Thursday, March 5, 1998
Moments in the
THEATER: UCLA’s Musical Theatre Workshop ventures into
the woods to stage Stephen Sondheim’s comedic collage
of fairy tales
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
think the audience is going to pick up on a sense of self
reliance," muses first-year theater student Lawrence Long. "And
also a sense of interdependence."
It’s a little hard to take him seriously. Sure, his insights
about this latest slice of drama are dead on, but, well, maybe it’s
that he’s wearing a big hairy wolf mask on his head.
Standing against a backdrop of rainbow-hued trees and funky
little cottages that look as if they were plucked right out of a
Dr. Seuss book, Long is rehearsing for the Musical Theatre
Workshop’s production of "Into the Woods," which opens Friday in
Schoenberg Hall.
Anyone who’s read "Oh, the Places You’ll Go" knows that silly
and fantastical can also be philosophical and even life-changing.
So perhaps Stephen Sondheim paged through a little Seuss before
sitting down to compose a score about love, death, longing for new
emotional territory and an irrational fear of dwarves, among other
things.
"Into the Woods" intertwines the stories of Little Red
Ridinghood, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Jack and the Beanstalk. A
childless baker and his wife try to enlarge their family tree by
appeasing a crafty witch who demands a "cow as white as milk," a
"cape as red as blood," "hair as yellow as corn" and a "slipper as
pure as gold." It’s easy to see how this little shopping list might
bring them face to face with other fairy tale regulars.
But in these woods, no one is quite as innocent as the brothers
Grimm would have us believe, and all the characters must confront
their own inner turmoil if they hope to live happily ever
after.
Long, who plays both a suave version of the wolf that attacks
Little Red Ridinghood and Cinderella’s Prince Charming explains the
subtext – yes, subtext – of his fairy tale roles.
"You know the whole wolf in sheep’s clothing idea? Well, the
prince is in the clothing and they’re almost like the same
character," Long says. He gestures to his canine ensemble, complete
with furry cuffs and a bare belly painted silver. "This is the
prince, but now he doesn’t have to wear all those clothes and he
can do what he wants to. He can have fun."
Cinderella also gets a little more depth in Sondheim and writer
James Lapine’s account.
"In the original fairy tale Cinderella is depicted as the
innocent girl whose dreams come true for her automatically," says
second-year communications student Jill Simonian, who plays the
housekeeper-turned heroine. "In this it’s depicted that she wants
to go to the festival, but when she finally gets there it’s not
what she expected and in the end it turns out that she was worse
off after she got Prince Charming."
While the first act closes with a rousing all-cast chorus of
"Ever After," suggesting that all is right in fairyland, the second
act picks up where the original storytellers left off. For example,
what happens when Cinderella’s prince falls for a new princess in a
new tower (who’s oddly asleep and surrounded by a thicket of
briar)? What happens "if you know what you want, then you go and
you find it and you get it," as the baker’s wife says, but then
it’s not what you wanted after all?
"What is happy ever after?" says third-year political science
student Tom McMahon, who plays the baker. "The show takes a very
familiar tale and puts a spin on it and applies it to real
life."
He and fourth-year Italian and film student Tali Magal, who
plays his wife, dissect their on-stage relationship in very real
life terms.
"They think that having a child will make their marriage perfect
and then once they get that child, they realize it’s not just
having a baby," McMahon says. "There are real problems between the
two of them. And for the baker, it’s stuff that goes way back to
not having a father."
"It’s like a Woody Allen movie," Magal laughs. "It’s so
multi-leveled. You see it the first time and it’s funny, it’s a
cute musical. And then you read the script again and there are
these unbelievable things with the lyrics … This is like new age
esoteric philosophy."
Anyone considering catching the show twice also has the chance
to see two different interpretations of the work, given that the
show is double-cast. This gives more students a chance to gain
workshop experience, which is one of campus’ most competitive
organizations thanks to its professional environment and an alum
list that includes Broadway’s Jodie Benson and Sam Harris.
And with UCLA’s top performers to pick from, director John Hall
found it surprisingly easy to cast the musically complex, nearly
three hour long show.
"I just lucked out this year," Hall says. "This is definitely
the year to do ‘Into the Woods’ because I’ve got the whole range
covered."
"It’s long, it’s complicated, the music is very sophisticated,"
Hall continues. The lyrics are such a mouthful that the parody
"Forbidden Broadway" dubbed the show "Into the Words." "It takes a
lot of concentration because of the length. So it tends to lag. We
need raisins or oranges or something to raise the blood sugar back
up," Hall laughs.
They also face the constraints of limited backstage capacities,
but with a little improvisation and maybe a little magic (hey, what
are fairy tales for?), they’ve turned a dog house into a cozy
cottage stove and added puffs of smoke and sparks of fire to
compliment the performers’ blood curdling screams and other moments
of melodrama.
The cast, still a little giddy at the sets and uncomfortable in
their petticoats and knickers, credits Hall and musical director
Gary Busby with taking them as far as they have with the show.
"I think people outside the class tend to be intimidated by
(Hall)," Long says. Indeed, Hall has a habit of barking out stage
directions as the students move through their scenes and telling
them flat out what doesn’t work. "He’s kind of intimidating to us,
too, but he’s absolutely wonderful. Don’t tell him I said
that."
So as opening night draws near, the cast can take comfort in a
little advice from Sondheim himself: "Everything you learn there/
will help when you return there."
THEATER: "Into the Woods" opens Friday at Schoenberg’s Jan
Popper Theatre and runs through March 14. Pre-show Sondheim review
begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10, $7 with UCLA ID. For more
information, call (310) 825-4761. For tickets, call 825-2101.
Photos by MARY CIECEK
The two Prince Charmings, Patrick Bell (left) and Lawrence Long,
lament their unrequited love in "Into the Woods," which opens
Friday.The wolf (Lawrence Long) devours Little Red Ridinghood
(Amanda Blanchard).