“Into the Woods” at the Bridge Theatre – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The London UK Theatre Review: Bridge Theatre’s Into the Woods

by Ross

“I wish.” And they have a way of coming true at Christmas time, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes in ways that surprise you. Sitting down at the Bridge Theatre for Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s fairy-tale meditation on desire and consequence, felt like the fulfilment of a long-held hope. Wishing is the musical’s opening refrain, and it also happens to be the reason this London holiday was planned at all. After the Bridge’s electrifying Guys and Dolls, we arrived hoping for that same theatrical sense of discovery and surprise. While this revival never quite climbs as high up Sondheim’s beanstalk as either that Frank Loesser production or the recent Broadway triumph, it remains a thoroughly spellbinding, visually lush, and frequently exhilarating encounter with one of my most beloved musicals. “I wish,” indeed.

Directed with an occasionally lopsided confidence by Jordan Fein (Ars Nova’s Rags Parkland Sings…), this Into the Woods tries hard to balance reverence and freshness with considerable confidence. The set and costume design by Tom Scutt (Donmar’s Belleville) conjures up, like magic, a deep green forest of shifting textures and shadowed depth, beautifully supported by Aideen Malone’s atmospheric lighting and Adam Fisher’s immersive sound. The result is a space that opens up alive with story and intrigue, one that constantly rearranges itself to accommodate Grimm’s tangled wooden pathways. The production leans into theatrical density, sometimes a bit too tightly, but there is no denying its visual imagination or its commitment to storytelling clarity. Mark Aspinall’s musical supervision keeps Sondheim’s intricate score buoyant and precise, allowing the ensemble to navigate its rapid-fire wit and emotional pivots with assurance. And for those qualities, we can feel that our wish has been granted, but maybe not fully.

There is, at the heart of the evening, a run of performances that fully anchors the wonder of the woods. Kate Fleetwood (Almeida’s Medea) as the Witch is magnificent, vocally soaring, and dramatically adventurous and precise. She magically discovers flavours and emotional colours that feel both fresh and deeply rooted in the role’s contradictions. Her authority in Act One is intoxicating, though her Act Two final demise feels oddly underpowered after such a commanding journey. (Did the trap door malfunction? My friend asked, as she walked her way off stage, rather than evaporate like most of the witches before her.)

Jamie Parker’s Baker offers a solid mixture of warmth, humour, and aching humanity, particularly in his beautifully shaped “No More.” Parker (Donmar’s Next to Normal) lands it with genuine emotional weight even when more spoken than sung. Opposite him, as the Baker’s Wife, Katie Brayben (Almeida/Broadway’s Tammy Faye) is a standout, bringing unexpected grit, intelligence, and an appealing roughness that redefines the role. Her performance, especially standing face to face with Cinderella’s Prince (a strong Oliver Savile) in the woods, teems with angles and attitudes I’ve rarely seen explored so fully, elevating each scene with lived-in complexity. Julie Jupp (Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol) as Jack’s Mother matches that vitality with Jo Foster’s fascinating turn as Jack, while Michael Gould (West End’s Oedipus) as Narrator/Mysterious Man, neatly dressed and deliciously awkward, adds both attempted charm and unease, grounding the meta-theatrical frame with whimsy and wit.

There is real delight, too, in the smaller pleasures. Jack and his puppet cow are playful and endearing, as we watch the cow tossed about like a ragged teddy bear. The two Princes (Savile and Rhys Whitfield) swagger effectively, and the ensemble work hums with energy. Yet for all its polish, the production sometimes opts for safety where risk would be more rewarding. Some performances, most notably Little Red Riding Hood (Gracie McGonigal) and Cinderella (Chumisa Dornford-May), remain far too rooted in surface interpretation. Though sung beautifully, the deep sexual tension and psychological awakening embedded in the lyrics are largely bypassed, smoothing out what is usually one of the musical’s most daring pleasures. The pacing, often brisk to a fault, contributes to this flattening, favouring energetic entertainment over the slow burn of internal introspection and discovery.

That sense of haste also affects moments meant to disturb. Shadow projections for Cinderella’s birds and the Giant generally function, but rarely astonish, and the cottage scene involving Little Red and her grandmother lacks visceral impact. We are informed of horror rather than made to feel it, missing an opportunity to let fear truly seep into the room. Still, these shortcomings do little to dull the overall pleasure of the evening. Fein’s Into the Woods may choose warmth over danger and familiarity over surprise, but it does so with confidence, beauty, and heart. As a Christmas present return to Sondheim’s forest, the revival offers a rich, generous experience, one where wishes don’t always come true in the ways we expect, but there’s still magic to be found in the journey there, Into the Woods.