Into the Woods.

Wednesday night the N-boy and I headed to the South Bend Civic Theater for their production of Into the Woods. Going to the Civic Theater was one of the items on my 2012 Summer Bucket List, and I was excited when I saw this show was part of their summer season.

I'd mentioned to him that I wanted to see this show a couple of weeks ago, and even went to far as to mark a tentative date on our calendar and then completely forgot about it. So it was a pleasant surprise when the N-boy told me on Tuesday that he'd remembered to call and get tickets for the Wednesday evening show.

I perhaps should have mentioned to him a littler earlier than when the house lights were going down that it was a musical. Oops. Luckily he'd caught onto that already and knew what he was in for.

Overall, the show was quite enjoyable. I'd seen it once before as a child, but didn't really remember much about it except that it was kind of a fractured fairy tale motif. The story is a weave of several traditional fairy tales: Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel. They're all tied together with another story about a baker and his wife who are unable to bear a child (a storyline that seemed similar to both Rapunzel and Rumplestiltsin).  My one objection to the show itself is that I wish it had ended with the first act. The first act ended with all of the stories wrapping up quite nicely, ending all of the stories in a nice traditional way. The second half, well it kinda lost me at some points. I didn't really enjoy the songs as much, especially those sung by the witch. It wasn't the actors, but just the whole second act that I wasn't a huge fan of.

The acting was pretty good for the most part. This is community theater, and the cast and crew are all volunteers from the community. One of my colleagues is frequently involved in performances at the theater so I know how much hard work goes into each show. My favorite actors were the two princes-they really seemed to embrace the roles and took them over the top without being obnoxious.

It also didn't hurt that one of them looks very much like Captain Mal from Firefly (Nathan Fillion). You can't go wrong with that.

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