When I first heard that Into the Woods was getting remade with an all-star cast, I thought "oh, good" because I had never watched the original all the way through and I had zero ties to it. I tried watching it a long time ago when I lived in California. My roommate at the time was huge into theater and dance so she sat me down and forced me to watch it on her laptop. That was not a great viewing medium and I wasn't terribly interested to begin with. I didn't even make it through Act I. But I'm an open-minded gal so I thought I'd give it another shot.
You know by now how my Netflix queue runs, so I don't have to justify why I didn't actually see the musical until four months after the remake came out. These things happen. Let's move on.
Filmed on Broadway after winning ten Tony awards, this production starred the original cast and follows the exact same plot.
A baker (Chip Zien) and his wife (Joanna Gleason) venture into the woods in order to lift a curse placed on them by the witch next door (Bernadette Peters). Along the way, they meet Red Riding Hood (Danielle Ferland), Jack (Ben Wright), and Cinderella (Kim Crosby), each of whom has an item the couple needs to lift the curse. Various complications ensue and are overcome, only to lead to further complications when life continues past "happily ever after".
Familiarity was definitely a boon in this case, as I was able to last the entire 2 hr 33 min running time. It's funny, this was about half an hour longer than the theatrical release, but the pacing was so much better it actually felt shorter. Plus, it added a reprise of the Princes' duet "Agony" and that was totally worth it.
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