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Into the Woods

Reviewed by Pauline Adamek

Oregon Shakespeare Festival at the Wallis Annenberg Center

Through Dec. 21

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What follows the “happily ever after” conclusion of most fairy tales? That’s what composer-songwriter Stephen Sondheim and book-writer James Lapine examine in their sophisticated 1986 Broadway musical based on Grimm’s fairy tails and composed expressly for adults. (Lapine directed the musical’s eventual debut on Broadway, after it premiered at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.)

Here, Amanda Dehnert’s vivid staging for Oregon Shakespeare Festival lands at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Adopting a modern twist on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales, Sondheim and Lapine have taken various storybook characters and ingeniously melded their stories together. Hence we have a roster of magical characters that include Sleeping Beauty (Katie Bradley), Snow White (Christiana Clark), two charming and heroic Princes (Jeremy Peter Johnson and John Tufts), Jack (of beanstalk fame) and the Baker and his Wife (a barren pair who crave a child). The thread of Act 1 follows the Baker characters as they forge an agreement with a hideous old witch (the outstanding Miriam A. Laube). The forlorn pair promises to obtain for her several desirable items, including a red cape (from Little Red Riding Hood, Kjerstine Rose Anderson); a golden slipper (from Cinderella, Jennie Greenberry); a milky white cow (played by Catherine E. Coulson who doubles as Cinderella’s Stepmother); and some corn-yellow threads of hair (from Rapunzel, Royer Bockus).

Act 1 rushes along at a cracking pace for 90 minutes, developing and resolving this storyline with a selection of lively songs with clever lyrics. The show has its 18-strong orchestra placed on-stage in full view and full sound. Brass, woodwind section, piano center stage — the music is certainly given prominence. The staging is bare-bones, on split-level scaffolding, all the more to showcase the fine voices and accompanying glorious music. At first the cast appears in everyday dress, but they gradually begin to enter the stage in whimsical and increasingly extravagant costumes, beautifully designed by Linda Roethke. But just when you think it’s over (after all, 90 minutes is a respectable length for a one-act show) the cast announces, “To be continued!” and the story carries on for almost the same period again, post interval.

Here’s where the story takes a darker turn as the ramifications of stealing from and then assassinating a giant (the Jack and the Beanstalk tale) rear their ugly head — literally. The monstrous head of the giant’s wife (also a giant) is projected against the wall as she descends to avenge her husband’s death, wreaking destruction and murder wherever she goes. As evidenced by a shrieking child who ran from the theater with her fingers stuffed in her ears, this show is definitely not for children. These sequences are truly loud and terrifying.

While overlong, this magical show is well worth seeing.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival at the Bram Goldsmith Theater, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m.; through Dec. 21. (310) 746-4000, https://www.thewallis.org