(2 of 3)
The show's first image is a curtain imprinted with pages from three fables about magical keys to happiness: Cinderella, which in this interpretation concerns the illusory promises of perfect love; Jack and the Beanstalk, in which Sondheim and Lapine see a quest for the fool's gold of material conquest; and an invented tale called The Baker and His Wife, about a couple who long to escape the curse of childlessness inflicted by the "witch next door." Inasmuch as the holy grails that will lift the witch's spell are Jack's beloved white cow, Little Red Ridinghood's crimson cape, Rapunzel's yellow hair and Cinderella's golden slipper, by the end of the first act the fairy-tale figures have bonded into a community and sing and dance about living happily ever after.
But they don't. The widow of a giant slain by Jack shows up to exact revenge and drives everyone back into the woods (mystical and eerie in Tony Straiges' design, spellbound in Richard Nelson's storybook-colored lighting). The threat she poses has been likened by some critics to nuclear war or AIDS; the rampant selfishness that soon erupts in the face of trouble is, the producers admit, meant as a subtle protest against the self-congratulatory individualism of the Reagan era. But with or without allusive implications, the story jolts its passive characters -- and spectators -- into a world where every action has its moral consequences. The royal family proves unheroic and useless in a crisis. Neighborliness among the peasants turns to mistrust in a brilliant song of mutual finger pointing, Your Fault. Several characters die brutally in the grasp of the giantess or at the hands of panicky fellow citizens. Yet what comes out of this chaos is not the jollity of happy endings but a deeper reassurance, born of tolerance and community and shared sacrifice, articulated in the haunting ballad No One Is Alone -- a song as tuneful and touching as Sondheim's Send in the Clowns, but deeper and richer in meaning.
To outward appearances, the surviving characters are alone. Vague, pixilated Jack (Ben Wright) no longer has his nudging mother (Barbara Bryne). Tough and fearless Ridinghood (Danielle Ferland) no longer has either her granny or her sexually seductive wolf (Robert Westenberg, who doubles brilliantly as the prince to Kim Crosby's klutzy, endearingly otherworldly Cinderella). The sweet little baker (Chip Zien) has lost his wife (Joanna Gleason, in the most beguiling performance of a superb cast). Even the witch (Bernadette Peters) has stormed off in rage at the collective dithering. But in the aftermath of havoc, households re-form, and life, better understood now, goes on.