{"id":1977,"date":"2020-03-31T16:24:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1977"},"modified":"2020-03-31T16:25:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:25:27","slug":"into-the-woods-lockdown-theatre-club-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2020\/03\/into-the-woods-lockdown-theatre-club-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Into the Woods | Lockdown Theatre Club 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"380\" height=\"595\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Into-the-Woods-poster.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1980\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Into-the-Woods-poster.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Into-the-Woods-poster-192x300.jpg 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Our twitter poll asking for people\u2019s favourite genre saw an overwhelming vote for musicals. Cheer was needed. As it was also Stephen Sondheim\u2019s 90th birthday, we went for <em>Into the Woods <\/em>(<em>Sweeney Todd<\/em>: too cannibalistic. <em>A Little Night Music<\/em>: too inept). As an added treat, Matthew Xia, who had directed a very different production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, recorded a very tender introduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"240\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 428 \/ 240;\" width=\"428\" controls src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/My-Movie-Small.mov\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What did the evening teach us? That even in a film that\nsoftens some of the musical\u2019s edges, there\u2019s no blurring Sondheim\u2019s hard truths\nabout loss, learning and knowledge we\u2019d rather not have to gain. A film that\nbegins with throng of characters and gradually empties out carried its own\ndifficult trajectory at this moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it was also exciting that the playwright Caridad\nSvich had seen Sondheim\u2019s very first version of the musical. She said, \u2018I saw\nthe first production, pre-Broadway, at Old Globe Theatre [San Diego]. It had a\nvery rock n roll witch (Ellen Foley, really great with a very Angela Carter\nvibe). It&#8217;s fascinating how that first production has been forcibly banished\nfrom the archive. For the record, I thought it was a really strange and\nmysterious production. In a good way. It had a rawness about it that never came\nback.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Personally, I like my productions of <em>Into the Woods<\/em> dark, with shadows intact. Looking back, I find I\u2019ve reviewed a few, writing that \u2018musicals aren\u2019t usually this wise or sombre.\u2019 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitaltheatre.com\/consumer\/production\/into-the-woods\">Open Air Theatre\u2019s<\/a> outdoor version (2010) had a small boy as the narrator: \u2018properly avid and heartless, relishing wolf-based atrocity and eyeballs dangling from their sockets&#8230; These are stories he needs to hear \u2013 about childhood pluck vindicated and bad parenting punished. The quests unearth daring and desire. But he doesn\u2019t realise the complexity of the tales he unleashes; they move cruelly beyond him.\u2019 I also felt that \u2018this is a show about the terrible power of wanting, the dizzy gamble of wishing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sondheim&#8217;s own book, <em>Look, I Made a Hat<\/em> is a candid and illuminating source of information and insights, as well as including all the lyrics. And there are some more useful links here:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/movies\/la-et-mn-stephen-sondheim-meryl-streep-into-the-woods-20141214-story.html\">The LA Times<\/a> interviews Sondheim, Meryl Streep and Rob Marshall <br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2014\/jul\/07\/into-the-woods-musicals-we-love\">Veronica Horwell<\/a> on the musical\u2019s dark power<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/why-into-the-woods-matters\">The New Yorker<\/a> on fan fear and fervour before the movie was released <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But my main takeaway from this Lockdown Theatre Club, with people tweeting along &#8211; some friends, some complete  strangers, some from the social media in between &#8211; was one I needed to hear right now. That, even in lonely times, no one is alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kVoH2FyY55I\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong>Lockdown Theatre Club<\/strong><br>Read about Lockdown Theatre Club\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2020\/03\/lockdown-theatre-club.html\">here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/past-six-days\/2020-03-29\/culture\/how-to-feel-like-youre-at-the-theatre-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown-nd6q362nh\">here<\/a>. Questions or recommendations? Please comment under this post, or find me on Twitter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mrdavidjays\">@mrdavidjays<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our twitter poll asking for people\u2019s favourite genre saw an overwhelming vote for musicals. Cheer was needed. As it was also Stephen Sondheim\u2019s 90th birthday, we went for Into the Woods (Sweeney Todd: too cannibalistic. A Little Night Music: too inept). As an added treat, Matthew Xia, who had directed a very different production at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[757,753,699,755,48,756,754],"class_list":{"0":"post-1977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-film","9":"tag-lockdown-theatre-club","10":"tag-matthew-xia","11":"tag-meryl-streep","12":"tag-musicals","13":"tag-rob-marshall","14":"tag-stephen-sondheim","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1982,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions\/1982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}