50 Favourite Musicals: 5: INTO THE WOODS (1986) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life.

First performed: 1986, Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, CA

First seen by me: 1988, Martin Beck Theatre, NY

Productions seen: six

Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: James Lapine

Plot: Once Upon a Time, Cinderella wanted to go to the ball, Little Red Riding Hood wanted to visit Granny's cottage, a baker and his wife were desperate for a child, and Jack had to sell his aged pet cow for a new one and exchanges her for magic beans. They must all go into the woods to get their wishes, including the neighbourhood Witch to visit her daughter Rapunzel.  Everyone gets their wish and live Happily Ever After... or do they?

Five memorable numbers: NO ONE IS ALONE, CHILDREN WILL LISTEN, AGONY, GIANTS IN THE SKY, A MOMENT IN THE WOODS

After the success of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine wanted to work together again and decided on exploring the moral ambiguities of living Happy Ever After when the actions you have done to get there have consequences.  Cinderella marries her Prince but what if he was raised to be charming but not faithful?  Jack steals from and later kills The Giant but what of the grieving Giant's Wife who wants revenge on the little killer who abused their hospitality? And what do you do when parents or children are taken from you - do you blame others or yourself?  Although Sondheim denies there was any deliberate intention for the work to reflect the AIDS crisis that was contemporary to it's writing, you cannot help but read it as a reflection on those times of sudden death, recrimination and the forming of community.  It's continued success down the years shows the world has not changed much... 

The show had a short initial run at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, giving Sondheim and Lapine a chance to see where the show might be enlarged and clarified before it opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in 1987 with the wonderful cast of Bernadette Peters as The Witch, Chip Zien as The Baker, Joanna Gleason as The Baker's Wife, Kim Crosby as Cinderella, Robert Westenberg as Cinderella's Prince as well as The Wolf and Danielle Ferland as Red Riding Hood.  The show ran for nearly two years and won three Tony Awards - Gleason for Best Actress, Best Score and Best Book - but losing out in it's production awards to THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.  More importantly, just after a year after it opened, INTO THE WOODS was the first musical I ever saw on Broadway.

Lapine's glorious original production was the best introduction to Broadway and luckily it was filmed with the reunited original cast just before it closed and is available on DVD.  The first London production only lasted five months at the Phoenix Theatre, largely due to Robert Jones' ugly, over-intellectualised production but it did feature two memorable performances from Julia McKenzie as The Witch and Imelda Staunton as a pugnacious, determined Baker's Wife; Imelda went on to win the Best Actress Olivier Award for Best Actress.  A far more cohesive and enjoyable production was John Crowley's 1998 revival at the Donmar - it's smaller stage giving the action more of a focus - with yet another Olivier Award-winning Baker's Wife, this time the wonderful Sophie Thompson, in a cast which also included Jenna Russell as Cinderella, Damien Lewis as her Prince and a break-out performance by 17 year-old Sheridan Smith as Red Riding Hood.

The last three productions I have seen illustrated how versatile directors have found the material - the Landor staged INTO THE WOODS in their 60 seat pub theatre in 2009, the Open Air theatre in Regents Park staged a spectacular production in 2011 with a multi-level set disappearing off into the surrounding trees which certainly gave the piece a vibrant setting, even if not all the directorial choices held up, but did give Hannah Waddingham as The Witch, Jenna Russell as The Baker's Wife, Beverley Rudd as Red Riding Hood and Michael Xavier as The Prince / The Wolf excellent chances to shine.  In 2016, the American Fiasco Theater Company brought their INTO THE WOODS to the Menier which had a cast of 10 and a near-bare stage. The show survived of course but the relentless "look what we can do with a rope" got old very quickly.  A lovely performance from Harry Hepple as The Baker helped save the day.

I still remember the excitement of buying the orginal cast recording at Tower Records and racing home to play it, reading the libretto and studying the colour foldouts of production shots - and that excitement has not diminished over 36 years, it was a worthy winner of that year's Grammy for Best Cast Recording.  It's a score which moves me greatly, especially in the second act where Sondheim unleashes a succession of songs that cut through to a universal sadness: the Witch's "Lament" then her goodbye to the small-minded humans with "Last Midnight"; The Baker's burnt-out cry for a moment of rest "No More" which leads into the anthemic "No One Is Alone" where the characters realise that a family is not just blood relatives - and in between these there is one of Sondheim's most under-rated solos, The Baker's Wife's "A Moment In The Woods", it's this song that makes the role a real award magnet and makes INTO THE WOODS one of my all-time favourite musicals.

