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Good books, old friends

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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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Intended more specifically as a tribute to composer Richard Rodgers on his centennial, "In Praise of Melody, and Rodgers" also puts into words something most of us take for granted — the powerful effects music can have on us emotionally, mentally and physically.

Written by Rodgers' grandson Adam Guettel, a gifted composer in his own right whose work includes a haunting score for the 1996 off-Broadway hit "Floyd Collins," the essay convincingly argues that we can carry the memory of a song longer than any other sound.

Well, Guettel prudently admits, there might be just one "unimaginable exception": "I've never heard, firsthand, the sound of war, and those who have may remember it, phrase by phrase, forever."

Who could have guessed that just two days later the "unimaginable" would become all too real?

Where do we turn for comfort and morale bolstering as we step out into this strange new world, as we decide whether or not we are ever going to use an airplane again to get to a destination?

Our favorite melodies, of course. As Guettel said, "They are part of our tool kit. We use them for celebrating, or for crying more truly."

Some of the refrains that lodged themselves in my mind in the wake of the terrorist attacks are from the James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim musical "Into the Woods."

The winner of 1988 Tony Awards for best book of a musical, by Lapine, and for best score, by Sondheim, this at once wickedly funny and poignantly insightful retelling of traditional fairy tales first debuted on Broadway on Nov. 5, 1987.

The best way to experience any musical is to see and hear a live presentation of it. Such is its popularity that "Into the Woods" is regularly performed by theater companies around the world. There are plans to revive it on Broadway in 2002.

The next best way would be through an audio or video recording. The original cast recording available from RCA Victor is a true delight, featuring signature performances from Bernadette Peters and lesser known stagecraft specialists like Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien and Robert Westenberg.

The original production was also broadcast on PBS and subsequently released in video and direct video disc format.

For purposes of this column, you can also read the book. Theatre Communications Group released the stage play in 1989. That was preceded in 1988 by a children's picture book from Crow Publishers, adapted and illustrated by Hudson Talbott.

I could fill my own book if I were to share with you all the themes, symbols, metaphors and meanings that are revealed as a combination of familiar fairy tale figures and characters of the authors' own invention quest after their dearest wishes.

Instead, I will concentrate on one lesson from the second act: "wishes come true not free."

We have been introduced in the first act to a diverse assortment of protagonists with a variety of theories about what they need to achieve a state of perfect contentment. These include Cinderella and Rapunzel who each want a prince; Little Red Riding Hood who wants to get safely to "granny who is sick in bed"; and Jack of beanstalk fame who wants enough money to buy back the pet cow his mother made him sell.

There are also characters created specifically for the musical. They include an infertile baker and his wife who want a child, a witch with whom they must negotiate to get their wish and the ghost of the baker's father.

At the end of the first act, the protagonists celebrate their successes. They have faced the fears that had kept them from going after their dreams, they have gone into the woods, they have emerged triumphant
Journey over, all is mended,

And it's not just for today,

But tomorrow, and extended,

Ever after!

So they think.

The second act is an exploration of whether there really is such a thing as "happy ever after." It opens, appropriately enough, with a scene in which the entire cast is practically suffocating on its own collective happiness
We're so happy you're so happy!

Just as long as you stay happy,

We'll stay happy!

Then, suddenly, "BOOM CRUNCH!" The mother of the giant Jack slayed, when he was up in giant country stealing his current assets, wants vengeance. She will get it by stepping on anything and anybody in her path.

The baker's house and the witch's garden are the first casualties, prompting everyone to take another, this time unplanned, journey into the woods. Some are determined to destroy the giant before she destroys them. Others are simply running for cover.

The baker is frustrated and ambivalent
Into the woods,

It's always when

You think at last

You're through, and then

Into the woods you go again

To take another journey.

That ambivalence becomes anger and despair when his wife falls victim to the elusive giant's wrath, and he is left to raise his newborn child without her wisdom and guidance. He vents his rage by initiating a finger-pointing song in which each of the characters in turn blames each other for the wrack and ruin that has been wrought upon them.

The witch will not stand for this futile nonsense. She reminds them, as witches will, that they all share responsibility for what has happened
Have to get your wish,

Doesn't matter how

Anyway, it doesn't matter now.

Forced to acknowledge that "witches can be right," Cinderella, Jack and Little Red Ridinghood decide to cooperate in a plan to rid themselves of the giant once and for all. They ask the baker to help them, but his first inclination is to run away
No more giants,

Waging war

Can't we just pursue our lives

With our children and our wives?

Till that happier day arrives,

How do you ignore

All the witches,

All the curses,

All the wolves, all the lies,

The false hopes, the good-byes, the reverses,

All the wondering what even worse is

Still in store?

All the children

All the giants

No More.

After his father's ghost reminds him that running away will only create greater problems, the baker realizes that he must stay and help his friends. No, he does not want war with anyone. No, he does not want anyone else to die. But he has no choice other than to fight for his own and his child's survival.

Into the woods you go again,

You have to every now and then

Into the woods, no telling when,

Be ready for the journey.

It is not a journey to be taken lightly. It will have its own set of complicated consequences with which to be reckoned.

All you can do is have hope, the shaken but resolved cast instructs as the curtain drops on visions of happiness tempered by experience. There will always be wolves, there will always be spells, there will always be giants.

"Hard to see the light now, just don't let it go …"

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the children's librarian at the Genesee District Library's McFarlen Branch.

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