These "Woods" Are Lovely, Dark and Deep, But Promises Go Unkept there

Chris Pine as the Prince who warns he was raised to be charming, not sincere

Disney has produced a perfect adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1986 stage musical Into the Woods, although — like all of Sondheim’s work — it won’t be to everyone’s taste.

These woods are lovely, dark and deep, but promises go unkept there. Wolves and witches prowl there, it’s true, but so do Bruno Bettelheim and Joseph Campbell.

Sondheim was decades ahead of American popular culture in following the darker streams in classic fantasy to their sources. Between the lines of his wickedly witty lyrics, astute audiences will discern observations about our existential condition — about love, parenthood, betrayal, courage and the disillusionments of maturity.

Sondheim faithfully mixes the elements of a half-dozen fairy tales, faintly mocking their absurdities while mining — and extending — their truths. Those truths are funny, bittersweet, profoundly sad (as in the parent’s lament Stay With Me) and even wise (as in Children Will Listen, the song that soars as we rise from out seats).

I don’t think Matt Mattingly found it as moving as I did, although he too enjoyed it. I wish the whole audience could have enjoyed it as much as I did.

But then you must be careful, you know, what you wish for.

“Careful the wish you make

“Wishes are children

“Careful the path they take

“Wishes come true, not free

“Careful the spell you cast

“Not just on children

“Sometimes a spell may last
"Past what you can see…”

Weighty Affairs Will Just Have to Wait

Robert Anthony Jones as Pseudolus, Joshua Phan-Gruber as Miles Gloriosus. News-Progress photos by Keith Stewart

Lycus: I’ll kill him!

Crassus: Who?

Lycus: The lyingest, cheatingest, sloppiest slave in all Rome!

Crassus: Oh, Pseudolus.

By Dan Hagen

Traps, disguises, schemes, chase scenes, improbable adventures, narrow escapes.

Composer Stephen Sondheim once noted that the elements of melodrama are virtually identical to those of farce, the difference being one of attitude. But this sure ain’t “Les Miserables,” gang.

In his 1962 hit “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” Sondheim definitely created a farce, a bouncing bundle of Broadway broad comedy as eternal as Rome — 200 B.C. apparently doesn’t date.

The director, choreographer AND costume designer for the Little Theatre’s second show of the season is Edward Carignan. Turns out there can be an advantage to doing all three jobs at once. The production becomes someone’s singular vision, and all the moving parts spin together.

The tone is set by the set, from the very moment you see scenic designer Noel

Rennerfeldt’s bright cartoony Roman street and hear Kevin Long lead his orchestra in the first notes of one of the best opening numbers in Broadway history, “Comedy Tonight.”

You have to hear every word of Sondheim’s lyrics to get the full effect, and the cast here enunciates them well — “Free,” “Pretty Little Picture,” “Impossible,” “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” the toe-tappers roll on, all enlivened by smartly conceived little bits of business.

Any false notes? Well, the second act chase in and out of doors goes on a bit long. Every farce seems to need one, but we always quickly get the idea.

So send in the clowns. We have Tommy Bullington as the dryly henpecked Senex and Lee Ann Payne as his battleaxe wife Domina (the characters’ names describe their comedic function).

“Forgive me for ever having mistrusted you, my darling,” Domina tells Senex at one point. “But you HAVE been a little distant these past 29 years.”

Their son is the traditional romantic hero named, of course, Hero. Peter Marinaro plays him with the right mixture of dewy-eyed wonder and dim-bulb desire for the prostitute next door.

“Is that bad?” Hero asks his personal slave, Pseudolus. “There’s no way to make it sound like an achievement,” Pseudolus replies.

What the boy wants is the girl, and that’s what the scheming slave will get him if he’ll be a slave no more.

“People do not go around freeing slaves every day,” Hero explains.

“Be the first. Start a fashion,” Pseudolous says.

Next door is Karl Skylar Urban as Marcus Lycus, a gentleman and a procurer. Everybody wants what he’s got, and Urban gets some great Larry Gelbart lines. “If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times; do not fan the girls when they're wet! But you’ll never learn, you'll be a eunuch all your life.”

Also next door is deadpan Jack Milo as Erronious, a man who long ago lost his small children to pirates (think they’ll turn up?).

Joshua Phan-Gruber is Miles Gloriosus, a grand and Randian egotist of a Roman general. His self-love complete, his pomposity perfect, Phan-Gruber is therefore all the funnier when he breaks into a little tunic-tugging dance or some other bit.

A favorite is Colin Shea Denniston as Hysterium, the battleaxe’s groveling “slave of slaves.” In a part that’s easy to overdo, Denniston has the admirable quality of being utterly ridiculous without seeming to be aware of that fact. He’s funny and fascinating to watch.

The greatest surprise in this production was Philia, the virginal, charmingly stupid courtesan played by Sarah Ledtke. This can be a ho-hum part in the hands of lesser actresses, but Ledtke is hilarious, slyly subtle where the other actors are required to play broad. It takes someone smart to effectively play Miss Utah-level dumb. She is a shining beacon of dimness.

