Into the Woods

Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Into the Woods’ tells the tale of many fairy tale characters and their journey through the woods as the well-known stories are intermingled with each other.  The baker and his wife desperate to have a child need to venture into the woods in search of items to break the witches spell meeting these characters as they do so.

To break this spell, they need to find a cow as white as milk (Jack and the beanstalk), a cape as red as blood (Red Riding Hood), hair as yellow as corn (Rapunzel) and slipper as pure as gold (Cinderella). Add in numerous other characters such as Cinderella’s wicked step mother and step sisters, Jack’s mother, two princes, a wolf and you have the ingredients for an entertaining evening while the cast perform a difficult and complicated score.

This large-scale production performed by Worcester Operatic and Dramatic Society most certainly achieved success in this, their latest venue directed by Phil Beeson with Sheila Bratt as musical director and Sian Williams providing the choreography.   

The large cast of 19 portrayed their characters well, also providing the chorus work as well as their own numbers. It is difficult to mention individuals as I found everyone was convincing whether they played a large part or a smaller role.

However, I must mention a few people. Peter Baio as Narrator (as well as Mysterious Man) took us on our journey very well. Baio was clear throughout and provided us with the explanation and links needed. The baker (Michael Staiger) and his wife (Lynsey Squair) were well matched and played these character roles well whilst in search of the items needed, at times at whatever the cost. Lynsey especially had a lovely singing voice.  

Other notable strong performances were delivered by Jack (Elliot Kainey), Little Red Riding Hood (Laura Moss), Cinderella (Lou Ford) and Rapunzel (Dani Brennan). Add to these Wolf (Gregory Aston), Jack’s Mother (Judy Hooper), Cinderella’s stepmother (Joanna Hughes), the Witch (Laura Fullelove) and the two Princes (Gregory Aston (also played Wolf)) and (Aidan Rider).  These characters between them had a mixture of good voices and diction, good acting and good characterisation including sweetness, likeability and arrogance. The singing was faultless with some amazing vocal abilities. However, ‘Your Fault’ sung by many of the characters was especially good as was ‘Agony’ sung by the Princes.    

The set design was simple in appearance however it worked very well depicting different locations and different journeys made by the characters in the wood. The choreography throughout was well conceived especially while the entire cast sang the finale making the best of the stage on two different levels.   

The costumes very effective and in line with the expectation of these well know characters. Props were well used such as birds on tree branches.

There were some effective lighting effects creating atmosphere as well as good use of gauzes such as at Grandma’s cottage with Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. There were at times however some technical issues whereby some lighting appeared to be not quite in line with the action in different sections of the stage. The cast however managed these well and these issues did not have a great effect on the overall production.

At the end of act one it would appear everyone lived happily ever after with a baby born and our Princes married. However, act two brings some twists to the desire of wishing for things to happen and the consequences of our actions. The story shows be careful what you wish for.

The music was well balanced, and congratulations must go to the band as well as the cast for managing the score. Having the band stage right meant cast relied on television monitors to see the musical director. They achieved this exceptionally well.

Once again there was a warm welcome from all at Worcester Operatic and Dramatic Society throughout the whole evening and afterwards. It was an honour to be present while Nick Lawrence National President of NODA presented Lesley Hart with her well-deserved 50 years long service award.

I most certainly look forward to seeing all at WODS again at Spamalot in October.

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