A Couple of Fables

Until a few hundred years ago, forests were dark, unexplored places where dangerous animals lived, and unknown terrors lurked. This nightmarish version of woodlands is hard for us to imagine today, but it lives on in fairy tales where characters head into the woods in search of treasure, love, sanctuary or revenge. In the forest, these characters are tested. They prevail, and return to the real world forever changed. For the characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods,” the forest is where they must go to find what they most wish for. In the first act they are mostly successful. In the second act, not so much. The first act is a very clever intertwining of “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Rapunzel” and “Little Red Riding Hood” with a new fable, “The Baker and His Wife.” All the characters quickly head into the woods, where they bump into each other and help or hinder each others’ quests. Each one gets what he or she fervently wished for, and they all plan to live happily ever after. In Act Two, writer Lapine and composer/lyricist Sondheim show us that things aren’t that simple. That child-like idea of happiness gives way to a more complex, mature happiness that is constantly challenged and can only be achieved with the help of other people. The moral compromises the characters made in the first act come back to haunt them in the second. The evil characters simply run away, but the good ones stay and work together to overcome adversity. Some, if not all, of this comes across in the version presented by CENTERstage Productions at the Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck. Director/choreographer Kevin Archambault is to be commended for taking on such difficult material, not to mention a cast of 21 actors. That he manages to create dances that all of them can do at once on the small stage is a miracle in tself. Wendell Scherer as dim bulb Jack hits the trifecta of cute, charming and funny. Olivia Michaels was clearly born to the stage, and although she is 23, she could pass for 14 as Little Red. Jovan Bradley and Bobby Greffrath have fun playing the two handsome princes for laughs. And Andy Weintraub’s set is both brilliant and beautiful. It must be noted, however, that this is not a show for children. It uses the original, darker versions of the fables: a prince falls into a bed of thistles and is blinded; Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to fit in the slipper; birds really seem to enjoy pecking people’s eyes out for some reason. The second act includes several onstage deaths and a woman’s seduction and abandonment. Perhaps more importantly, the show is long and talky. Even children who aren’t upset by the material will certainly be bored by it. “Into the Woods” plays at the Rhinebeck Performing Arts Center through Feb. 9. For tickets, call 845-876-3080.