Into The Woods

There is a strange sort of slightly sneering condescension floating about in the theatrical ether when it comes to outdoor productions, a vague feeling that they are little more than excuses for a glorified picnic for the Waitrose brigade – as if the absence of a roof makes it ‘only’ open air theatre. Few people have done more to dispel this anachronistic prejudice than Tim Sheader, artistic director of Regent’s Park’s Open Air Theatre. Sheader’s approach is so successful because he doesn’t just arbitrarily ‘set’ his productions outside for the sake of shifting a lot of white wine and overpriced buffet food but builds the fabulous outdoor arena into the very heart of his productions: the dying light, the whispering trees and even the occasional plane all become characters on the stage.

Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods is tailor made for Regent’s Park: a musical amalgamation of fairy tale characters in which Red Riding Hood encounters Cinderella, Rapunzel, a witch and a bigger, badder Wolf than most of us will remember from childhood. The formulaic happy endings that close all these old morality fables are tempered by a narrator character in the form of a small boy who looks like he’s fled an unhappy home to seek solace in the forest and his own imagination. Audiences are initially invited to assume that the fairytale characters exist only for him but, as the evening wears on, they seem to become aware of his presence only to slip ever further out of his control in a maelstrom of darkly delicious humour, cruelty and anarchy.

Into The Woods is an ensemble piece and its musical high points are mostly when the whole cast is on stage but it would be churlish not to praise the two princes (Rapunzel’s and Cinderella’s), Simon Thomas and Michael Xavier, who strut and preen like a pair of peacocks given wardrobe advice by Russell Brand. Beverly Rudd’s not-so Little Red Riding Hood gives a wonderfully arch performance and Hannah Waddingham’s witch is at once terrifying and sympathetic.
Unfortunately even Tim Sheader cannot control the weather and rain stopped play when I went to see it so, alas, I still don’t know whether the eventual ending was happy or otherwise. Tickets are valid for another performance when this happens and, as the first half is well worth seeing twice, I will certainly head back into the woods (well, park).

Into The Woods

For more information go to:
http://www.openairtheatre.org.uk/pl117.html