Cheap Into the Woods (DVD) (Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien, Joanna Gleason) (James Lapine) Price
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Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning score favors intricate ensemble numbers that present the characters' divergent, then overlapping fears and desires. And it's the latter category that provides a primary thread to James Lapine's ingenious puzzle of a book, which coheres around the inevitability--and treachery--of our innermost wishes. That theme is given farcical energy in the first act, which offers enough comic invention, tart dialogue, and witty music for a satisfying evening of theater as is.
Instead, Sondheim and Lapine offer a bold, darker second act that takes a look at what happens after "happily ever after," elevating the work beyond inspired parody toward allegorical gravity. By the final scenes, with the one-two punch of the score's two most enduring songs, "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen," what began as a clever diversion has touched deeper nerves and primed some tear ducts. This video production by the original Broadway cast gets its marquee shimmer from Bernadette Peters's wonderful witch, but the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.
The DVD version is comparatively no-frills, given its American Playhouse origins, but multiformat digital audio renders the musical performances in immaculate detail. --Sam Sutherland
| ACTORS: | Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien, Joanna Gleason |
| CATEGORY: | DVD |
| DIRECTOR: | James Lapine |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 20 March, 1991 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Image Entertainment |
| MPAA RATING: | Unrated |
| FEATURES: | Color |
| TYPE: | Musical |
| MEDIA: | DVD |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 014381596724 |
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Customer Reviews of Into the Woods
"Isn't it nice to know a lot! And a little bit not..." I must say that when we performed this in highschool I had no idea just how truly wonderful it was until after I had graduated and 'grown up'. I revisit it now and remember just how superb the lyrics and story are. My role was Rapunzel (not a lot of speaking, but a great musical trailing!) Just being involved in that show and seeing it now in it's original performance is amazing. I absolutely love everything about this musical. It is well worth the money!
Amazing!
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>Beautiful music, lots of clever lyrics, absolutely superb cast--trust me, Into the Woods (at least this performance of it) is everything you could wish for in a musical. Although the darker, more melancholy second act provides a sharp contrast to the first act's supposed 'happily ever after', I found it less jarring than interesting, and my favorite song (Last Midnight) is in it, so...yes. At the risk of sounding cliche, this is not to be missed. Even if (for some odd, inexplicable reason) the plot bores you, in my opinion it's all worth it for Bernadette Peters singing 'Lament' and 'Last Midnight'. Stunning, incredible, awe-inspiring, whatever positive adjective you want it will apply. ^^
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>A warning, however: the songs from it seem to get stuck in your head for days. I've had 'Last Midnight' running through my head for the past two weeks or so and I keep getting this urge to swirl around a swishy cloak that I don't have.
It wasn't the worst thing I've seen...
This musical is very interesting. I don't know exactly how to describe it. The first half was pretty boring for me and it was so long I thought the finale for act one was the end. The second half drew my attention in a negative way. I really didn't like the way things ended up. The giant killing so many people really didn't seem necessary to me to prove the point of this musical. The way people were killed almost out of comedy drove me in sane death is never a light moment.
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>What drove me crazy even more was how the baker's wife died. I hate in when main characters die, but at least in some musicals its a very touching death, but here you don't really feel bad after her affair with the prince and this takes away from her husband and the audiance feeling for her. I guess what I mean is it would have been ever more moving if she died with out the affair, and her husband said and did all that stuff after she passed away.
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>I also hate the fact of recreating fairytales and making the characters look bad. Why do we always have to poke fun about these tales? It almost seems like they arn't respected at all at times. Musicals like Once Upon a Mattress and Cinderella were cleaver and wonderful because they stuck to the characteristics of the main characters. I think sometimes people take to many liberties with character and it ends up like Into the Woods. All the characters were made weird and unlovable by the time the final curtain in the second act fell. (with maybe the exception of Cinderella).
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>On a more positive note there was some amazing songs and amazing actresses and actors singing them. "no One is Alone" is my favorite and it is beautiful. Some of the songs seem really repetative however. The set seemed really cheesy as well, and the fake animals and fake giant just added to the disaster.