"Into the Woods". Review by Anuj Mishra

“Pushes the Boundaries of Student Theatre”

Musicals are notoriously difficult to clobber together on a shoestring, student production budget. It follows that putting on a Stephen Sondheim musical at the Playhouse with a live orchestra is, perhaps, the most ambitious thing a student production can attempt to do.

Into The Woods, which first hit Broadway in 1986 and was made into a Hollywood blockbuster in 2014, is the original musical adaptation and deconstruction of a fairytale. Sondheim weaves together the fables of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Elph-, I mean The Witch, in the lawless, morally grey, and sexually promiscuous space of the woods.

Each cast-member had palpable talent and evident love for the show. Many of the show’s best laughs were delivered well: the campy scene where Jack (Ronav Jain) finally manages to milk his cow (Caitlyn Fraser), Red Riding Hood’s (Thaejus Ilango) Matilda-esque song, “I Know Things Now” after she is cut out of the ravenous wolf, and the Princes Charming’s (Ben Gilchrist & Joe Basczcak) boy-band ballad, “Agony”.

The powerhouse of the show is, of course, The Witch (Eleanor Bogie), who managed to elicit both laughs and sympathy in “Stay With Me”. The comedic timing and delivery of Eva Bailey as Cinderella was unmatched, and the Baker (Theo Joly) and his unexpectedly libertine wife (Rebekah Devlin) perfectly tethered the show’s various subplots to the wider narrative of self-discovery.

Respect for the show did not preclude some creative direction (by Lydia Free & Luke Nixon), which allowed the production to make up for any moments of ‘Broadway magic’ that were lost to budgetary constraints, for example: a concert-style reprise of the crowd-favourite “Agony”, a spectacle of Rapunzel letting down her yards and yards of hair, and the fabulous choreography of the finale.

Unfortunately, and this really isn’t anyone’s fault, the radio mics were poorly balanced in the ensemble scenes, which are the pinnacle of Sondheim’s compositional brilliance with their interweaving lines of melody. As a result, a couple of key plot details which are teased through lyrics were lost. The effect was almost operatic – you can make out what’s happening through the acting, and appreciate the brilliance of the performers’ voices, but are forced to intuit what is actually being said.

Technical hitches aside, set designer Daisy Williams rendered the woodland space fabulously, with rows of knotted sheets resembling trees and beanstalks that were rolled up and down as the characters journeyed into the woods, and out of the woods.

Into The Woods pushes the boundaries of what a student production can possibly muster. Peach Productions’ love-letter to musical theatre does a fabulous job – visually exciting, resoundingly brilliant, and quite hilarious.

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