Now Signature Has Room to Roam in 'Woods'

By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 22, 2007

Leg room!

Anyone who sat through a Signature Theatre production in the cramped rows of its former garage-space headquarters knows how hard the experience could be on the back and knees. So it's a relief to report that the company's stylish, spacious new main stage -- being christened with a solidly entertaining revival of "Into the Woods" -- is as easy on the lower extremities as it is on the eyes.

Taking into account Signature's new physique, its towering ceilings, comfortable seats and lobby with the grand staircase, is imperative in a first review of the company in its new $16 million home amid the restaurant-and-cultural district known as the Village at Shirlington. The metamorphosis for the troupe is just that astonishing. More so, perhaps, than any other company in the region, the Signature of the past dozen years was its surroundings, the rawness of the garage being a pure expression of Signature's spartan aesthetic.

Change is often a good thing for a theater, especially a successful one. But it remains to be seen just how Signature's lungs will adapt to all this new breathing room. On the evidence of "Into the Woods," Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's mischievous musical re-stringing of the stories of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk, the company is now on a heady and technically challenging first arc of the learning curve.

The 1987 musical, with its urbane melodies and ironic tweaking of children's stories, is a festive -- if safe -- choice for the opening of the main stage, dubbed the Max. (A second theater, the Ark, opens later this month with "Crave," by the late British dramatist Sarah Kane.) Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer staged "Into the Woods" in the old space in 1994, and naturally and appropriately he wanted to step off into Signature's new age in the company of the composer who has most centrally defined his career.

The work, a witty exploration of that hopeful yet dangerous verb "to wish," resonates with a theater heading down uncharted paths. As Cinderella (a delightful Stephanie Waters in the evening's best performance) and the Baker (the soulful Daniel Cooney) sing on the cusp of their descent into the woods: "It may be all in vain, you know . . . but even so, I have to take the journey."

The journey in this case takes us through the thicket of both whimsical and realistic problems that bedevil a passel of fairy tale characters as they seek to have their wishes fulfilled, and then cope with the often disastrous results. Happy-ever-after, it seems, is always an illusion -- especially in a Sondheim musical.

Schaeffer stages "Into the Woods" on the bare floor of the Max, with a set by Robert Perdziola (who also designed the spiffy costumes) that introduces us to the flexible nature of the space. Like the old garage, it's a black box, but the vast dimensions give the production a scale unlike anything you've ever seen Signature do. The tower that imprisons Rapunzel (a satiny-voiced Erin Driscoll) shoots into the sky, and there's still plenty of sky above it. Even the balcony along all four sides of the box, which accommodates both a row of theatergoers and, in this case, a 15-piece orchestra, does not restrict the feeling of a space with few limits.

For the die-hard Signature audience, and certainly for the performers, this will take some getting used to. Acoustically, the Max needs tweaking, especially if Schaeffer is going to adhere to his policy of virtually no vocal amplification. Some voices in "Into the Woods" hold up perfectly well -- Donna Migliaccio, in fine form as Jack's mother, is crisply on the mark -- but some others get swallowed in the big box, despite the sensitive calibrations of conductor Jon Kalbfleisch. On Saturday's opening night, complaints about hearing difficulties were mentioned by people in various corners of the theater.

The production itself is a sprightly affair: more in the faithful vein, though, than the dazzlingly novel. Schaeffer tugs successfully on the show's emotional threads so that a bona fide warmth develops as the characters' pain and suffering become ever more desperate. To the familiar stories of Cinderella, Jack (a terrific Stephen Gregory Smith) and Little Red Riding Hood (a vibrant Lauren Williams), Sondheim and book writer Lapine add some of their own: most prominently, the tale of the Baker and his Wife (an excellent April Harr Blandin), who go into the woods in search of the magic ingredients for a spell that will allow them to bear a child.

The intermingling of storybook concerns and modern domestic issues makes of "Into the Woods" a turbulent gumbo: It's almost always fun, though the effort to impose psychological complexity on the characters sets the plot on some choppy courses. The abundant cleverness of Sondheim's songs, such as "Agony," a hilarious duet for the too-charming princes (the blissfully smug James Moye and Sean McLaughlin), saves the proceedings anytime they steer toward convolution.

Harry A. Winter proves a beneficial presence as the Narrator, who gets closer to the Giant -- in the voice (recorded for this production) of Angela Lansbury, no less -- than is good for him. Choreographer Karma Camp creates nifty tableaux whenever the assorted seekers converge in the woods. In the pivotal role of the Witch, however, Eleasha Gamble is more successful in projecting musicality than personality. The issue is one of seasoning: She seems too young to play a woman who must bear the death of a grown daughter and sing Sondheim's cautionary air "Children Will Listen." (One could easily imagine her as, for example, a first-rate Red Hiding Hood.)

It's great, though, on the whole for this director of big wishes to start his next phase on a musical one. Schaeffer's "Into the Woods" is a pleasing portal to possibility, to whatever else might be waiting down the road of his new magic kingdom.