WISHING FOR MORE

It seems like there’s always a production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods running nearby. Last weekend, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa opened its production, just a week before Morgan-Wixson in Santa Monica opens theirs, so diehard fans in Greater Los Angeles have the unusual opportunity to see two completely different productions in a single weekend. SCR has the resources and talent, but their offering is strictly for those who value singing above all else.

If you managed to reach 2026 without encountering Into the Woods (congrats, it’s still fresh to you!), here’s a quick recap. Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden, Cinderella (Mia Pinero), a sad young lad, Jack (Christian Tyler Dorey), and a childless Baker and his Wife (Dylan Saunders and Danielle Hope), all wishing, respectively, to go to the festival, for the cow to give milk, and to have a child. Little Red Riding Hood (Hailey Truong) stops by for some bread, and the Witch from next door (Valerie Perri), with ulterior motives, sends the couple on a quest to make a potion that will give them a child. That’s all within the first ten minutes of what is a breathtaking mashup of fairy tales we all know. Unlike fairy tales, though, these characters have to deal with the consequences of their morally dubious actions, taking the story into cynical and dark territory that is not suitable for young children.

Adam Koch’s scenic design sets expectations high, filling the stage with a carousel, implying that we are going to be treated to a rotating set. Alas, it’s stationary; only a narrow circular treadmill further upstage rotates. The three main stories are represented by carts that are easy to ignore and visually overwhelmed even by a single actor in front of them. There is little in the way of trees, but a curtain of fabric strips serves as “the woods” and is used for one amazing bit of staging, then neglected thereafter. There’s no tree for Cinderella, or tower for Rapunzel (Becca Claire Hart), just a second-story platform. Cinderella later gets to mourn at a real stump, so there’s that, I guess.

Costumes by Danielle Nieves, at first, seem to go along with the carnival theme, dressing the Narrator (Chamblee Ferguson) as a barker. I expected to see a collection of freaks and novelties appropriate for a carnival, but that’s about it. The rest of the characters wear fairly standard costumes I’ve come to expect, if uniformly drab and muted. Instead of Cinderella’s gown falling down from her tree, as written, Pinero does a half-hearted twirl while pulling a drawstring, revealing the gray-and-urine-colored dress, which still looks like rags; in no world should Cinderella’s Stepmother (Amanda Naughton) be better dressed than her at the ball. The princes’ uniforms are also distinctly ugly and ill-fitting. The Wolf (Michael Deni) is made up as a biker dude, but, as much as a sucker as I am for fur, having “Big Bad” in red on the back of his jacket is unnecessarily literal. Weirdest of all, the supporting characters change into their underwear whenever there’s a reprise of the title tune. However, Nieves’ costume for the Witch, an earthy, floor-length coat covered with fungi, greens, and roots, is inspired.

Peter Rothstein directs without a sense of comedy or magic. Line readings are flat and naturalistic. There is a sweet spot between milking every little thing for a laugh and relying on the words alone to deliver comedy; this production too often chooses the latter. Magic is almost entirely outsourced to Greg Emetaz’s projections, covering the Witch’s attacks on the Baker and Wife, Cinderella’s birds, the entire scene at Granny’s cottage, and the magic beans, among others. I go to theater to be captivated by things actually happening in front of me. Video in theater these days seems to be filling in for set design, not complementing it.

Further directorial missteps include literally stopping the show whenever a character dies, which also introduces a contradiction when Jack discovers a certain dead body, and the addition of an expletive late in the first act. Even though Into the Woods is for adults, part of its charm is its lack of profanity.

Lighting by Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz is generally upstaged by the video and unremarkable. That is, until “No One Is Alone.” More than any other, this song leaves me a wreck, but when Pinero sings it, practically modeling the Pietà, Alcaraz bathes her in the heavenly light of wisdom, underlining the song by way of sledgehammer.

Singing is the main strength of this production and is uniformly strong. It’s not often that Into the Woods gets a cast where everyone, including Jack’s Mother (Katy Tang), can hit all the notes. The problem is, the actors “just” sing. These characters work through serious issues, arguing and thinking out loud about right and wrong, nice being different than good, and really wrestling with them. That, as with all of Sondheim, takes acting and interpretation, which are lacking overall. Dorey, with a physical stature that suits Jack just right, is the sole exception. He imbues Jack with individuality, personality, and thoughtful character-based behavior that could have made this production soar, even with a muddy directorial concept.

Music director Wiley DeWeese leads an ensemble of eight from the keyboard (standard orchestration calls for 15), somewhere backstage. He conducts briskly without allowing much rubato, resulting in actors rushing, eliding words, and taking breaths so as to chop up sentences. The voices are beautiful, but since they lack personality from one character to the next, they all tend to sound the same (the unnecessary amplification gives the show a mono effect).

There is no choreography to speak of. When we reach the finale and all our pent-up energy is about to be relieved in one last, glorious reprise of “Into the Woods,” the actors walk. Not skip, prance, or whatever. Walk.

South Coast Rep’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was one of the best things I’ve seen this year, filled with terrific acting, all without microphones. Based on the strength of that alone, I was looking forward to this. Newcomers to Into the Woods will be rightfully gobsmacked by the witty, melodic intelligence of Sondheim and the ingenious, humorous fairy-tale mash-up of Lapine’s book. Thankfully, those still retain the magic we look for in the theater.

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photos by Scott Smeltzer

Into the Woods
South Coast Repertory
Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa
Sept. 12–Oct. 18, 2026
for tickets ($40–$138), call 714.708.5555 or visit South Coast Repertory

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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