I hugely admire Stephen
Sondheim; his witty inventive lyrics, pin point accuracy of the marriage with
his music, musical theatre in his marrow, and he has reinvented lyric
writing. Sondheim does not write Show Stoppers. His songs do not stop the show, they move it
forward and/or reveal the inner thoughts of his characters that will move the
show forward. I love fairy stories,
and feel they are enriched by retellings and re-interpretations. James Lapine, who wrote the original Into the Woods show-book, inter-mingling
well know tales and presenting them in a wholly new way, did something clever
and wise.
And fairy stories matter. As a reviewer in time Magazine wrote after
seeing the original 1988 production of the show
“most
fairy tales are about the loving yet embattled relationship between parents and
children. Almost everything that goes wrong — which is to say, almost
everything that can — arises from a failure of parental or filial duty,
despite the best intentions”
Of course Philip Larkin
put it more succinctly. ‘Your parents fuck you up. They don’t mean to but they do.’ So
having seen the new Disney film version my question is; who parented this film? And what is missing?
When my wife and I saw Into the Woods at The Theatre Royal, York, in the 1990’s, the set was
not confined to the stage, but reached out along the theatre’s side
walls. Shortly after the start of Act
2, when we thought all the expertly
interwoven strands had come together, and everyone who deserved it had found a
happy ending, the whole set suddenly –
and very loudly - collapsed. For a
moment – an unforgettable moment- we wondered it this was a terrible
accident. In fact it was a shocking, coup de theatre A moment later we realized that Lapine was telling us something new. Fairy tales are actually guides to living in the real world, and the real world
does not provide us with easy answers or automatically happy endings. But on screen this crucial moment lacks
impact. There is no visceral
shock. Although the point is
subsequently made, it feels more like an explanation than a revelation.
In the
theatre, as the second act progressed, many of
the characters died. We had entered much
darker psychological territory as the woods now cast deeper shadows. These deaths gave gravitas to the stories, and to Lapine’s reworking of them,
reminding us that the early versions of fairy tales are so much more than children’s entertainment. They carry wisdom. When I saw it on stage this wisdom was clear. In
the movie house I did not care about the deaths. There were fewer of them, which might be
justifiable to simplify plotting, but were those that were still included deliberately underplayed to meet the Disney’s PG
criteria? Or is the Director Rob Marshall not capable of tragedy? Did he really ‘get’ Sondhiem and Lapine’s
intention?
All I know is that
on stage it was clear, on film it seemed muddled. And if it seemed muddled to me, after I had
already seen the musical, I wonder what it does for those who are new to
it?
Spoiler
Alert.
Let’s look at some of the changes between stage and
film versions - and if you don’t want a
spoiler, skip this paragraph. In the
stage show the deceased characters included the Royal Family, who all lost their way in the woods and starved to
death. The Baker’s father also died when the curse on the
Witch was lifted. The two charming Princes got bored with their
marriages and headed back into the woods in search of Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty. Rapunzel was driven mad by her mother’s
treatment. In different productions
of the show the Narrator has been different characters. In the London Regent’s Park open air
production it was a small boy, lost in the woods, but in the original it was
the Baker’s father, sometimes appeared to help his son. Once
he had learned the terrible consequences of his original crime (the sins of the
father’s are visited upon their sons) and expiated them,
his eventual death was a release.
In this rewrite (by Lapine) the Baker is the narrator, and at the end he tells the story to Jack and
Red Riding Hood, and will later do so to his motherless child. This
makes perfect sense, as does the way we hear the original chorus "Into
the woods, and out of the woods and happily ever after" followed by Cinderella softly singing "I
wish..." Who said the Americans cannot do irony?
Spoiler alert lifted.
Despite the obvious
charms and skills of the cast and the admirable professionalism of the crew, I feel this is a blown opportunity. So
who is responsible?
The obvious
suspects are the Disney producers, and there desire to make this film PG. Some may think Disney has recently taken
strides forward, perhaps educated by
Pixar, but here they ignore the valuable ways fairy stories help children
manage dark and powerful emotions. This is not Maleficence. And of
course Disney chose Rob Marshall to direct this film. He originally trained in choreography, not drama. He did good work on Chicago and was obviously at
home making Pirates of the Caribbean; On Stranger Tides. They were fun, but essentially candy
floss. His Memoirs
of a Geisha was not quite floss, but nor was it very substantial. Nine
simply did not work, and that was a film of serious intent. .
Maybe Rob Marshall is simply not
the man for serious drama.
Of course Stephen
Sondheim was musical consultant, and James Lapine rewrote the script, but I do
not think they can be blamed.
Sondheim’s songs are as brilliant as ever, and the script still contains
its original elements. The messages are simple; in order to grow up we need at some time to
go into the dark (cf Jung, and Barrie’s Peter Pan who could not grow up because he had no shadow); parents
should not try to prevent their children from going into the woods. Nor
should any of us believe that happy-ever-after endings are natural – or even
desirable. Each of the characters here get
lost in the woods, in many different and
often educative ways, and so must we if we are ever to find wisdom. Experience is indeed the name we give to our mistakes – if we learn from them.
So maybe Disney simply chose the right man to do the job
for them, but it was the wrong job, and
the wrong studio.
So what is good
about this movie? Plenty. Not least the cast.
La Streep is
magnificent. She takes the role of the
Witch by the throat and utterly owns it.
Mamma Mia was not her first
singing role; she was a Country singer in Garrison Keiller’s Prairie Home Companion. Here it seems she sang many of her songs live. Emily Blunt is the Baker’s Wife, and she is fast
becoming one of my favorite actors.
(I wonder if she picked up singing tips when married to Micheal Buble?) Of
course Streep and Blunt met in The Devil
Wears Prada, Blunts breakthrough role, and here, when the curse is lifted
on the Witch, Streep becomes Miranda Priestly again – in spades .
James Corden (OBE)
gives his usual seemingly effortless performance as the Baker. Chris
Pine is charming, of course, as the Prince who falls for Cinderella. But as he tells Cinderella, he was raised to be charming, not sincere,
and his duet with his brother (Billy Magnussen) – the one in love with Rapunzel
– is a delight of insincerity. Anna
Kendrick says she expected to be cast as
Red Riding Hood, rather than Cinderella, and I can see why she is not the obvious choice, but she carries
it well. The two youngsters, Daniel Huttlestone as Jack and Lilla Crawford
as Little Red Riding Hood are fine, as is Tracy Ullman as Jack’s mother. The wicked step-mother and step-sisters are played by Christine Baranski, Tammy
Blanchard and Lucy Punch. They are only
ugly on the inside this time. Johnny Depp is the Wolf, and I almost wish they had followed the dual
casting used in earlier stage productions by doubling the roles of Wolf and
Prince – and for me it would be Chris Pine who got the jobs .
Disney only spend
$50 million on this movie, but it really is all up there on the screen. The sets, design, cinematography and
recording are first class. And it is (almost)
the only film we have of this important work.
(I believe there is a downloadable film of the London Regent Park
production). But this is made for
cinema, and will get a broad distribution.
So I would say if you haven’t been lucky enough to catch a stage
production of this adult show go see this, but please don’t judge the original
by this PG version.
