Act II brings us all back to reality

Musicals are such crazy things. There they are, the actors going through their stage lives as mandated by the script, when suddenly they burst into song. Often it is happy song, but not always. In the play “Oklahoma” the song “Pore Jud Is Daid” is pretty sad – at least for poor Jud.

The first musical I can recall as a kid was the movie version of “Sound of Music.” I think that my view of life has been warped ever since. “Mary Poppins” must have been the next. That was more to my taste as to what I hoped life would be.

I do love musicals, however. I’ve never seen a Broadway production, but I have seen some good road shows in Spokane, and I’ve gone home happy after every Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre play I have ever seen.

Somehow, though, I have managed to miss James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” My son has the CD, so I was aware that it was some sort of mixed-up fairy tale piece put to music. A happily ever after, in the Disney tradition, was what I envisioned.

Last weekend I went to a high school play. As you’ve no doubt surmised, it was “Into the Woods.” With my teen son practically living at the Lake City Playhouse for the past two years, I have seen my share of kid musicals. Some I have even seen a number of times, and some because I actually wanted to.

The Post Falls High School production of “Into the Woods” definitely fit into the latter category. The seats were awful and the auditorium cum lunch room lacked for decent acoustics, but the kids did great. Director Linda Fry, vocal drector John Kracht, and student director Ashley Peak did a fantastic job of pulling together an acting company of 24 teenagers for what must have been a strenuous task.

With 19 complicated musical numbers and 2 1/2 hours of singing and dialogue, creating the show must have been demanding. “Into the Woods” intertwines at least seven happily ever after fairy tales, three of which have been subjected to Disney’s animation, into an adult’s nightmare of everyday life. In the first act, you have 10 people all wishing for very different changes in their lives. The refrain “I wish, more than anything, I wish, …” runs throughout all the stories. And at the end of the complex of five stories running throughout five scenes, everyone does settle down to live happily ever after.

The play could have ended there. We would have all left our seats, grateful to be rid of them, but with the glow that accompanies fairy tales, multiplied by five, and done in an entertaining and satisfying way. I, for one, would have congratulated the kids and mentors on a job exceptionally done, gone home happy and never thought about the story again.

Ah, but there is Act II. And in Act II it’s immediately obvious that no one is happy in their ever after. At this point, “Into the Woods” goes beyond simply being a well-done high school production. It could, at this point, turn into the graduation speech for this year’s senior class.

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for – you might get it.” There are two prince/princess combos, and both princes turn out to be philanderers. The witch finds magic to have been preferable to beauty after all. The baker’s wife finds a child is not enough – now the house is too small. Jack and his mom find the cow and wealth, respectively, not enough.

In the end, no one is really happy. But all have learned some hard lessons, and all those still living – most have been squashed by a lady giant with big breasts that got a roar from the teens – go on to face the hard lives ahead. That’s about as real world as you can get.

In the undercurrent of the fast and clever songs, there was a lot about morality: small amounts of lying, cheating, stealing, deceptions of all kinds, all for the sake of the perceived goal of happiness. One song in particular, “Your Fault,” showed the web of small justifications that, put together, resulted in the end of the lives they had known before and that were to have made them happy, ever after.

Yes, great production, kids. The music was grand and the acting stellar. But I hope you really studied your lines. There will be a test in the morning. It’s called real life, and it has no happily ever afters, in the Disney sense at least.