So... what video to pick?  In truth I did not mind the Disney film which despite being truncated actually stayed true to the spirit of the show but it has to be the original Broadway cast, and here is the press reel of clips for broadcast purposes; they are not in chronological order but give you a real flavour of the production featuring the marvellous performances of Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, Danielle Ferland, Robert Westenberg, and Kim Crosby among others.

50 Favourite Musicals: 9: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1982) (Alan Menkin, Howard Ashman)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1982, Orpheum Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1983, Comedy Theatre, London

Productions seen: three
  
Score: Alan Menkin / Howard Ashman

Book: Howard Ashman

Plot: At Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, Seymour has an unrequited love for his co-worker, the sweet-natured but dumb blonde Audrey.  In a desperate attempt to entice customers, Mushnik allows Seymour to display a weird plant, that appeared suddenly during a total eclipse, that Seymour calls Audrey II.  Seymour cuts his finger and discovers Audrey II responds to drops of blood.  Audrey II comes to life and offers Seymour all he has ever wanted in life as long as it keeps being fed blood.. anybody's blood...

Five memorable numbers: SUDDENLY SEYMOUR, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN, SKID ROW, DENTIST!

Back in the September of 1983 I was bereft as my favourite obsession - Richard Eyre's production of GUYS AND DOLLS at the Olivier Theatre - had lost most of it's glorious cast; G&D was the show that gave me the Pauline conversion to the glory of theatre and I was faced with that aching reality of loving a show... all things must come to an end.  No more Julia McKenzie, John Normington, Bill Paterson, David Healy or Harry Towb.  The good news was that Harry Towb was going straight into a new musical at the Comedy Theatre called LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.  Being a film buff I knew of the 1960 Roger Corman comedy-thriller film so I went along to see a preview with an idea what I was going to see but primarily to see 'Uncle' Harry.  I reeled out of the Comedy a few hours later, with a new musical obsession!

One of the pleasures looking back on theatre memories is you can identify great performances as they stand out down the years, and I am proud that I can say I saw Ellen Greene as Audrey onstage.  It was a truly remarkable performance - as two-dimensional as a cartoon, but played with sudden depths of feeling and emotion to make her a totally lovable, totally original creation.  And that voice... soft as a fake-fur coat when she sang her longing ballad SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN and the power seen during her moments in SKID ROW was let loose during the huge duet SUDDENLY SEYMOUR when poor Barry James as Seymour had to hang on to the set for his life when she released the full belt in the line "He don't condescennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd" was one of the great theatre moments I have seen (and felt).  Barry James was a delightfully endearing schlubb as Seymour, the thrillingly deep evil of Michael Leslie's baritone voice made Audrey II fully come alive and Terence Hillyer was a hoot in his various characters but mainly as Orin Scrivello - DDS - the sadistic dentist boyfriend of Audrey who deservedly became the first victim in Audrey II's jaws.  Popping up throughout the show were the holy trinity of Nicola Blackman, Dawn Hope and Shezwae Powell as Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette, three urchins who invited us into the show and sang us out to our doom as Audrey II's tentacles landed on our heads as their last note ended.  And 'Uncle' Harry?  He was glorious of course, holding the show steady with his stage experience and comic timing.  Howard Ashman's tight direction - tight as Audrey II's jaw-snap - his genuinely witty script and delicious 60s retro-score with Alan Menkin made the show absolutely irresistible.

Again the spectre of theatre-going descended as one by one the original cast left - and while the show was still enjoyable in itself, the magic of that original cast dissipated over it's near-two year run.  Memories of a naff touring production starring Su Pollard were luckily swept away by Matthew White's Menier production which gave Sheridan Smith a great showcase for her comedy and musical talents, and she was well partnered by Paul Keating as Seymour and, in a nice touch, Barry James as Mushnik.  I couldn't bring myself to see the recent revival which looked over-stated and under-cast, when you have seen the best you really have to curate your memories to keep them fresh.  Of course, Ellen Greene managed to preserve her Audrey in the 1986 film version, after a long wait when Cyndi Lauper was considered, but although it has a cult following - and the fantastic Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops voicing the killer plant - if you had seen the original stage production, it's pace is leaden and obvious.

