| Into the Woods Saturday matinee | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 09:29 pm EDT 07/23/22 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 09:12 pm EDT 07/23/22 | |
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| INTO THE WOODS: Overall very bubbly and fun. The audience kept stopping it with over-the-top applause. Maybe excited to be back in the theatre…? The understudy, Mary Kate Moore, was on for Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife and did a lovely job. Most of the show is done in “one,” which works well as a “staged reading” and for keeping track of the ubiquitous twists and turns. Gavin Creel is deliriously daffy and campy as the Prince (if perhaps too silly for the Wolf), Brian D’Arcy James is perfectly cast, the Witch is very fine (Patina Miller channelling some Eartha Kitt), but I still don’t know how that character fits. All very good, though. The show falls a bit short in carrying off that hard left into the portent and emotionality from the time the Giant’s Wife makes her entry. I’ve seen it where I weep a lot; here I was touched indeed but also felt a bit lectured to. It may be too that the audiences would be too divided about what we want “no more” of nowadays. (And James does “No More” as well as we all expect. Wish that song were longer!!!) The very hip Riding Hood, Julia Lester, and Jack’s Mother (Aymee Garcia) had wonderful round deep comic-alto voices. Joshua Henry (excellent as the ridiculous prince) at one moment smacked a pesky, distracting gnat between his two palms without breaking stride in his number with Creel. He and Gavin had to hold for the applause. Spontaneous, in-the-moment, surprising. He dazzles when he smiles. The narrator (who resembles the original, Aldredge) is very good and makes every subtle moment count. Annie Golden is a national treasure. SPOILER: I still feel the disposing of Rapunzel and the Prince’s servant is too thrown away (in every production I’ve seen). And the atmosphere of being in a narrator-less world could bear some re-examination. But yes, go see it. It Takes Two and Moments in the Woods are touching. Giants in the Sky is a love of a song. (I still don’t get “Last Midnight,” and why does every transformed witch I’ve seen kinda look like a guest on the Dean Martin show? Is that what’s “beautiful”? I mean, what would Kate Moss wear?) Overall… Frothy, very professional, GOOD SINGERS, with more clever rhymes than « Little Priest, » I think. |
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