Into the Woods (Original Broadway Cast)

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video
Fractured fairy tales of a darker hue provide the remarkable context for Into the Woods, which deconstructs the Brothers Grimm by way of Rod Serling. While the faces and names are familiar, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and company inhabit a sylvan neighborhood in which witches and bakers are next-door neighbors, handsome princes from once-parallel fables are competitive (and equally vain) brothers, and all the stories intersect through unexpected new plot twists.
Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning score favors intricate ensemble numbers that present the characters' divergent, then overlapping fears and desires. And it's the latter category that provides a primary thread to James Lapine's ingenious puzzle of a book, which coheres around the inevitability--and treachery--of our innermost wishes. That theme is given farcical energy in the first act, which offers enough comic invention, tart dialogue, and witty music for a satisfying evening of theater as is.
Instead, Sondheim and Lapine offer a bold, darker second act that takes a look at what happens after "happily ever after," elevating the work beyond inspired parody toward allegorical gravity. By the final scenes, with the one-two punch of the score's two most enduring songs, "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen," what began as a clever diversion has touched deeper nerves and primed some tear ducts. This video production by the original Broadway cast gets its marquee shimmer from Bernadette Peters's wonderful witch, but the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.
The DVD version is comparatively no-frills, given its American Playhouse origins, but multiformat digital audio renders the musical performances in immaculate detail. --Sam Sutherland
Amazon.com
Fractured fairy tales of a darker hue provide the remarkable context for Into the Woods, which deconstructs the Brothers Grimm by way of Rod Serling. While the faces and names are familiar, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and company inhabit a sylvan neighborhood in which witches and bakers are next-door neighbors, handsome princes from once-parallel fables are competitive (and equally vain) brothers, and all the stories intersect through unexpected new plot twists.
Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning score favors intricate ensemble numbers that present the characters' divergent, then overlapping fears and desires. And it's the latter category that provides a primary thread to James Lapine's ingenious puzzle of a book, which coheres around the inevitability--and treachery--of our innermost wishes. That theme is given farcical energy in the first act, which offers enough comic invention, tart dialogue, and witty music for a satisfying evening of theater as is.
Instead, Sondheim and Lapine offer a bold, darker second act that takes a look at what happens after "happily ever after," elevating the work beyond inspired parody toward allegorical gravity. By the final scenes, with the one-two punch of the score's two most enduring songs, "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen," what began as a clever diversion has touched deeper nerves and primed some tear ducts. This video production by the original Broadway cast gets its marquee shimmer from Bernadette Peters's wonderful witch, but the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.
The DVD version is comparatively no-frills, given its American Playhouse origins, but multiformat digital audio renders the musical performances in immaculate detail. --Sam Sutherland
Description
A baker and his wife journey into the woods in search of a cow, a red cape, a pair of golden slippers and some magic beans to lift a curse that has kept them childless. Tony Award winners Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason and the rest of the original Broadway cast weave their magic spell over you in Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, directed by James Lapine, a seamless fusion of fairy tale characters and what happens after "happily ever after. "With oft-recorded songs such as "Children Will Listen" and "No One is Alone," "Into the Woods" is a music lover's delight from start to finish--and will forever cement Stephen Sondheim's unparalleled position as the giant of the American musical theater.
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Into the Woods (Original Broadway Cast)
Starring: Bernadette Peters , Chip Zien , Joanna Gleason , Tom Aldredge , and Robert Westenberg Director: James Lapine Manufacturer: Image Entertainment ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B00001PE59 Release Date: 1997-08-27 |
Amazon.com essential video
Fractured fairy tales of a darker hue provide the remarkable context for Into the Woods, which deconstructs the Brothers Grimm by way of Rod Serling. While the faces and names are familiar, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and company inhabit a sylvan neighborhood in which witches and bakers are next-door neighbors, handsome princes from once-parallel fables are competitive (and equally vain) brothers, and all the stories intersect through unexpected new plot twists.Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning score favors intricate ensemble numbers that present the characters' divergent, then overlapping fears and desires. And it's the latter category that provides a primary thread to James Lapine's ingenious puzzle of a book, which coheres around the inevitability--and treachery--of our innermost wishes. That theme is given farcical energy in the first act, which offers enough comic invention, tart dialogue, and witty music for a satisfying evening of theater as is.
Instead, Sondheim and Lapine offer a bold, darker second act that takes a look at what happens after "happily ever after," elevating the work beyond inspired parody toward allegorical gravity. By the final scenes, with the one-two punch of the score's two most enduring songs, "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen," what began as a clever diversion has touched deeper nerves and primed some tear ducts. This video production by the original Broadway cast gets its marquee shimmer from Bernadette Peters's wonderful witch, but the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.
The DVD version is comparatively no-frills, given its American Playhouse origins, but multiformat digital audio renders the musical performances in immaculate detail. --Sam Sutherland
Amazon.com
Fractured fairy tales of a darker hue provide the remarkable context for Into the Woods, which deconstructs the Brothers Grimm by way of Rod Serling. While the faces and names are familiar, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and company inhabit a sylvan neighborhood in which witches and bakers are next-door neighbors, handsome princes from once-parallel fables are competitive (and equally vain) brothers, and all the stories intersect through unexpected new plot twists.Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning score favors intricate ensemble numbers that present the characters' divergent, then overlapping fears and desires. And it's the latter category that provides a primary thread to James Lapine's ingenious puzzle of a book, which coheres around the inevitability--and treachery--of our innermost wishes. That theme is given farcical energy in the first act, which offers enough comic invention, tart dialogue, and witty music for a satisfying evening of theater as is.