Happily for posterity - and me - Ellen's rendition of SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN was filmed for the 1983 Standard Drama Awards show where the show won Best Musical, so here she is mixing the comic and the pathos for an unforgettable experience, attended by the trio of Nicola Blackman, Shezwae Powell and Dawn Hope.

FUNNY GIRL at the Savoy Theatre - The Greatest Star?

With every year there is a fondness for looking back to 50 year anniversaries so here is another one - it is 50 years since the Bob Merrill and Jule Styne musical FUNNY GIRL opened in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre.  It starred a certain actress who had played it on Broadway two years before...

Four months after it opened, it was gone after Streisand discovered she was pregnant.  Nice timing Babs.  Almost a year after it closed, she started filming the movie version which went on to win her an Academy Award - and she has never acted on stage since.

The common belief is that the show has never been revived due to Streisand's indelible stamp on it but there is another more basic problem which is shown up in the new revival which has transferred from the Menier Chocolate Factory to the Savoy, recently the home of another Jule Styne revival GYPSY.

As Mr and Mrs World know, the show stars our very own Sheridan Smith as Fanny Brice, the gangly, rubber-faced Jewish New Yorker who, in the Ziegfeld Follies between 1910 and 1923, made herself an audience sweetheart with her clowning but also with her ability to sing torch songs that broke your heart.  She is all but forgotten now, her memory kept alive by the show.

Sheridan Smith is one of the select few actresses who can guarantee an audience for a West End show and for good reason - she has real star wattage on stage and a natural bond with her audience.  Her voice isn't the most distinctive but she knows how to use it and, as she proved with the famous numbers here, she also knows how to belt out a long last note.

Of course a star will always be a star but not for one second did I feel that Sheridan Smith lost herself in the character of Fanny Brice, she was always Sheridan Smith in a black wig.  Director Michael Meyer has her playing up the face-mugging, knock-kneed klutz but it's an uneven fit.  Her most telling moments are when she is in a more reflective moments, singing lovely versions of "People", "His Is The Only Music That Makes Me Dance" and the interpolated title song which was written for the film.

Despite Harvey Fierstein rejigging the script and swapping some songs around, the biggest problem is the show itself.  I suspect one reason it has not been revived more often is because it all feels so desperately thin. The whole focus is on Fanny - and even her character is hardly layered - the other characters are so paper-thin they could almost blow over.  Fierstein should probably have dropped a couple of the more generic numbers and in particular, the endless "Rat-A-Tat-Tat".  A song which highlights Brice's usual shtick, it's an endless song about a Yiddish soldier in World War 1 that had me biting my knuckles in pain.

Darius Campbell was surprisingly effective as the gambling man-about-town Nicky Arnstein who was Brice's first husband but again he is only there for Fanny to react off of so the sudden rush of exposition about his downfall in the second act - and an added solo number - come to late to make him at all interesting.  His height also made for an odd fit with the diminutive Sheridan.

Bruce Montague wanders on and off occasionally as Florenz Ziegfeld without ever suggesting how important he was either on early 20th Century Broadway or in Fanny's professional life, Joel Montague has some nice moments as her friend Eddie Ryan but the award for making bricks from straw goes to Marilyn Cutts as Mrs Brice, always watchable and a performance of loving steeliness.

FUNNY GIRL had a torturous birth: Fanny Brice's son-in-law, producer Ray Stark, decided against the publication of a biography and wanted to make it into a film, only to be told by Mary Martin that it should be a stage show.  It then was offered to or passed on by, among others, writer Ben Hecht, lyricists Stephen Sondheim and Dorothy Fields, producer David Merrick, directors Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse and performers Mary Martin, Anne Bancroft, Edye Gorme and Carol Burnett.  When the show finally made it to the stage it was nominated for 8 Tony Awards but didn't win anything, 5 of them ironically lost to HELLO, DOLLY! which was turned into a film starring... Barbra Streisand!

