Review: 'Into the Woods' by Kokandy Productions at Chopin Theatre
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Published November 4, 2024
www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/04/review-into-the-woods-by-kokandy-productions-is-a-magical-sondheim-adventure/
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 'Into the Woods' by Kokandy Productions is a magical Sondheim adventure - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune 11/4/24
"For the last couple of years I've watched Derek Van Barham, a fast-rising directing talent in Chicago-style musicals, do his capable, innovative thing with second-tier material in the basement of Wicker Park's Chopin Theatre, a magical, sacred theater space among those of us with a long memory.
Finally, and not before time, he's decided to work on a masterpiece and the results are thrilling indeed.
The show in question is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's "Into the Woods," a show that hardly needs much further introduction here. Superficially, it's a droll mash-up of fairy tales like "Cinderella," "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Little Red Riding Hood." For anyone willing to look closer, it's a show about parenting and being parented, surviving both loss and betrayal and a meditation on the importance of taking risks, especially when it comes to falling in love.
Every time I review "Into the Woods" (and there was just a Broadway revival and national tour, not to mention a big Paramount Theatre production in Aurora last year), I think of an old advertisement the Marriott Theatre used to take out in a local publication to benefit Season of Concern, then an AIDS-related charity. All it contained was a quote from one of the lyrics: "Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood. ... But no one is alone." Indeed not, although it sure can feel that way at times.
I could go on and on in that realm, of course. This review is being written by a guy with Milky White the cow in eyeshot on his bookshelf.
Such fandom for a piece is dangerous for a critic; one is more apt to obsess about what falls short. But in this case, Van Barham and his musical director, Nick Sula, have come up with a fabulous way to root their basement show: two grand pianos in the center of the playing space, with two women, Ariana Miles and Evelyn Ryan, tinkling the keys, doing folly-like experiments with the physical pianos and, frankly, becoming the mutual stars of the show. Audience members are seated around the pianos, some theater-style, some at tables, all illuminated by a low ceiling's worth of twinkling lights, courtesy of designer G. Max Maxin IV, who built this rich and organic environment.
As far as I know, Sula and the pianists re-orchestrated Sondheim's score this way themselves: I certainly have never seen "Into the Woods" scored for two pianos. And despite wracking my brain, I also can't remember seeing a musical in Chicago where what is the traditional exit music (played as the audience leaves the theater) becomes the final number. The cast members simply take their bows and then surround the pianos as the pianists finish their job - to great roars of approval on the night I was there. Only thereafter do the doors open.
That huge reaction came, I think, because of how emotionally invested these two musicians appear in the show itself, feeling and living the bones of the score and also willing on the actors, including (on the night I was there) understudy Jackson Mikkelsen, whose Jack was profoundly moving. I felt much the same way about Madison Kauffmanâ€TMs Cinderella (Kauffman reminds me of Christine Sherrill, now a Broadway actor), Kevin Webb's The Baker ("No More" is superbly done) and Sonia Goldberg's The Baker's Wife. I think Stephanie Stockstill, who has a major voice, needs to dial it back and simplify her work a tad as The Witch. But that's a minor quibble. This very young cast of 12 (the doubling is very clever) also includes witty work from August Forman as the narrator and the sparking Anna Seibert as Little Red.
This isn't a concert-style staging and nor is it a copy of the Broadway revival; it's quite different. But it's still a very intimate experience that comes with a full appreciation of how the stakes in a good "Into the Woods" have to be life and death. We all know our giants in the sky and all worry about them.
Happily, and a rarity in this town, the run is long. You have time. As they say in the show, "the difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure."
Highly Recommended - Tangled fairy tale: Kokandy's Into the Woods captures the musical's thorny dilemmas - Emily McClanathan, Chicago Reader 10/30/24
I'm admittedly biased as a pianist, but as soon as I saw two grand pianos center stage in the Chopin Studio Theatre, I immediately felt that Into the Woods was in good hands with Kokandy Productions. But then, I was never in much doubt. Kokandy's 2022 production of Sweeney Todd was a triumph, and I was excited to see what the same director and choreographer, Derek Van Barham, would do with another Stephen Sondheim musical.
Happily, I can now report that Barham and company have done it again: this production beautifully captures the magic of Sondheim and James Lapine's tangled fairy tale and the thorny moral dilemmas of a community in peril. It's a mighty ensemble effort, with more doubling of roles than usual, seamless scene changes, and a level of detail that made me wish I could take in more than one viewing. Even before the show begins, as actors mill about the stage and chat with each other, the whole experience feels like neighbors coming together to tell, or retell, a cherished story.
What's more, the music is literally front and center, as it should be with Sondheim. Ariana Miles, Evelyn Ryan, and music director Nick Sula have orchestrated a two-piano version of the score, performed onstage by Miles and Ryan with dexterity and poise. The pianists even become part of the story as characters interact with them throughout the show.
In a moment of national anxiety, I can't think of a better blend of escapism and meaningful reflection than this dark fairy tale. Does everything work out fine in the end? "Not always," says the Baker (Kevin Webb). But take heart: no one is alone"
