BACK INTO THE WOODS

Curtain Call at Manhattan School of Music's production of Into the Woods

Broadway shows are not our fach, so to speak, but to be so impressed by a production of Into the Woods that we saw it twice, it would seem thoughtless to not write about it. We give credit to the Manhattan School of Music's Musical Theatre Department for outperforming any show we have seen on The Great White Way. That is indeed impressive.

We have nothing against American Musical Theater and we would love to attend, were it not for the amplification. We adore the sound of the human voice and cannot tell anything about vocal quality that has been electronically altered. So, we have nothing to say about the voices of these young artists but we have a lot to say about their performances.  Each and every one in both casts managed to create a unique character by means of gesture and body movement.

We are sure than Evan Pappas' direction was responsible for shaping the work as a whole and shaping each performance as well. Lorna Ventura's choreography served the piece well, as did Debbi Hobson's colorful and apt costuming. James Rotondo created a simple set with movable elements that well served the work. David Loud coaxed a well-shaped performance of Stephen Sondheim's glorious music from the young instrumentalists.

Beyond all those accolades, we would like to make a few observations on the work itself, its source material, and its effect on the audience. The lectures, the polemics, and the dense prose of contemporary opera rarely change one's feelings in a significant way. One might praise the performances (especially if the star is famous) and one might tell one's friends to go see something, but the work rarely stays with you. One is unlikely to return for a second viewing.

However, we have seen Sondheim's Into the Woods at every opportunity and even changed plans to see it twice in one week at Manhattan School of Music. Let's take a look at the reasons. As a psychoanalyst we can point out that the work addresses serious issues in a humorous way, making them more acceptable and accessible. James Lapine's book, weaving together a number of fairy tales, is beyond clever and Sondheim's lyrics rhyme and scan in the quirkiest of ways. The music is tuneful and sticks in the mind. We confess we have been singing and humming all week!

We have no idea which of the artists conceived the idea of utilizing fairy tales. The first time we read Bruno Bettelheim's 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment we were completely astonished by his theories of how small children process these ancient tales which were recorded by the brothers Grimm. We learned how these tales help the child deal with sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, oedipal conflict, and fears of the unknown. (For our purposes it is not terribly important but Bettelheim's authorship has been questioned; but the man who he purportedly plagiarized had no problem with it. )

So, we wonder whether an adult, seeing these fairytale characters onstage might help said grown person on an unconscious level. The characters in the show undergo sexual maturation (Little Red Riding Hood), fear of barrenness (The Baker's Wife), parental disdain (Jack), parental over possessiveness (Rapunzel), romantic dissatisfaction (the two Princes), and marriage for material reasons (Cinderella). The Baker suffers from his father's misdeeds. Everyone is blinded by their own selfish desires and lack of community. Everyone experiences the ground shaking under their feet. (Hello 2025!) Things go wrong just when you think you have solved your problems. Ultimately, it is community that helps people deal with grief and loss. No wonder we love this show. Art holds a mirror up to us and shows us who we are.

Major props to everyone concerned with this memorable production and a big dose of admiration and career encouragement to the huge cast that brought it to life. Bravissimi tutti!

© meche kroop

 

PAJAMA PARTY AT MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

    Cast of Pajama Game at Manhattan School of Music

We had a grand time at Manhattan School of Music last night, absolutely thrilled by the wealth of talent in their Music Theater Department. We never read the program until after the show, in order to allow the work to speak for itself and to avoid expecting too much or too little from the artists vis a vis their level of education and experience. To our surprise, the superb actors/ singers/dancers were undergraduates, some at the very beginning of their education.

Although there was a wealth of talent onstage, we will focus our comments on the artists that impressed us the most. Likely due to some rather odd casting decisions, a few of the artists, while talented, did not quite make the same impression on us. We will discuss this further on.

As the romantic leads, we found Sid. E. Willoughby and Lucas Rayborn absolutely enchanting and also believable as a couple who are attracted to each other but on opposite sides of a conflict. In the manner of mid 20th century filmed romantic comedies, they fight, break up, and make up. The reason they are at loggerheads is that she (Babe Williams) is the head of the Union Grievance Committee at a factory that makes pajamas. He (Sid Sorokin) is a newly employed superintendent, arriving at a time when the workers are demanding seven and a half cents hourly wage increase.