Back at the Savoy, Lynne Page's choreography is busy but unmemorable while Michael Pavelka's skewed set of Ziegfeld's New Amsterdam stage only offers the occasional 'wow' image - really only the very last moment to be honest.  Ultimately I felt that the show needed a larger-than-life personality to swamp the stage and to distract you from the rickety star vehicle - Sheridan Smith is not that kind of star yet.

Thanks to Sheridan Smith's popularity the show is in for a long run until October - unless she does a Streisand and gets pregnant - I just wished I liked it more.

I suspect we shall know by the end of the year where we stand with Terence Rattigan. Much is being made that this year marks the centenary of his birth and a slew of productions are being staged to celebrate this as well as the release later in the year of Terence Davies' remake of THE DEEP BLUE SEA.

It's all rather odd as 2011 is also the centenary of Tennessee Williams' birth and he is a writer whose work has received more attention in the past few years in London than Rattigan's but of Tennessee there appears to be nary a peep of celebrations this year.

Rattigan in truth has never been that far from our stages with fairly frequent revivals of THE DEEP BLUE SEA and, to a lesser extent, SEPARATE TABLES and THE WINSLOW BOY but I suspect the upswing in Rattigan's profile has been due to the phenomenal success last year of the National Theatre's AFTER THE DANCE. This seems to have led to him now being seen more as a playwright to be taken seriously as opposed to a writer whose plays make handy vehicles for starry revivals.Trevor Nunn is launching his tenure as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket with a production of Rattigan's 1941 play FLARE PATH, written while he was serving with the RAF. It is what you expect from Rattigan, a solid well-made West End play with a beginning, a middle and an end - in that order. Not as haunting as AFTER THE DANCE but worthy of a revival I guess.

The Falcon Hotel is a genteel Lincolnshire hotel which has as it's clientele the officers (and wives) of the neighbouring RAF airbase. We follow the events that take place over a single night when the airmen are recalled to the base for a night flight over Germany. One of the four planes in the squadron is fired upon by waiting enemy planes on take-off and one is reported Missing In Action and we watch as the news of a missing pilot refracts on his wife and his friends.
Rattigan rewrote the play for the 1945 film THE WAY TO THE STARS which packs a more emotional punch as he didn't hedge his dramatic bets as he does here. I suspect that because the film script was written towards the end of the war, it was easier to include lead characters being killed in action.

The action here is given a melodramatic twist by having the hotel's occupants surprised by the appearance in their midst of Peter Kyle, an actor who has made a name for himself in Hollywood. It turns out that it isn't just a random visit as Kyle has been conducting a clandestine affair with Patricia, one of the pilot's wives. She is on the verge of telling her husband that she is leaving him when the call comes through for the night flight so the tension is stretched to breaking point between the lovers.
With not much sub-text to play, Trever Nunn ramps up the tension of the waiting women and this works very well. He also elicits sympathetic performances from his cast, the stand-out being the 'West End's Sweetheart' Sheridan Smith as Doris the down-to-earth and amiable ex-barmaid who now finds herself the Countess Skriczevinsky after her marriage to a Polish airman.

Sheridan was the real heart of the play and as the realisation dawned that her husband had not returned with the others, she shone with a stoic sadness. In the scene where Doris asked Kyle to read her the letter that her husband left to be opened in the event of his death, her delicate reactions were heart-breaking.Owing to the non-appearing James Purefoy, the lead role of Peter Kyle was played by Jim Creighton and he was very good. Kyle secretly knows he is coming to the end of his Leading Man roles and is banking all on his relationship with Patricia and Creighton played this quiet desperation very well.

The role of Patricia was played by media darling Sienna Miller. She was ok as the stage actress torn between her love for Kyle and her duty to her obviously disturbed pilot husband but watching her I was amazed that her name has such cachet. There are any number of actresses who could play the role as well if not better and her blandly attractive, blonde looks conjure up the model on a Timotei ad rather than a memorable actress. The media's constant infatuation with her is truly baffling.

