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Summary: Into The Woods
Review: This well produced DVD presented and purchased by Amazon.com is engaging, spellbinding, and humorous storytelling given to the public by the brilliant mind of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim. The characters are an elaborate and colorful cast of brilliance by the talents of Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien, Joanna Gleason and a company of recognizable story book characters. A joy for young and old with catchy lyrics and timeless performances you'll cherish Into The Woods .... ever after.
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Summary: u wanna know what happens?
Review: Think of this play as a what happens next after the end of the fairy tale story. I thought Bernadette Peters did a wonderful as did the rest of the cast. Get ready to laugh ur socks off. This is a good one.
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Summary: The Best
Review: I'm a teenager, and I LOVE this video! This is the first Sondheim play I've ever seen and it is excellent, especially the first act. Joanna Gleason and Bernadette Peters are great as the Baker's Wife and the Witch, as well as Chip Zien as the Baker. I recommend this humorous video to anybody who still reads fairytales as I do!
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Summary: A Broadway Classic
Review: I think this may possibly be the greatest musical ever written for the Broadway stage. I don't think it is possible to re-create the purely innocent yet seething lyrics or the heart-pounding, exhilerating music. The actors are incredible, each pulling his or her own weight.The story begins with a baker and his wife who find they have been rendered unable to reproduce because of the baker's family's previous crimes. The witch who cursed them, however, allows them another chance at bearing a child. She tells them to go the the woods and bring her back the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold. On their journey, they encounter many familiar fairy tale characters. The story also provides a sort of parallel view of the AIDS crisis. This has been speculated on and off for years. The songs "No One is Alone," "No More," "I Know Things Now," and "Moments in the Woods" clearly provide evidence that there truly is a sort of underlying parallel of the epidemic within the lyrics whether or not Sondheim and Lapine intended it. Bottom line: performances are first rate, music is great, and everything about this video/DVD is worth having!
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Summary: The greatest true telling of these wonderful fairy tales
Review: A Cinderella that after is married, still dresses in rags? A Red Riding Hood that bents on using a knife for protection? And two princes are charming and sometimes not what they seem? This the world Steven Stondheim and James Levine created in Into The Woods. This remarkable musical has been adored by lots of kids and adults, including me. I mean whenever have seen a witch rap? Into the Woods has brought true live and fairy tale live and mixed it together. For those who haven't seen it yet, here is the plot.
"I wish more than anything, more than life," says Cinderella.
At first you see three houses, one elongs to Cinderella, Jack and his mother, and the Baker and his wife. All want something, but life just hasn't given them the oppourtunity. Cinderella wants to go to the festival, Jack wants to be rich, and the Baker and his wife want a child. Though it just seems that they're luck has run out. But for the Baker and his Wife, there is still hope. A witch, who loves to rap, tells them the reason that they can't have a baby. After hearing their cries of sadness, the witch reveals that they can reverse the spell. They have to collect 4 things, 1 a cow as white as milk, 2 a cape as red as blood, 3 a slipper as pure as gold, and 4 hair as yellow as corn. Though how they get it is how the story shapes out.
Into the Woods is such a classic tale that everyone will enjoy. Buy the DVD and then you will take the amazing journey with the Baker and his wife as they find the 4 items.
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Summary: A Broadway Masterpeace
Review: This video is the best Musical video I have ever gotten. INTO THE WOODS is such a great show and is great for the whole family to see. Bernadette Peters is amazing in this and so is the whole cast. It is the story of the Baker and his wife as they go into the woods to undo the witch's spell. Along the way they meet Cinderella, Jack, Little Red Riding hood, and are taught lesions that you will never get any ware else. The story makes you want to make you cry. It is such a moving show with songs like "No one is alone," a beautiful song sung by Ms. Peters, "Agony" a great duet, sung by the two princes who are trying to find Cinderella and Repunsul and sing about their difficulties and "You're Fault/Last Midnight," witch really makes you think about life and why you place the blame. This is a wonderfull peace of work and needs to be seen, by any story, Sondheim lover, or a person with a heart. Bye it NOW and get prepared to say WOW!
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Summary: The Best Musical Ever
Review: Into the Woods is one of those rare musicals that manage to be entertaining, fun, educational and devastating all at once. It takes several familiar fairy tales, overlaps them ina complicated but clever plot, and manages to provide direction for our society toward communal responsibility and our need to band together to fight the giants that plague our world. Happy ever after is what we earn, not what we deserve. Although the ensemble works together to create a seamless show, as individuals, they shine. Joanna Gleason is the most unique actress working today. She can be simple, glamorous, sarcastic, witty, poised and spewing emotion, all at once. her Baker's Wife is everything a beautiful woman lost in the druggery of daily life should be. We see and feel her conflict between wanting a prince but settling for a baker. Chip Zien is the devoted husband and he manages to bring tears to your eyes through his heartbreaking rendition of "No More". Able support is given by the awkwardly beautiful Kim Crosby as Cinderella, the stoicly useless Prince of Robert Westenberg and the vicious , voracious performance of Danielle Ferland as Red Riding Hood. See this musical. It is everything you will ever hope for in theatre entertainment.
