REVIEW: 'Into the Woods' Philippine cast shines in underwhelming production
“Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new,” said Tony Award-winner Clint Ramos, quoting Stephen Sondheim at last week's gala premiere of the famed American playwright’s Into the Woods. With Ramos speaking in his capacity as Theatre Group Asia’s Artistic Director, the line affirmed what we were about to see, while reiterating TGA’s mission to produce Filipino-led works. Backed by months of publicity and a star-studded red carpet pre-show event, the gala audience was primed for a night of musical theater.
Debuting on Broadway in 1987, Sondheim’s Into the Woods is a tongue-in-cheek take on classic fairy tales that asks the question, “What happens after, ‘Happily Ever After?’” Packed with Sondheim’s signature complex melodies and rapid-fire wordplay, the musical stood out for its Fourth Wall-breaking humor and willingness to skewer storytelling conventions. The fact that it featured multiple Grimms’ fairy tale characters living and interacting in a shared universe just made it funnier.
Into the Woods tells the story of a Baker (Nyoy Volante) and his Wife (Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante), who have been cursed by a once-beautiful Witch (Lea Salonga) to remain childless unless they can collect four items within three days. The items in question will bring the couple into contact with fairy tale mainstays Cinderella (Arielle Jacobs), Little Red Riding Hood (Teetin Villanueva), Rapunzel (Joreen Bautista), and Jack (Nic Chien). Every character has their own wish and, as the play unfolds, each will discover that the choices they make in pursuit of them has consequences, regardless of intention.
Stage legend Lea Salonga headlined the murderers’ row of local-and foreign-based Philippine talent with aplomb, going all-in on her role as the endlessly sassy Witch. Hidden behind elaborate prosthetics and altering her voice (for the first half of the show), Salonga well and truly disappeared into the part, while losing none of her ability to command an audience. Indeed, by the time the Witch was rejuvenated and restored to full-on glam, her sheer presence made up for what the production lacked in spectacle and on-stage effects. She may have been playing the Witch, but for the audience, Salonga was the queen.
Broadway’s Arielle Jacobs (In the Heights, Here Lies Love) shone as a pitch-perfect Cinderella, injecting the right blend of sincerity and whimsy to sell a princess who spends half her time talking to birds. As the character who experiences perhaps the most growth aside from the Baker’s Wife, Jacobs makes Cinderella’s journey believable. At the same time, Joreen Bautista, (of the UK and Ireland tour of Miss Saigon) as Rapunzel proved to be inspired casting, turning her online Disney Princess image on its head through deft comic timing for what is, ultimately, a tragic character.
Amusingly, the duo that drew the most laughs were the entirely unexpected tandem of Broadway’s Josh Dela Cruz (best known for hosting TV’s Blue’s Clues) and singer Mark Bautista as Cinderella and Rapunzel’s respective Princes. While their lustful, self-centered renditions of “Agony” left the audience in stitches, Dela Cruz outright stole the show with his physical performance, prancing, preening, and tumbling from one scene to the next. Undoubtedly, Dela Cruz understood the assignment—his Prince is every bit the sort of philanderer (“charming, not sincere”) that fairy tale mothers warn their daughters about.
Anchoring the shenanigans from a narrative and emotional standpoint were the Baker and Baker’s Wife, whose plight (despite what the former’s lyrics in “Your Fault” would have one believe) sets the plot’s events in motion. Volante’s Baker is well-meaning enough, but Bradshaw-Volante delivers the superior performance as the put-upon wife who’s constantly needing to take matters into her own hands. “Moments in the Woods” is the song that drives home the show’s themes of choice and consequences, and Bradshaw-Volante nails it.
Replete with Sondheim’s predilection for unconventional harmonies and lyrical gymnastics, Into the Woods has challenged many a performer over the years, and TGA clearly put in the time, effort, and money to assemble a cast that—for the most part—could do the material justice. Unfortunately, the production quality doesn’t live up to the talent.
The Manila production opened with the Narrator (Rody Vera, in somewhat folksy mode) setting the scene to stoke audience excitement. As the curtain rose, expectations of an enchanted forest were greeted with the reality of mosaic tiled flooring underneath a ceiling bolstered by oriental-inspired latticework. Sporadic stumps and a single towering tree denoted the titular woods, with floor-to ceiling capiz windows framing the entire stage. While the impetus to “Filipinize” the play for the local audience is not uncommon in and of itself, the effort here is nowhere as cohesive as in TGA’s previous production, Request Sa Radyo. Where that play’s depiction of an oppressed working class naturally lent itself to a commentary on the Philippine condition vis a vis our ongoing diaspora, the same cannot necessarily be said of the stories Into the Woods seeks to deconstruct.
If anything, the new production doesn’t go far enough in its localization. It’s one thing to transpose the experience of a nameless factory worker onto that of an exhausted OFW, it’s quite another to simply arm someone in full Little Red Riding Hood regalia with a balisong. While it’s entirely possible that the original stories are so ingrained in the (pop) cultural consciousness that any deviation would be inherently jarring, limiting the changes to set design and token costume flourishes feels performative. There is some semblance of a rationale at work, though, as the higher the characters are on the (colonial) social strata, the closer they hew to their traditional (European) depictions. This is especially evident with the two Princes, who looked ripped right out of a Disney movie, while Cinderella’s social climbing step-family looks appropriately cosplay-ey. The less said about the Giant’s Wife’s Kentucky Fried accent, the better, but then, cultural appropriation may actually help to explain why her enchanted harp is now a sarimanok—despite her already owning a literal magical chicken—but I digress.
If you’re looking to experience a showcase of Philippine talent, Into the Woods has it in spades. If you’re looking for a fully fleshed out alternative take on one of Sondheim’s most iconic works, you’d best look elsewhere, as the changes presented here hardly justify the effort. As Red Riding Hood herself opines, “Nice is different than good.”
Editor's Note: PhilSTAR L!fe was given a free ticket to the Philippine production of Into the Woods, which will run until Aug. 31 at Samsung Performing Arts Theater.