Presiding over the proceedings is Robert Anthony Jones as the smarter-than-everybody slave Pseudolous, and I can’t imagine a more exhausting or rewarding role. The character is on stage almost all the time, singing, dancing, mugging, preening, screaming, scheming. When played perfectly (as Jones plays him here), he’s as irresistible a tornado as Zero Mostel, as cutely animated as Bugs Bunny.

Jones is in good company. Wiki notes that every actor who has opened in the role of Pseudolus on Broadway (Mostel, Phil Silvers and Nathan Lane) won a Best Actor Tony Award, and that Jason Alexander, who performed as Pseudolus in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” also won a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical.

Sondheim is my favorite Broadway composer, this is one of my top-10 musicals, and I have to say I have never seen a funnier version  — including the 1966 movie, which was weirdly denuded of most of its songs and could not profit from the deliberate staginess of the material.

So save the tragedy for tomorrow. Why not laugh tonight?

Incidental intelligence: “Forum” has music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Gelbart, who created TV’s M*A*S*H. It’s inspired by the farces of the ancient playwright Plautus.

The cast includes Kelsey Andres, Rachel Perin, Melissa Jones, Amanda Johns, Kara Guy, Ashley Klinger, Josh Houghton, Matthew Glover and Andy Frank. The show has lighting design by Greg Solomon and stage management by Jeremy J. Phillips.

Performances will run through June 30. Tickets may be purchased by calling The Little Theatre on the Square Box Office at (217)-728-7375 or online at www .thelittletheatre.org.

 Peter Marinaro as Hero, Jones as Pseudolus and Sarah Ledtke as Philia in Stephen Sondheim's "Forum"

Happy To Be 'Miserables'

Carl Hulden as the Bishop and David Foley Jr. as Jean Valjean in the Little Theatre musical 'Les Miserables.'
Sullivan News-Progress photo by Keith Stewart.

You can take

You can give

Let him be

Let him live

If I die, let me die

Let him live…

—    “Bring Him Home,” from “Les Miserables”

By Dan Hagen                                                                                 

The hardest thing for a reviewer to do is to monotonously lard up a review with superlatives, and yet here I am, faced with that unpleasant task.

We’ve waited a quarter of a century for the famed musical “Les Miserables” to arrive at the Little Theatre, and yet, based on Sunday’s matinee performance, I have to say the long wait was worth it.

Noel Coward famously noted that it’s funny how potent cheap music can be. Similarly, it’s odd how emotionally gripping inherently preposterous material can be.

Stephen Sondheim opened my eyes to something when he casually observed that farce and melodrama are virtually the same thing. Both turn on hugely improbable events and even employ many of the same dramatic devices — the difference is entirely one of attitude.

And Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” set against the background of France’s ill-fated 1832 “June Rebellion,” is romantic melodrama with all the trimmings — secret identities, narrow escapes, monumental coincidences, relentless pursuers, heroic self-sacrifice and love not merely at first sight, but within the first nanosecond of meeting.

Those are pretty silly things that seldom or never happen in actual life, you know. So how can they figure so prominently in this show — one that carries enough of an emotional charge to prompt the theater to actually offer “Les Miserables”-logoed facial tissue for sale in the lobby?

Well, Hugo knew the power of well-handled soap operatic material even in 1862, and gave his tale a superstructure of universal human aspirations — for freedom, for love, for an end to hunger and despair, for redemption, for a noble death, for meaning in existence. This musical, and this Little Theatre production, makes all that soar, and that means you’ll need to slip your hand into your pocket for those tissues.

Credit is due to director/choreographer Kelly Shook and costume designer Timmy Valentine. Scenic designer Jason Bolen has given us a substantial, two-tiered set to house the 31 performers in this rescaled Broadway spectacle, all broken shudders and hanging chains. And there behind a clever scrim on that set are musical director Joshua Zecher-Ross and his orchestra, especially beefed up for this bombastic classic.

The lighting design by Greg Solomon gives its full support to colorful romanticism, with moody backlighting, harsh foreground lighting, an effective follow spot and the smoke-filtered flash of battle.

The performances are all superior. Let’s start with Sean Zimmerman, memorable as the Pirate King previously at the Little Theatre. But I like him even better as Inspector Javert, a clarion-voiced character whom he invests with a perfectly imperious manner. Javert is a living embodiment of the fallacy of deontological ethics, a man so devoted to duty, to rules, to the Law that he is willing to grind justice and compassion beneath his boot. Zimmerman’s “Soliloquy” is thrilling.

Tim Quartier and Amelia Millar are convincing as the beautiful young couple, Marius and Cosette, despite being saddled with what I regard as the least convincing aspect of the story — the fact they are required to fall in love literally the first second they see each other. Why? The problem is logistical. The show is already three hours long, and crammed full of blood-and-thunder plot developments. There’s just no room left for a lengthy courtship.

Karla Shook, as Fantine, gives full justice to one of the show’s most famous throat-tightening songs, “I Dreamed a Dream.” Little Theatre vet Cary Mitchell has a strong, brief turn as Bamatabois, the lying hypocrite who delivers the final blow to the faded, degraded Fantine.