They were absolutely adorable together in the duet "There Once Was a Man" which seemed to have a country music feel and allowed the two of them to exchange verses in a competition to see who loved the most.

Mr. Rayborn had a clever duet with himself as well. In "Hey There"; he records himself singing the song and then plays it back, vocally commenting on it. In the second act, Ms. Willoughby gets to reprise the song, but without the recording.

Another outstanding performance was that of Oliver Finke as Hines, the Efficiency Expert, who had us in stitches in "Think of the Time I Save". He also served to introduce the show, breaking the "Fourth Wall". There was a knife throwing scene at a company picnic that seemed uncomfortably realistic to us. Sitting on the front row, we were still unable to figure out the stagecraft!

He was joined by Kennedy Percival as Mabel (Sid's secretary) for the delightful duet "I'll Never Be Jealous Again" in which she instructs him in overcoming his jealousy by creating scenes of ever-increasing provocations for him to imagine. The object of his jealousy is Gladys, the big boss' secretary played by Yoyo Zhou, a tiny powerhouse of a performer who brought the house down with her performance of "Steam Heat".

And now we present our opinion of some radical casting choices. Just as we are trying to master our confusion over racial-blind casting ("Wait, why are the parents Caucasian and their son is not?") we are asked to accept gender-blind casting! Seeing a big controlling Boss Man played by a slender delicately boned woman sporting a mustache did not work for us. Nor did seeing the married philanderer Prez played by a buxom woman, also sporting a mustache.  Sorry but mustaches do not make the man!

Now we are sure that others in the audience may not agree with us. In spite of good acting and singing, we found the gender bending just  confusing and the voice quality all wrong. We know that it was a convention in Baroque Opera and also in the 19th and early 20th c. to have women in travesti playing young men, probably due to vocal timbre and range.  But this was different--as if Director Chloe Treat thought she could bring this delightfully dated work into the 21st century. It might have worked if the costumes were contemporary and if the book (by George Abbott and Richard Bissell) had been updated. but this production seemed to have one foot in the 50's (as far removed as the 19th century) and the other in the present day.

We didn't mind burly men dressed as female factory workers; casting principals however is an entirely different thing.

In a bending backward move to signify political correctness, the first page of the program apologized for "any language  about the treatment of women and people of color... acknowledging its harmful impact". This seems to pander to the audience which, one would hope, knows that times were different 75 years ago. 

Aside from that misguided decision, we liked Ms. Treat's (we don't mean to be snarky but we hope that the director doesn't mind being given the feminine pronoun) direction which kept things moving at a rapid pace. We confess to being puzzled by the sequence at Hernando's Hideaway, a well choreographed (by Sebastiani Romagnola) ballet that needed a more impactful shift of lighting to convey that this was supposed to be the imagining of the jealous Hines. There were beds that looked like operating tables and lots of people jumping under sheets. Should we blame Lighting Designer Emma Deane or Scenic  Designer Jimmy Rotondo? How could we when the rest of the production was so well set and well lit?

We enjoyed the apt costuming by Debbi Hobson. Bobbie Zlotnik was responsible for the period wigs, hair, and makeup.

We have saved the best for last and that is the music which compensated for any casting, directorial, or lighting missteps. Long after those issues are forgotten we will still be humming the many musical masterpieces created by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, a team that knew how to set the English language. Maestro David Loud brought this memorably melodic music to vivid life. Reading the program we were happy to note that the young musicians of the orchestra come to MSM from all over the world. A big bravo to each and every one, as well as to all the performers we did not mention.

Our usual quibble is with the amplification. We choose to sit on the front row so we can see who is singing. We wonder whether students in the Music Theater Department are trained in projection, similarly to students in the Opera Department. American musical theater seems to us to occupy a position in contemporary life that opera occupied in Europe in the 19th century. People came for the stories and the melodies. What passes for opera these days is polemic and boring. Just as not all operas became classics and many were trash and easily discarded, so it is with American musicals. There are classics that are worth reviving and others that are trashy and never revived. We see Pajama Game as a worthy classic! We would love to hear it without amplification.

© meche kroop