Into the Woods review – Terry Gilliam’s rollicking take on Sondheim’s ‘fairytale collision’

‘Irrestistible in its doubleness’ … Lauren Conroy as Red Riding Hood and Nathanael Campbell as Wolf in Into The Woods. Photograph: Marc Brenner

What makes this Stephen Sondheim musical of colliding fairytales so irresistible is its doubleness: playful, quirky and fun, it is also a profound exploration of parental anxiety and loss. First we laugh at its wisecracks and wit, then we feel for its lost folkloric icons.

Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausman’s atmospheric production does not quite manage to pull us into the musical’s mournful depths but it entertains enough and excels in its aesthetics of dark, dreamlike otherworldliness as Cinderella (Audrey Brisson), Red Ridinghood (Lauren Conroy), Jack of the Beanstalk (Barney Wilkinson), Rapunzel (Maria Conneely) and of course the Baker (Rhashan Stone) and his wife (Alex Young) career and rollick in the thick of the woods.