Into the Woods review: What happens after happily ever after

INTO THE WOODS ★★★½
Glasshouse Theatre, until November 21; Empire Theatre, Toowoomba, December 3-4

Once considered cold and cerebral, Stephen Sondheim’s work has only grown in stature in the past decade, and many now consider him the Shakespeare of musical theatre, with all the rewards and challenges that might imply.

Into the Woods, which opened on Broadway in 1987, is his masterpiece among the late-period collaborations with James Lapine, after the giddy heights of 1970s offerings like A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd.

Essentially a fairytale mash-up, it brings together Little Red Riding Hood (Carla Beard), Cinderella (Nina Korbe), Jack, of beanstalk fame (Tom Oliver), Rapunzel (Irena Lysiuk), and a childless baker and his wife (Justin Smith and Amy Lehpamer).

The show’s famous 15-minute opening number introduces all these characters and the intersecting needs impelling them into the nearby forest. (Elizabeth Gadsby and Charles Davis have designed this liminal space as a labyrinth of towering, shaggy green pillars.)

Little Red wants to transport baked goods to grandmother’s house – if she can master her own appetites that are both depleting the basket and making the attentions of a leering wolf (Darcy Brown) strangely irresistible.

Disparate strands quickly snap into focus with the arrival of Ali McGregor’s witch: a Nosferatu with black feathers and nasty claws, cutting through the mayhem with the clarity of a lightning bolt.

“You wish to have the curse reversed?/I’ll need a certain potion first,” is one of those famous couplets McGregor gleefully wraps her mouth around, setting the plot in motion.

According to Broadway lore, the witch was originally a supporting player, beefed up after Bernadette Peters was cast. McGregor, too, is star material, both in her prickly diatribes and when she reveals herself as the anxious surrogate parent to Rapunzel in the moving duet Stay With Me.

The two handsome princes (Brown and Marcus Corowa) arrive like ring-ins from Gilbert and Sullivan for that crowd-pleaser about sexual frustration, Agony.

The show famously divides into halves, the first resolving everyone’s problems in the manner of happily-ever-after, and the second exploring the unexpected consequences of getting all the gold, love and progeny you ever longed for. Indeed, school productions often dispense with act two altogether.

But life has a pesky way of moving forward. Romance sours, mistakes haunt us, children don’t listen, and yesterday’s golden geese give way to today’s vengeful giants.

Opera Queensland has joined forces with Queensland Theatre for this lavish staging that is a welcome holiday dessert to both of their 2026 seasons. OQ chief executive Patrick Nolan directs with some breathtaking theatrical touches – witness the heavenly descent of Cinderella’s tulle ballgown, to land miraculously upon star soprano Korbe (The Drover’s Wife: The Opera).

The cast were in good voice on opening night, but comic timing was not on point for all players: many of the more delicious lines did not land, and some motivations remained murky. Sondheim’s thorny sophistication demands absolute clarity.

That said, in a world where franchise musicals force local performers to adopt American accents, it’s wonderful to hear everything sung in our local twang. When it doesn’t get lost in the reeds, this is a musical journey into dark places well worth taking.

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