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Reviews WELL
WORTH VENTURING INTO GOOD’S WACKY ‘WOODS’ The Good Theater has pulled out all stops to create a production that’s pure magic. All who walk through the door are instantly transfixed by Janet Montgomery’s set. It’s not overly technical, but it’s stunning. A beautifully rendered backdrop of the forest gives the set a whimsical look, with soft colors and blurred lines reminding that life isn’t cut and dry, or black and white. Seventeen cast members guide the audience into the woods. Each is perfectly chosen for the role. "Into the Woods" is a thoroughly entertaining journey that is packed with wonderful songs, fun characters and unexpected plot twists. LOVELY,
DARK & DEEP GOOD THEATER ENTERS THE WOODS Although its premise is delightfully, sharply simple, from a technical standpoint Into the Woods is no walk through the larches. But Good Theater is by now well known for its unparalleled virtuosity, and this production is no exception: Under the direction of Allen... this cast carries off seemingly effortless executions of the script and score’s intimidating demands, which include some stupefyingly quick timing in vocals and blocking. Good Theater’s gifted actors are also impeccably cast and gorgeously costumed. This production has a remarkable feel of unity among its actors; every single character is fully, dazzlingly inhabited - from the angular yearnings and uncertainties of Bate’s and Means’s baker couple, to Broyles’s subtly hilarious, dim-witted Jack. Fourteen-year-old Haley Bennett, as Red Ridinghood, is impressively sharp and savvy around her character’s more sardonic edges, and Cinderella’s step-trinity (Karen Stickney, Kristen Thomas, and Jessica Peck) is a shrill flurry of finery and righteousness. A few deserve special mention: McLeod’s Rapunzel and Caufield’s Cinderella are absolutely dulcet, and Bate also has an unusually warm and expressive voice. And in the plum role of the Witch - by turns comic, Mae-Westy, and wracked with yearning - Amy Roche is magnificent, her performance a sly and decadent delight that’s now a cackly staccato, now filled with lusty bravado, and finally slows to something cool, minor, and dark. The woods that these characters enter and confront are appropriately bewitching, too. Designed by Janet Montgomery, the set layers leafy corridors several wings deep, trails the wilderness out in foliage beyond the thrust of the stage, and, in the backdrop, suggests richly dappled branches and fronds, light and shadow. As the colors of the forest change, the intrepid characters of our nursery hours must navigate the ever-changing tempers of both the elements and their own desires. That journey, we suspect - funny, wild, wrenching - will continue long after everyone’s made it out of the woods. Cast & Crew Directed
by Brian P. Allen
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