Into the Woods: Difference between revisions

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In the first act, a baker and his wife who desperately want a child are told by the witch who cursed their family with infertility that she'll lift the spell if they do something for her first. She sends them on a quest that takes them in and out of the other stories, collecting Cinderella's slipper, Jack's cow, the little red riding hood, and some of Rapunzel's hair. There's also a mysterious old man who appears from time to time, trying to help the quest along for reasons of his own. After a certain amount of deception, theft, and murder -- you remember how these stories go, right? -- everybody gets what they were wishing for at the beginning, and there's a big song-and-dance number about living happily ever after.

Then in the ''second'' act, [[It Got Worse|everybody has to grow up and face the consequences of their actions.]]

 

 

Many people are most familiar with the excellent version filmed by PBS under its ''American Playhouse'' banner in 1991 and subsequently released on home video; this was based on the original Broadway production and had most of the same cast.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Acting for Two]]: According to [[Original Cast Precedent]], the Narrator and the Mysterious Man are played by the same actor. Same goes for Cinderella's Prince and the Wolf, as well as Cinderella's Mother and the Giantess ''and'' Granny. Usually played in an [[And You Were There]] fashion, at least for the first two actors.

* [[Afraid of Blood]]: Cinderella's Prince.

* [[Alcoholic Parent]]: Cinderella's Father: "The closer to the family, the closer to the wine."

* [[All for Nothing]]: The second act does this to the first act. Especially for {{spoiler|the Baker.}}

* [[Arc Words]]: No specific phrase, but count the number of times they say "children", "giant(s)", "witch(es)", "wish(es)", "wolves", "spell(s)", "right", and "wrong" just in a generic context.

** "I wish" is always sung the exact same way, with the same two notes.

* [[Author Existence Failure]]: A meta version {{spoiler|the characters freak out after the narrator is killed as he was "the only one who knew how the story went."}}

* [[Bad Bad Acting]]: The Baker's Wife when she tries to get Jack to trade/buy the magic beans for the cow. "Oh... Oh! Oh no, we ''mustn't'' give up our beans!"

* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: "Wishes come true. They don't come free."

* [[Crapsack World]]: The world becomes this during the second act, especially after {{spoiler|the Narrator dies}}, after he says, prophetically, "You don't want to live in a world of chaos."

* [[Curse Escape Clause]]

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]

* [[Dark Reprise]]: Inverted with the first parts of "Stay With Me" and "Lament", which later become the happier "Children Will Listen".

*** He's {{spoiler|[[Not Quite Dead|not completely dead]]-- if only in the sense that you carry your parents with you forever. He hangs a lampshade on this, of course}}.

** {{spoiler|The Baker and his wife near the very end.}}

* [[Death Equals Redemption]]: {{spoiler|The Mysterious Man and the Baker's Wife.}}

* [[Death Glare]]: The filmed version (and several stage versions) have the Witch deliver a glorious (and often hilarious) one to the Baker when he says, "Giants never strike the same place twice."

* [[Deconstruction]] of fairy tales.

* [[Deconstruction Crossover]]

** {{spoiler|Rapunzel and The Baker's Wife's deaths for The Witch and The Baker.}}

* [[Disappeared Dad]]: Jack's. Mentioned as being "not back" for one line in the first act and never brought up again.

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: The Wolf gets ''particularly'' excited about getting to devour Little Red Riding Hood, and she too reminisces about how he "excited" her and showed her "such new things" she had never seen before.

* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: Pointed out in act 2. The giantess that was causing so much destruction was rightly furious at Jack, and the chaos and carnage she caused was largely on accident. The characters spend a scene or two contemplating just who is the villain anymore.

** Probably best summed up in "You Are Not Alone"

* [[Grimmification]]: Of Grimm stories themselves!

* [[Ghost Song]]: Twice: "No More" and the brief reprise of "No One Is Alone" by {{spoiler|The Baker's Wife}} before "Children Will Listen".

* [[The Gwen Stacy]]: Several: {{spoiler|Baker's Wife to Baker, Rapunzel to Witch (though ironically ''not'' Rapunzel's Prince), Jack's Mother to Jack, and to a lesser extent, Granny to Little Red}})

* [[Hair of Gold]]: Although technically, it's as yellow as corn.

** Far more ''painful'' than yooooours!

* [[Happily Ever After]]: Subverted, or rather deconstructed.

** Or "I Wish" Song.

* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: The Witch. {{spoiler|And she becomes a looker again.}}

* [[Karma Houdini]]: While the stepsisters are blinded by pigeons, their mother and stepfather--arguably even more responsible for Cinderella's suffering--never gets such treatment, {{spoiler|although it is implied that the whole family starves to death at the end: "when going to hide know how to get there, how to get back, and eat first."}}

** Worse still, {{spoiler|Cinderella's Prince seduces the Baker's wife. She realizes that it was a mistake and learns a lesson from it, and promptly dies. He continues on without changing and winds up with Sleeping Beauty.}}

** {{spoiler|[[Dirty Coward|The Steward]] literally gets away with murder.}}

* [[Knight Templar Parent]]: See [[My Beloved Smother]] below

** Don't forget Bernadette Peters as the Witch.

* [[Last Request]]: {{spoiler|Jack's Mother}}, right before dying, demands that the Baker protect {{spoiler|Jack from the giantess. And the Baker obliges to the best of his ability.}}

* [[The Lost Woods]]

* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: {{spoiler|The Mysterious Man to The Baker.}} He doesn't actually say it, though, preferring to remain unknown; it's the Witch who [[Incredibly Lame Pun|spills the beans.]]