The role of the golden boy pilot Teddy Graham who is becoming more and more frazzled with each sortie was played well by the impossibly posh-named Harry Hadden-Paton and there was fine support from Joe Armstrong as Sgt. 'Dusty' Miller, Emma Handy as his visiting wife Maudie, Mark Dexter as Johnny the Polish flyer and in particular from Clive Wood as Squadron Leader Swanson aka 'Gloria' who made a sympathetic older 'uncle' to the pilots.

It was an additional pleasure to see the play in a full theatre - although it was amusing to find that his personification of his core audience 'Aunt Edna' - "a nice, respectable, middle-class, middle-aged, maiden lady, with time on her hands and money to help her pass it, who resides in a West Kensington hotel" - is alive and well. She is going to need that money to catch up with all the upcoming productions of his work!

Last week I ventured into the pinkest place possible. No Constant Reader... even pinker that that.

O's bro and sis-in-law were in town which was the spur needed to go to the Savoy to see LEGALLY BLONDE, the latest show that is slowly turning the West End into a living version of a dvd shelf in your average HMV.On arrival it soon became clear that the show is now an event - there were quite a few groups of pink-stetsoned, balloon-trailing larger-sized women out on a jolly. Needless to say, if it moved it got a round of wild applause.

Through careful maneuvering I have managed not to see the original film so I was unfamiliar with the actual plot though of course these sausage-in-a-greenhouse tales write themselves.

Like the similar-themed SISTER ACT it goes like this

• take your sassy, noisy heroine - here uber-girly Elle Woods
• waste no time setting up your situ - dumped by posh boyfriend for better class girl
• then re-locate - Elle gets into Harvard Law School after a few nights cramming. Yes.
• triumph in new situ - Elle wins a court case on her knowledge of hair care
• cop off with quiet guy - the show ends with Elle loved up with Emmett from her class

Now I realise I am flying in the face of all opinion of this - that it's FUN FUN FUN - but feck me it's also THIN THIN THIN.

Again like SISTER ACT, it is in such a rush to keep moving on, on, on - just in case the film-loving audience will riot in the theatre because they can't fast-forward the action - that it's like you are watching a non-ending trailer. Just once - once - I wanted it to stop and just be... give us a minute to connect, to feel some empathy.

Ah you say, but Elle is just a cartoon-y dumb blonde, but compare - for a very obvious reason - Audrey in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS who through the clever placement of "Somewhere That's Green" in the middle of the first act gives you a moment to stop and feel real empathy for the character. Elle is given no solo number in the first act, no point of genuine connection.

Mind you, it helps when you have a song like "...Green". In all the reviews I have read variations on "The score is not too memorable but..." But? BUT?? It's a musical damnit - the score should be the most important element of the show.

Owen thought all the songs sounded like rejects from WICKED and I can agree with that - they all sound like pastiche Broadway songs and the arrival late-on of a superfluous but original patter-song "There! Right There" aka the "Gay or European" song sadly only shows the opportunities lost. Even more so as this is followed up with the show's title song which gives us the stupidest use of a title in a song ever.

What makes the show a success however is the game performances of the cast. Peter Davison was quite effective as the nasty Law lecturer but Richard Fleeshman almost seemed to fade from the stage as you watched him. However Alex Gaumond as Emmett has an interesting quality on stage, his timing was a bit slow, a bit Schwimmer-esque so he always seemed a bit out-of-step with the rhythm of the scenes which I guess helped the character.

I have to say the biggest surprise of the show was the delightful supporting performance from Jill Halfpenny as that most tiresome of devices the loved-and-lost best friend. She had a great American accent and invested this sadsack part with immense charm - her eventual hooking up with Chris Ellis-Stanton's studly UPS man was sweetly done.

But of course the show is a vehicle for Elle and I suspect the real reason for the show's SRO status is down to Sheridan Smith.She deserved her standing ovation - of course - at the curtain for making the show as enjoyable as it was although she ultimately wasn't doing anything she hadn't done a few years back in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.

However she has developed into that rare thing - a gifted comedy performer who is also an excellent musical actress and an undeniable theatre star. It's 12 years ago since I first saw her as Red Riding Hood in the Donmar revival of INTO THE WOODS and it's great that she has continued to return to the theatre despite her success in television.

I just wish the show had given us something other than a relentless diet of e-numbers. Too much pink icing can lead to theatrical diabetes.