the time lapse as it is because of the restructuring of when certain things happen in relation to other things. As I said, when the giant's wife appears and causes massive destruction before the Witch has the scene with Rapunzel and her Prince, it has to make you wonder why she hadn't already tried using her powers on the giant's wife. This is not a problem in the stage version. In fact, there's even an exchange about it that's not in the movie. (Again, even just including that line would have helped explain things, if a bit retroactively.)
I suppose that the loss of the time lapse does make a bit more sense in that now it doesn't take the Witch so long to realize she has lost her powers.
I don't think that the Witch is really supposed to be the actress at the end, just not necessarily the exact character we've watched all evening. Rather perhaps a sort of transformation of the character into someone wiser.
I don't have a problem with her now understanding that what she once thought was a problem — children won't listen — she now realizes she was completely wrong about. Children do listen, but they may not obey or they may take away different things than you intended them to take away from what you say. Kind of like Sister Mary Ignatius explaining that God does always answer your prayers, but he sometimes answers them with "No."
In fact, it seems sort of inevitable that she should sing that at the end, that she should turn the "children won't listen" statement around.
I do think, however, that the lyric sung on the OBCR makes a lot more sense than the version sung onstage in many productions (and in the film). That one line change makes a big difference.
And, really, "Guide them along the way / Children will glisten" has gotta be one of the worst things Sondheim ever wrote. Maybe the absolute worst. (Not that there's that much competition.)
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