An off-Broadway production of Into the Woods (1986) has arrived at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and its homemade look suits Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical, with its motley fusion of fairytales. It is as if a dressing-up box had been raided: a red cloak (Little Red Riding Hood), a long, yellow knitted scarf (Rapunzel), faded frocks (for the baker’s wife and Jack’s mother). Princes must content themselves with riding hobby horses.
Jessie Austrian announces, just before the show, that she is pregnant, urging us to remember that her character, the baker’s wife, is not. This sets the tone for a charmingly impromptu evening. Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld direct; the cast is made up of 10 actor-musicians. And while it is always risky when adults play children (Patrick Mulryan’s Jack is a beanstalk), the cast’s unselfconscious playfulness wins the night.
The set, designed by Derek McLane, has ropes for tree trunks, eight chandeliers, walls made of broken harps – in keeping with the musical’s exploration of broken dreams. I was amused by Emily Young’s feverish Red Riding Hood. She seems to be on autopilot, unable to escape her destiny or destination, although doing her rebellious best by eating her grandmother’s picnic. Young is also comic as the zaniest of Rapunzels, possibly affected by agoraphobia after too long in the tower. The witch is excellently played by Vanessa Reseland, a bold rapper in a crocheted shawl who metamorphoses into a cool blond dame in black velvet. And I was tickled by the perverse, bearded cow, Milky White, with a bell around “her” (Andy Grotelueschen’s) neck.
But it is Sondheim’s command of hybrid sentiment – of the bittersweet – and his gift for the conversational within song that brings the greatest delight, and the cast handles the nuanced variety well. But do not expect big voices; this is a collaborative effort, not a vehicle for individual stars (although Steinfeld’s baker singing No More is especially moving).
The musical’s first half ends as if it were the finale, which contributes to the sense that the second half is a potentially long haul in which the lyric “every moment is of moment in the woods” rings untrue. And yet, as the fairytales get darker and more human, the thinking deepens – especially the idea that our desires control us and not the other way around.
• At the Menier Chocolate Factory, London until 17 September
