Once upon a time in Durango, a small theater company mounted a complex and daunting American musical.
“Into the Woods,” presented by Merely Players and directed by Mona Wood-Patterson, opened last weekend. A large ensemble work on and offstage, “Woods” premiered in San Diego in 1986 and opened on Broadway the next year.
If you go
WHAT: “Into the Woods,” a musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Merely Players, directed by Mona Wood-Patterson
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday, May 7, 8 and 9 and 2 p.m. Sunday and May 10
WHERE: Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center Drive
ADMISSION: Prices vary. If sold out, sign on wait list
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.merelyplayers.org or call 749-8585.
Forty-years ago, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and writer-director James Lapine dramatically changed American musical history. Willfully abandoning the high-sugar, happy-ending formula, the collaborators opted for a grittier brand of storytelling.
“This musical lives in the space between fairy tale and real life,” writes Wood-Patterson in her program notes. Her pre-show introduction has more insights as she illuminates the story, structure and history of the work. “Woods” is the first Sondheim musical to be mounted by the Players.
Founded in 1997, Merely Players has matured creatively and technically. It has also developed a deep bench of skilled performers. “Woods” wouldn’t be possible without all that. Technical director and puppet designer Charles Ford has amassed a team to transform Merely Underground into a spacious abstract forest with three movable way stations for key characters. Spectacular lighting, costumes and props support the demands of a fantasy/reality concept.
Music director Tom Kyser has brought out the best in his singers, all of whom have mastered Sondheim’s tongue-twisting lyrics as well as blistering counter rhythms and jazzy harmonic shifts. An electronic musical track sets an unforgiving pace where an ill-timed pause could throw everything off. In a nearly flawless performances, not one cue went missing opening weekend.
The 21-member ensemble delivers a taut, swiftly-moving mashup of four fairy tales: Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood. Threading through these tales, the creators added a fictional duo, a childless couple, a Baker and his wife. A not-so-neighborly Witch bears an old grudge and curses them with a barren marriage.
A narrator (Stephen Bowers) lays out and untangles overlapping storylines throughout. The Baker and his wife (Joey Panelli and Melissa Mossinghoff) center the wishing theme that propels every character into the woods, a fine metaphor for adult life. Jack (Braden Helfrich) and his mother (Lori Fisher) struggle with poverty until he stumbles on a solution that propels everyone into the modern-dress realities of Act II.
Little Red Riding Hood (Mohriah James) saunters around as an insouciant teenager, outwits the wolf (Matt Bodo) and saves her grandmother (Joy Kilpatrick) through one of many hilarious theatrical inventions.
The most entertaining songs unfurl with great charm. “Agony” is a satire on male posturing in which two princes (Geoff Johnson and Bodo) compete on the field of self-admiration. Cinderella (Brin DeVore) dithers brilliantly through “A Very Nice Prince,” a convoluted musical metaphor for indecision. Rapunzel (Katherine Walker), a poster-child for teenage vanity with a hair obsession, compulsively sings one tune over and over on one open syllable. The Witch (Mandy Irons), Rapunzel’s mother and nemesis to everyone else, wistfully sings a mother’s lament in Act I. In Act II, the Witch undergoes a transformation and delivers “It’s the Last Midnight” with tremendous power.
Ford’s puppets, from Milky White, a beauteous lace-and-wood cow, to Cinderella’s birds, Jack’s golden-egg bearing goose, and Three Little Pigs, exhibit a level of sophistication only hinted at before. Credit Jill Somrak, Daphne Tingey and Claire Sarnow for nearly invisible operations.
The production is dedicated to the memory of Selena Trujillo, a decades-long company member who died recently.
“Although we will always miss her more than words can say, her light and passion for storytelling will forever inspire us,” writes Wood-Patterson in the program.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