Instead, Sondheim and Lapine offer a bold, darker second act that takes a look at what happens after "happily ever after," elevating the work beyond inspired parody toward allegorical gravity. By the final scenes, with the one-two punch of the score's two most enduring songs, "No One Is Alone" and "Children Will Listen," what began as a clever diversion has touched deeper nerves and primed some tear ducts. This video production by the original Broadway cast gets its marquee shimmer from Bernadette Peters's wonderful witch, but the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.
The DVD version is comparatively no-frills, given its American Playhouse origins, but multiformat digital audio renders the musical performances in immaculate detail. --Sam Sutherland
Description
A baker and his wife journey into the woods in search of a cow, a red cape, a pair of golden slippers and some magic beans to lift a curse that has kept them childless. Tony Award winners Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason and the rest of the original Broadway cast weave their magic spell over you in Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, directed by James Lapine, a seamless fusion of fairy tale characters and what happens after "happily ever after. "With oft-recorded songs such as "Children Will Listen" and "No One is Alone," "Into the Woods" is a music lover's delight from start to finish--and will forever cement Stephen Sondheim's unparalleled position as the giant of the American musical theater.
Average customer rating: |
Don't Go Into the Woods...Alone!
Starring: Jack McClelland , Mary Gail Artz , James P. Hayden , Angie Brown , and Ken Carter (II) Director: James Bryan Manufacturer: Code Red ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000BRBAGU Release Date: 2006-10-10 |
Description
Four backpackers decide to take a hike in the mountains of Utah. But within the woods lurks a killer. But who...or what...is it? The lazy local sheriff blames bears. But the escalating body count seems to point to a human killer. Ignoring the warning signs, our campers remain lost in the woods...alone...awaiting their fate.
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The Stephen Sondheim Collection (Into the Woods / Sunday in the Park with George / Follies in Concert / Passion / Sweeney Todd in Concert / A Celebration at Carnegie Hall)
Starring: Bernadette Peters , Chip Zien , Joanna Gleason , Tom Aldredge , and Robert Westenberg Director: James Lapine , Terry Hughes , and Michael Houldey Manufacturer: Image Entertainment ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B0000AKY5I Release Date: 2003-09-23 |
Amazon.com
The six-disc Stephen Sondheim DVD Collection is pure Broadway gold, encompassing three original Broadway cast performances and three all-star concerts celebrating the work of musical theater's most important composer over the last half of the 20th century. Into the Woods is Sondheim's most popular show, an amalgam of fractured fairy tales and what happens after "happily ever after." Bernadette Peters heads the cast, joined by Tony winner Joanna Gleason and Chip Zein. Sunday in the Park with George was Sondheim's immediately preceding work, also a collaboration with writer-director James Lapine and also starring Bernadette Peters. She plays Dot, the mistress of brilliant French pointillist painter Georges Seurat (Mandy Patinkin), in a powerful work about the nature of art and the artist that gains substantially when you can see the staging elements. The third Broadway cast performance is Passion, which was shot on stage though not before a live audience. It's a story of obsessive love in which the romance between Giorgio (Jere Shea) and Clara (Marin Mazzie) is disrupted by a strange woman named Signora Fosca (Tony winner Donna Murphy).Sweeney Todd is generally considered Sondheim's best work, and it's well performed by Patti LuPone and George Hearn (reprising his role as the demonic barber almost 20 years after he played it opposite Angela Lansbury in a 1982 video recording). Follies in Concert was an attempt to right a wrong created by a truncated original cast recording, so it's ironic that roughly half the program is backstage material combined with only 47 minutes of concert footage. There are some brilliant moments, though, from such performers as Barbara Cook, Hearn, Patinkin, and Lee Remick. A Celebration at Carnegie Hall is another all-star cast performance of both Broadway stars and operatic voices peppered with comedy from Bill Irwin. Highlights include the ensemble numbers, Daisy Egan's "Broadway Baby," and Patrick Cassidy and Victor Garber's "The Ballad of Booth," which is about as close as you'll get to an original cast performance of Assassins. All in all, this invaluable set preserves and celebrates an important body of work that may never again be documented this well. --David Horiuchi
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Maria Ozawa Naked Venus
ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
Product Features:
ASIN: B000G2TSVE |
Product Description
Japanese Model Maria Ozawa fills us with the sweetness of her innocent looks, but scorches us with her sexuality...
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Into the Woods
Starring: Bernadette Peters , Chip Zien , Joanna Gleason , Tom Aldredge , and Robert Westenberg Director: James Lapine ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD ASIN: B000051YIB |
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Into the Woods [Region 2]
Starring: Bernadette Peters , Chip Zien , Joanna Gleason , Tom Aldredge , and Robert Westenberg Director: James Lapine ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD ASIN: B000050HN9 |
DVD:
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