Into the Woods
Into the Woods is a musical by Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim wrote, as well as in many of his other works, text and music. The book is by James Lapine and is inspired by the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and other fairy tale collections. James Lapine also took over as director.
The premiere took place at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York on November 5, 1987. After 765 performances the final curtain of the original production was on 3 September 1989. 1997 and 2002 there was revival shows. The German -language premiere was held in Heilbronn on 31 March 1990. The German libretto under the title From the forest is by Michael Kunze.
Background
The idea of the piece is to be many of the familiar fairy tale characters in some humorous way to experience an adventure together.
Stephen Sondheim himself said to the music:
"I wanted it spread a lot of little songs, with little melodies in the sixteenth, Zweiundreißigstel and eighth clock, cartoon way Seeming, always in a contemporary style: morality plays and songs propelled And these tunes alienate later. The first act is spacious, cheerful and easily, the second less silly and somewhat gloomy: So I wanted the music reflects this difference. "
Action
An evil witch has punished the baker and his wife with the curse of childlessness. In order to solve the curse, the two must her a cow as white as milk, a coat as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn bring and a golden shoe. The bakers pair now penetrates into dream-like situations in the figures of the fairy tale one, because they are the witch yes the cow from Jack, Little Red Riding Hood cloak, Rapunzel's hair and Cinderella procure shoe.
This leads to numerous complications, serene reinterpretations and tricky situations for the characters, their relationships are intertwined fatal. At the end of the first act, the witch takes the curse of the baker pair and satisfies their desire for children. Now everything could be good, but it is not, because in the second act, he plays exactly one year later, the figures with their previous fulfilled wishes to live, which is sometimes anything but a fairy tale ...
Songs
Premiere cast
- Tom Aldredge ( Narrator / Mysterious Man )
- Chip Zien ( Baker )
- Joanna Gleason ( Mrs. Baker )
- Bernadette Peters ( Witch )
- Ben Wright ( Jack with the Beanstalk )
- Barbara Bryne ( Jack's mother )
- Danielle Ferland ( Little Red Riding Hood )
- Robert Westenberg ( Wolf / Cinderella's Prince )
- Kim Crosby ( Cinderella )
- Merle Louise ( Cinderella's Mother / Red Riding Hood's grandmother / giantess )
- Edmund Lyndeck ( Cinderella's father)
- Joy Franz ( Cinderella's stepmother )
- Kay McClelland ( Florinda, Cinderella's stepsister )
- Lauren Mitchell ( Lucinda, Cinderella's stepsister )
- Chuck Wagner ( Rapunzel's Prince )
- Pamela Winslow ( Rapunzel )
- Maureen Davis ( Sleeping Beauty )
- Jean Kelly ( Snow White )
- Philip Hoffman ( valet )