Review: ‘Into the Woods’ at Paramount Theatre: There is much to see and enjoy in this forest
Barely had the audience sat down Friday night at Aurora’s Paramount Theatre when hundreds of cellphones emerged from pockets, all from people seeking a memory of designer Jeffrey Kmiec’s beautiful forest, spilling out of this historic venue’s proscenium arch like a full blooming plant from the garden center.
Paramount’s brand is to deliver the full bouquet: original orchestrations, a highly skilled, Broadway-sized company, gorgeous costumes like those here from Jordan Ross and, in all those important aspects of the musical theater, this “Into the Woods” delivers. The huge size of the show struck me particularly, I suspect, since it’s just a few weeks since I saw a minimalist Broadway production of this very same title. I have no preference when it comes to those two contrasting options; “Into the Woods” is a masterpiece either way. What matters the most is how well the show keys into what Steven Sondheim wants you to feel.
And there are many moments when co-directors Jim Corti and Trent Stork’s staging does that very thing well, beginning with Larry Yando’s narrator, whom the much-loved Chicago star plays as actively seeking redemption while also knowing he is not going to find any such thing. When he slinks away, his mistakes having caught up him, it was with a Lear-like step.
“Into the Woods” offers resonances wherever you may be on life’s journey. I’m almost an empty nester and, even though I didn’t think she’d yet figured out the full arc of what she wants to do with the Witch, Natalie Weiss still slayed me with “Stay With Me,” her Broadway experience showing as she nailed lines like “Who out there could love you more than I? What out there that I cannot supply?” It’s a song, of course, that can also be about a lover threatening to depart, or even the feelings that overwhelm when a loved one about to die. Sondheim has something for all of life’s most difficult transitions.
At the other pole, Lucy Panush’s fabulous “Little Red Ridinghood” offers hope for the human future: resilient, smart, able to turn on a dime, tolerant. In the end, the girl saves The Baker, played with all the cares of the world by Stephen Schellhardt, the ill-equipped Jack (an excellent Will Koski) and even Cinderella, whom Hannah Louise Fernandes clearly decided was woefully ill-suited to the royal life. Fernandes plays up the prosaic, making for a very contemporary take on a role usually more open to the fantasy of a handsome baritone prince, especially the kind encapsulated here by Alex Syiek as he jostles and jousts with his princely rival, played by Devin DeSantis.
Overall, Paramount’s show is stronger in Act 1 than Act 2, which is not usually the case with this particular musical. The second-act problem, I think, involves a lack of clarity as to where we are in the woods. That’s the point of this dark journey, you might well argue, and that’s true to some extent, but audiences also need to know what is changing and why and the crucial kinetic aspects of the set and the way the production moves through time and space didn’t always track. And whereas Adam Fane’s Milky White is pure delight (the sentient puppet is by Jesse Mooney-Bullock), the giant was disappointing. You don’t have to see her, but you do have to feel where she is landing and that was hard at times. It didn’t help that the voice sounded like the Wizard of Oz in “Wicked,” which jarred more than disturbed.
I also found the company inclined to overplay in spots. A caveat there: I tend to often feel that way with this piece (I felt the same on Broadway), and I acknowledge most people are happy with, or maybe even prefer, a more comedic and less realistic take but, hey, we all have our paths through this show and there were scenes here that I thought could range yet deeper. A good example is the phenomenally talented Sarah Bockel, who plays the Baker’s Wife and whose voice is so perfect for this composer that I could happily hear it in every Sondheim musical out there. I just wish she’d show us the character’s heart as much as she makes clear her frustrations and dislocations. I’d say the same about Weiss’ witch; although that character has one troubled ticker.
True of all of us in the woods, really. Except for Little Red Ridinghood. She knows the way out. And I don’t mean to the freeway.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Into the Woods” (3 stars)
When: Through March 19
Where: Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd.
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: $28-$79 at 630-896-6666 and paramountaurora.com