** Ends with them, too. (But it's usually drowned out by the applause.)

* [[Mama Bear]]: For as dumb as she is, Jack's Mother.

* [[Misfit Mobilization Moment]]: When The Baker, Jack, Little Red and Cinderella team up to kill the other giant.

* [[Missing Mom]]: Cinderella's mother, who helps her out as a ghost/spirit in the tree. {{spoiler|But in Act 2, the tree is destroyed.}}

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Rapunzel summed it up best.

'''Witch''': (''[[Beat]]; defensive, yet sincere'') I was just trying to be a good mother. }}

** Jack's Mother is pretty controlling too.

*** Made even better by the fact that, in many productions, Red is ''clearly'' younger than Jack, by at least a couple years.

* [[Rage Against the Author]]

** Averted with the Mysterious Man, who has clearly rehearsed his rhyming introduction.

* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: Averted in that both Princes are frickin' useless. Played with in that Cinderella tries to help, but has to dress as a commoner to do so.

* [[Rule of Three]]

* [[Snicket Warning Label]]

* [[The Soprano]]: Averted (mostly) with both Cinderella and Rapunzel, at least by the second act--they both have quite a bit of [[The Ingenue|ingenue]] about them, but neither of them is a [[Purity Sue]] or [[Shallow Love Interest]].

* [[Stepford Smiler]]: Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters at the start of Act 2. They're blinded and lame and they're still insisting that they're happy as long as Cinderella is happy.

* [[Survivor Guilt]]: The surviving characters at the end of the show. {{spoiler|Especially The Baker.}}

* [[Tenor Boy]]: Jack

* [[Totally Radical]]: The Witch's [[Patter Song|Patter Songs]] have elements of this, musically, being Sondheim and the orchestrator's idea of what rap music sounded like.

* [[True Companions]]: By the end of the show, {{spoiler|the Baker, Cinderella, Jack, and Red Riding Hood}}, as the surviving heroes seemed destined to become these.

* [[The Unintelligible]]: Rapunzel only has a few scenes where she actually talks. The rest of the show, she expresses her feelings by "humming a lighthearted air" and screaming.

** Somewhat [[Lampshaded]] by her prince. After the reprise of "Agony," Rapunzel, out of nowhere, lets out an enormous scream. The prince doesn't look the slightest bit shocked and says "Rapunzel," in deadpan.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: The witch after {{spoiler|Rapunzel's death}}, quickly leading to "Last Midnight" and her subsequent {{spoiler|abandonment of the rest of the cast and return to ugliness, with her powers restored. CRUUUUUUUUUNCH!}}

* [[Wanting Is Better Than Having]]: The two princes run on this trope. They obsess in the song "Agony" over the women they can't have, but once those are won they're immediately off pursuing a ''new'' set of seemingly unattainable women (with occasional dalliances on the side.) It's all capped off by this exchange, as Cinderella and her Prince break up:

'''Cinderella:''' "And I, the faraway prince." }}

* [[We Could Have Avoided All This]]: {{spoiler|When the characters try to [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|offer the Narrator]] to the Giantess as a sacrifice, the Narrator reminds them that the story would be lost if he was obliterated. Regardless of this, however, the Witch gives the Narrator to the Giantess anyway, and as soon as the Giantess sees that the Narrator isn't Jack, the Narrator is dropped from the Giantess' hand and killed. Possibly concerned of the subsequent events of the story without the Narrator, the Baker's Wife points out: "We might have thought of something else."}}

** Though a more or less justifiable example would be after the Witch lays a major [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|Reason You Suck Song]] on Cinderella, Jack, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Baker pointing out what their actions from Act I have gotten them into:

'''Baker:''' [[Hypocritical Humor|Yes, maybe you shouldn't have.]] }}

** It probably [[Force Feeding|died of]] [[I Ate What?|indigestion.]] Or got crushed when the giantess crushed Jack's house.

** {{spoiler|Rapunzel's twin babies.}}

** "Your Fault", meanwhile, is everyone calling everyone out for awhile, before deciding to throw all the blame on the Witch, who is definitely not blameless.

** "No More" opens with the Baker calling {{spoiler|his father}} out on his actions.

* [[When the Clock Strikes Twelve]]

* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: The Witch's [[Villainous Breakdown]] [[Crowning Music of Awesome]], "The Last Midnight".

* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: After the giantess attacks the characters return to the woods, confident in the grit and determination they acquired to achieve their happy endings in the first act. It's not going to be enough. It's not going to be anywhere near enough.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fairy Tale]]