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Summary: Once Upon a Time. Musically.
Review: This musical takes several fairy tales and combines them for a fresh, fun journey. A baker and his wife have learned that they are under a curse and can't have any children. To lift the curse, they must find the cape as red as blood, the cow as white as milk, the hair as yellow as gold, and the slipper as pure as glass. Fortunately for them, they are going into the same woods that Jack, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Rapunzel are entering. The second act picks up "Later." Things don't quite work out as well as everyone expected them to, and they once again find themselves entering the woods to deal with their new challenges. The first act is a perfect musical comedy with some wonderful moments, but the second act is much darker in tone. While it still has it's funny moments, it is much more serious. But the dramatic turn works well, and what started out as a fun romp turns into a powerful story. Still, because of this, I have a hard time recommending it for children. The cast does a wonderful job. It's really hard to pick out a highlight because everyone works well together to make it so good. The format, video recording of a live stage performance by the original Broadway cast, took me a little time to get used to when I first watched it, but soon I forgot all about that. The camera captures everything on stage; can't imagine a better seat in the house. The DVD is just a bare bones version; there's nothing outside of the musical. But it's still worth getting since you will want to watch it many times. Teens and adults will love this musical's sense of humor and be moved by its emotion. It provides all the joys of a stage play in the comfort of your own home. Buy it today and get ready to journey "Into the Woods."
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Summary: No frills, but excells on material and performances
Review: This DVD is from a stage performance, and technologically it's limited by what could be done on a stage (as opposed to all the computer enhanced special effects found in movies). Originating in a simpler medium, it brings to the fore a great script, music, story, and performances. I have nothing but positive points to commnicate. The story builds from well-known elements of fairy tales, and proceeds into moral ambiguity, maturation, dilemmas and choices, temptation and titillation... The lyrics are wonderfully (deliberately) goofy and repetitive (which reinforces the child-like nature of the narratives)... The music is engaging while being both sing-songy and yet moving from our accustomed modes. The performances are wonderful: Bernadette Peters plays all elements of her role as the witch to the hilt; the Baker (Chip Zein) grows from the individualist to the interdependent person, and Zein conveys the maturation well. Joanna Gleason (as the Baker's Wife) does a fabulous job in conveying her frustration, will to persevere, temptation... I could go on and on... The sets from the stage are great, and don't lose their power as a performance for your TV. Go get this, QUICKLY!!
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Summary: I HATE MUSICALS!!
Review: Except for this one... Bernadette Peters is so perfect as the old crone witch who turns beautiful at the end of the first act. She plays the bitter self-loathing cynic to perfection: when she sings "Last Midnight" its amazing, and of course the bittersweet "Lament"/"Children Will Listen" ties everything together...well, perfectly. A riot, and she can really belt out a tune! At least as amazing as BP is Tony Award-winning Joanna Gleason who is completely brilliant as the baker's wife. Her interactions with Kim Crosby (Cinderella), each night after the Festival, sparkle: every time I watch the exchange that ends with, "I need your shoe to have a child!" I nearly fall off my chair; her appearance as a ghost at the end is touching and a little sad.
Kim Crosby herself is quite good as Cinderella, and Danielle Ferland is wonderful as the jaded and cynical (and a little bloodthirsty) Little Red Riding Hood (she gets it from grannie, who keeps thinking of twisted ways to torture the wolf after they escape), and her song "I Know Things Now," is a cute little song about a young woman coming of age with just a hint of sexual imagery. Some things to watch for:
- Cinderella's birds
- the horse that moves backwards
- "Milky White," especially after the baker gets tired of leading(dragging) her, and picks her up by the handle on her top
- the stepmother cutting off her daughter's heel and then picking it up by stabbing it with the knife like a piece of ham
- "Agony" by the two princes
- "No One Is Alone"
- and lastly, "Your Fault." It's also worth mentioning that the lighthearted fun in the first act is matched perfectly with the dark and sober mood in the second act, although it may be a little heavy for young children. Mentionable quotes:
"I was raised to be charming, not sincere." - Cinderella's prince
"I was just trying to be a good mother." - The Witch to Rapunzel
"Slotted spoons don't hold much soup." - Jack's mother
"There are times I do actually enjoy cleaning." - Cinderella
"You can talk to birds...?" - Little Red Riding Hood to Cinderella
"...some of us don't like the way you've been telling it..." - The Witch to the narrator, just before she sacrifices him to the giant I could keep going... suffice to say, it's a fave.
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