Any Sondheim musical with as much to offer as Into the Woods must be approached with a certain degree of gratitude and reverence, even when the full experience falls short of our high expectations. In Woods, Sondheim and librettist James Lapine are working on a level, musically and intellectually, higher than most of us can grasp, and when they hit the mark - either thematically with the piece's meditations on loss and the bonds between two people, or musically with such songs as "No One is Alone" and the delightful "Agony" -- the results are transporting. But there's also no getting around that some of the score plods, the plotting, however clever, is overstuffed and convoluted; and the spate of deaths in act two is handled carelessly (we really should miss the Baker's wife more than we do).
Castwise, Laura Benanti's a captivating Cinderella, and Gregg Edelman and Christopher Sieber make princely wolves (and drolly wolvish princes). We make our tightest emotional connection to Stephen DeRosa's Baker, while Vanessa Williams' Witch is strongest in song. John McMartin's fey narrator slightly outstays his welcome; Marylouise Burke is, alas, over her head singing the tricky lines given to Jack's Mother. And yeah, the cow's adorable. Overall a worthy journey through the woods, though the thickets can be frustrating.
