Wandering 'Into the Woods' - and getting lost

What happens in a fairy tale beyond the "happily ever after?" What if Prince Charming and Cinderella don't get along, or Little Red Riding Hood's hormones run amok? In short, what happens to fantasy figures thrust into a world without a narrator, a world where they have to make their own choices? Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods tackles this issue head-on in a morality tale involving a host of children's characters whose stories become intertwined. The Yale Dramat's fall mainstage production of Into the Woods steers away from the traditional fairy-tale conception of the show, opting rather for a postmodern mess of tinsel, vacuum cleaners, and other kitsch. Fixing his lens on Christmas Eve, 1966, director Randy White invokes Freudian psychoanalysis to substantiate his production of Sondheim's mixed-up fairy tales. Sadly, the result suffers from an essential misunderstanding of psychoanalytic theory.

As the director's notes so helpfully remind us, Into the Woods is about Freud. By necessity, Sondheim's musical subscribes to psychoanalysis, and on some level even parodies it. Yet this production tramples on the brilliant nuance of Sondheim's music with an overemphasis on trite sexual overtones and facile character reductions. Milking the Freudian theme for all it's worth, the narrator (Michael Gottlieb, TC '00) is positioned as an analyst, diligently taking notes throughout the production. The characters even take turns lounging on his couch for consultation. Unfortunately, this patient/analyst construction confines the movement of the characters during moments which might have otherwise been poignant. Lacking a Freu-dian accent, the narrator/psychoanalyst takes himself too seriously, limiting many of the show's sympathetic scenes. In the end, there is no room left for even the spectator. With its overwhelmingly didactic voice, the extrememly constructed nature of this production is almost insulting.

The Dramat's new conception of Into the Woods is intriguing. But the play's text is treated unnaturally and the production's wealth of talent lost in what becomes a confusing mish-mash of pseudo-intellectual masturbation. The "timeless" setting of the Sondheim's conception is precisely what renders it powerful and strangely relevant to contemporary audiences. The production's specific historical time frame destroys the resonance of Sondheim's original conception. By self-consciously drawing attention to the artificial quality of the production, the director forgets about the truth behind the spectacle. Caught between the hanging Christmas trees and slap-in-your-face minimalism of the set, the audience never engages emotionally with the characters, whose puppet-like moves make them victims of the pro-duction's faltering momentum. Something important gets lost in this translation.

With no transition between the first and second halves of this production, the movement of the text is unclear--and the characters never develop emotionally. This unwarranted confusion alienates the audience from the characters' struggles. Since the production forgets the pathos of Little Red Riding Hood's, Heidi Altman, SY '99, teenage development, the audience becomes aware only of her budding sexuality. By no fault of the actors themselves, their characters are doomed to recede into the production's flatness.

In fact, these actors are the play's redeeming factor. The baker, played by Adam Overett, SM '00, and his wife, played by Elaine Dimopoulos, DC '00, make a charming couple, delivering their roles with a convincing dynamism. In her prom dress and pointed glasses, Amy Justman SM '00 steals the show with her clear command of the text and the difficult direction of Cincerella. Likewise, Cicily Daniel, DC '98, as the witch, produces vocals that are rich and at times even stunning. Sarah Pike, TD '00, as Jack's mother, is funny--delightfully decked out in stockings, bathrobe, and hair-curlers. Following in the footsteps of his mother, a stuttering Jack (Dan Logan, ES '00) is just as endearing. David McMillan, JE '00, commands the stage as The Mysterious Man. A daring move, this production cast an actor as Jack's cow (Brian Sogol, JE '01), adding an unusual dynamic to many of the scenes. All in all, the ensemble is wonderful and well-suited for the actors' respective roles. It is a shame that often the truly great work of the production is lost in the tenebrous wood of vague direction.

Traditional productions of Into the Woods have found beauty in subtle sophistication--a technique this production does not seem to acknowledge. Ironically, in stressing a psychoanalytic reading of Sondheim, the production loses sight of the psychoanalysis it claims to know so well. Perhaps one of its most important failings is that it relies too heavily on its opposition to traditional interpretations, becoming conversational, inter-textual, and yes, even postmodern, but neither wholly enjoyable or readily accessible to anyone. Without seeing a more conventional production, one is lost in a fog of confusion; having seen a more conventional production, one is disappointed.

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