Two children — Piper Countryman as Young Cosette and Oliver Adamson as Gavroche — transcend mere cuteness to really win over the hearts of the audience.

Garrit Guadan has a skin-shivering voice that conveys youthful idealism as the admirable and foolish rebel Enjolras.

Therese Kincaid as Madame Thenardier

Several of the characters I have just mentioned are, of course, despairing, if not doomed, and by the time John Baker and my longtime favorite Therese Kincaid arrive on stage, we’re ready for them. They are the inn-keeping Thenardiers, a truly despicable couple that the audience lets off lightly with a wink because they’re so funny. They set the feet tapping with “Master of the House.”

My two favorite characters are Eponine, played by Equity actor Ruthie Stephens, and Jean Valjean, played by Equity actor David Foley, Jr. They are just so damned noble.

I hear this show described as “dark,” but I never think of it that way, despite all the death and desperation in it. All of that is redeemed, for me, by the numinous nobility of these characters. They seem to make life worth living, even there and then.

Eponine, cursed to be the daughter of the Thenardiers, loves Marius hopelessly, and is willing to sacrifice everything for the happiness of a man who will never love her.

Stephens’ “On My Own” solo must have kicked up a good amount of dust in the theater. A lot of it seemed to end up in my eyes.

And finally there’s Foley as Valjean, a man embittered by a long and unjust imprisonment who betrays a kindly bishop, only to be forgiven yet again. This stunning act of charity is the catalyst that transforms Valjean into a kind of secular saint, asking nothing, shouldering burden after burden, saving person after person. Foley carries off this difficult role with a voice that is piercingly heroic, yet never overbearing, and eyes that can project a convincing sympathy. We believe him.

Listen to Foley pray “Bring Him Home,” listen to the people sing, and as this show ends your knees will straighten and propel you right onto your feet.

I never give standing ovations, but I did this time, and I wasn’t alone.

Incidental intelligence: The Little Theatre’s version of this Cameron Mackintosh-produced musical features production stage management by Bill Munoz. The cast includes Anna Zaccari, Ethan Carpenter, Carl Hulden, Charles South, Adam Molloy, Matthew Deitchman, Jared Titus, Jason Weitkamp, Vincent Diperi, Joshua Phan-Gruber, Jack Scott. The show runs through March 3. For tickets, call The Little Theatre On The Square Box Office at 217-728-7375.

How Sondheim Hired His Houseman

Stephen Sondheim

Financially buoyed by the movie sale of Gypsy, composer Stephen Sondheim bought himself a row house in the Turtle Bay area of Manhattan. 
Featuring an upstairs rental apartment and opening in the back, London-like, into a shared garden, the place could even boast bird-filled trees. Sondheim had his collection of games and puzzles to line the walls and some 2,500 record albums to fill the shelves. All he lacked was someone to take care of it all.

In his 1998 book Stephen Sondheim, biographer Meryle Secrest notes that Sondheim was eager to hire Louis Vargas, “a sort of South American version of Jeeves,” as his cook/houseman. But Vargas was unimpressed with the job offer.

Sondheim dropped names in an effort to entice him, but nothing worked. Not until Sondheim happened to mention the barefooted next-door neighbor who had come banging on his glass door to protest his habit on composing on the piano in the middle of the night.

Her name was Katharine Hepburn. Vargas instantly took the job.

“The day he came to work he heard her voice out in the garden, and went out and was feather-dusting the flowers,” Sondheim recalled. “They struck up a conversation …  and became fast friends within 10 minutes. She would bring him fruits and vegetables from the country and he would give her recipes.”

How Sondheim Earned an Oscar

By Dan Hagen

The young Stephen Sondheim

In one of history’s synchronicities, the famed Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim found a childhood family friend in the famed Broadway composer Oscar Hammerstein, who recognized Stevie’s talent from the start.

In his 1998 book Stephen Sondheim, biographer Meryle Secrest notes that Hammerstein put the teenaged Sondheim’s ambitions to the test by creating a singular course of study for him. He told the boy to write four musicals: the first based on a play he admired; the second based on a play he thought needed improvement; the third based on some story or novel that hadn’t already been converted into a play; and finally, an original story of his own. A task few could accomplish, but the teacher had gotten to know his pupil, gotten to know all about him.

When Sondheim reached the third herculean labor, he decided to adapt the Mary Poppins stories by P.L. Travers (The Disney movie was still a dozen years in the future).

Sondheim completed three-quarters of the project, but could never make it gel to his satisfaction. “(T)hat is a pity, because his own portrait of the insufferably perfect governess is much more nuanced and believable than the one offered by the famous film starring Julie Andrews,” Secrest observed.

Too bad. Would have been interesting to see what the chilly sensibility of Stephen Sondheim would have made of that surprisingly chilly children’s character.

Hammerstein and Sondheim are on the right

Someone else had the same idea. While visiting London years later, Sondheim got a call from Travers, who said, “Mr. Sondheim, I would like you to adapt Mary Poppins for the stage.” She was undoubtedly astonished to find that he had already done so, at age 19.

Finish the Hat

Sondheim's Finishing the Hat elaborates on this theme. Just click here to hear it.