Review: Into the Woods, Fringe 2024

There are two “Into the Woods” in the Fringe this year, and this review is for the one by Bare Productions at Paradise in Augustines. Also, forgive me for being cryptic; we had a celebrity in the audience with us tonight. I won’t name names, but such a star could have demanded the finest wines available to humanity and did not.

“Into the Woods” is a musical with an intermission, and even as I took my seat in the theatre, I knew it had been getting rave reviews. I was torn – the show was good, but was it as clever as everyone was saying?

Imagine, please, a bunch of fairytales like Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood.

Next, treat them like a Quentin Tarantino movie so they happen simultaneously and overlap. I especially liked the Little Red Riding Hood character, who always felt mildly psychotic and became increasingly Viking.

Keep all that in your mind’s eyes and then awaken your mind’s heart for solos and group songs.

Part two (the whole thing is 2 hours 45 minutes) then unwinds the happy ever after with a bit of Game of Thrones-style culling.

Ah-ha! Part two is where I think “Into the Woods” wins over geeks like me.

Tone

The story is clever.

The songs are very well sung. In fact, I think “Into the Woods” scores higher for the music than the plot.

It’s all very well acted.

But, I’m not sure about the Tone. It’s funny at times, grimdark funny at others — don’t get too attached to all the characters. It’s sombre at others.

I notice that bad things tend to happen to people who do bad things in the play, but, for example, would you call Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk a villain? What about the people who traded some beans for their cow?

It’s not even anti-royal, though the opportunity was there. We have two princes in this play, and they seem to be roaming the woods looking for inaccessible women. They’re not terribly likeable, but they’re better than Cinderilla’s stepfamily.

The Tone is a bit of a (slightly smug) nod to the audience that all these fairytales of yore are a bit dated now. It may be just me not being smart enough to see what the replacement is. Maybe the point is that life is always complicated.

What to expect

There are more characters than cast, making it fun for people to double up on roles. There’s some main heroes; the baker, the baker’s wife, Cinderella, Jack, Jack’s mum and the Witch who are generally busy enough to stick with one character.

Some characters are important at times, such as Rapunzel, but they don’t necessarily always come on stage in that form. Rapunzel, for example, carried in some of the birds that would speak to Cinderella—those murderous birds.

And there’s a cow.

Expect lots of singing and repeats, with modifications, of previous songs. It’s not rock, rap or anything other than a generic musical, but it is very good.

The solo performances are impressive, you can hear every word and the plot is moved forward as you are enjoying the music.

The duets are equally impressive, the timing spot on and the blend of voices without fault.

For the most part, the larger groups are just as good and only a few times when there’s two people singing different lyrics (on purpose) that I suffered. These little fancies, though, are very rare.

Expect a good seat (although I wish the director had put the actors at the back of the stage more often) and a comfortable theatre. I recommend making use of the intermission, but beware of the cost of a pint!

Overall

Ultimately, “Into the Woods” is great because it’s so great! It’s hard to fault. I’ve already said how the music, acting, and all the stage craft are fantastic.

I think my only niggle is in the empathy. I didn’t quite get the message (if there was a message). I was entertained all the same.

I found myself backing the Witch, urging Red Riding Hood to kill some people happily, and hoping for some adultery. Who knew I was the baddie?