As a kid raised on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, I cultivated an early appreciation for the whimsy of “Fractured Fairy Tales,” “Peabody's Improbable History,” and “Dudley Do-Right.” The episodes offered chaotic magic, a dog who could always set things to right, and a dashing Mountie who always saved his beautiful Nell. Predictable and tropey? Yes. But the stories held a sense of rightness that echoed the beautiful words, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”[1]
Unfortunately, my fairy godmother has not appeared, I haven’t found a time machine in my closet, and my husband has never once dramatically untied me from the railroad tracks. The world we live in looks very different from the one we dream about. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine tackled this conundrum in their hit musical, Into the Woods, compiling many beloved fairy tales, including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood, into a story of happily ever after gone wrong. Into the Woods addresses the disillusionment of fractured dreams and the hope for a way forward.
“Happily Ever After” Falls Apart
Into the Woods[2] begins on the theme “I wish.” The baker and his wife wish for a child, Cinderella wishes to go to the festival, Jack wishes his cow will give milk so he won’t have to sell it, and on and on the list goes, everyone wishing for something and heading into the woods to find it. But as we find so often in literature, the woods hold danger and wildness. The characters do what it takes to get their wishes, but when act 2 comes, they begin to see their wishes and actions have consequences. After marrying Cinderella, the prince continues to pursue other women, explaining, “I was raised to be charming, not sincere” (127). Jack climbs the beanstalk, stealing from a giant to prove himself, killing the giant in the process, and summoning a giantess bent on retribution. And the baker and his wife weave through all of these stories, stealing and lying, determined to break the spell of infertility on their family. As the story progresses, “I wish” causes more and more damage to everyone involved, echoing the lyric “Wishes come true, not free” (136).
Something Is Rotten
Into the Woods presents the gut-wrenching, shattering experience of disillusionment. We experience an overwhelming sense that things ought to be different, that we deserve a better future. When the bereaved giantess descends to demand justice, the edges of right and wrong look fuzzy. The witch wants to hand the boy over to the giant in the name of justice, while the rest of the characters revolt at the thought.
The witch addresses their shallowness, singing, “You're so nice./You're not good/You're not bad/You're just nice./I'm not good/I'm not nice/I'm just right” (121). As the witch declares a standard of justice and the giantess seeks reparation, right and wrong turn upside down. This sense of disillusionment pervades the second act, and everything feels unstable when “witches can be right [and] giants can be good” (131). How do we react when the “bad guys” turn into truth tellers and even victims? And where does that leave the “good guys”? The witch calls them “liars and thieves” (121), and even the “good” actions of the characters, like trying to protect Jack from the giant, are questionable.
When Jack’s mother angers the giantess, a cowardly steward kills her and Jack swears to have vengeance on the man—despite his own role in provoking both giants’ wrath in the first place. Anger begets anger, self-righteousness begets martyrish retribution, and each decision sheds more blood. The characters of this fairytale-gone-wrong find themselves in a catastrophic cycle. Hurt leads to hurt, and pain to the creation of more pain, until they perpetuate their own destruction. Lost in their own discontent they do not realize the havoc they wreak on others. And so the cycle continues, while innocent giants decompose and Prince Charming seduces another woman.
We see this dilemma played out on the stage of our own lives, too. The systematic collapse of our best intentions leaves us lost and confused There seems no place to turn when the virtue we thought would save us only embroils the chaos of our lives further. Where has our happy ending gone?
The broken chaos Sondheim and Lapine present demands a restructured societal narrative. Chinua Achebe famously said, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”[3] The witch calls out the sins done in the name of self, singing, “Told a little lie/Stole a little gold/Broke a little vow/Did you?/Had to get your Prince/Had to get your cow/Have to get your wish/Doesn't matter how” (120). In these accusations, the fairy tale world of one-sided narration turns on its head, forcing the darkness that hides under “nice”ness and “tradition” into the light.
The Way Forward
But here, in the darkest moments, Into the Woods offers a glimmer of hope. Throughout the story, the witch serves as both an antagonist and a voice of reason. As she says, she is not good, but she is often right. Even though she acts with callous disregard for others, she often sees circumstances with more clarity than the others. The narrator, too, who has stolen, cheated, abandoned, and catalyzed abusive cycles, provides an outside view of the unreliable narratives each character presents. Lapine said, “What interested Steve and me was that the most unpleasant person would have the truest things to say and that the nicer people would be less honest.”[4] Into the Woods proclaims the need for truth–even from a source we may find distasteful–and the power of truth no matter what corner it comes from.
Into the Woods also presents an alternative to the violent, abusive cycles that drive the story—confession and forgiveness. After a cacophonic musical number titled “Your Fault” where accusations fly, the witch casts the blame on the company as a whole. “You’re all liars and thieves/Like his father/Like his son will be, too—/Oh, why bother?/You’ll just do what you do” (121). She vanishes, leaving the company to ponder their guilt.
JACK: Maybe I shouldn’t have stolen from the giant…
LITTLE RED RIDINGHOOD: Maybe I shouldn’t have strayed from the path…
CINDERELLA: Maybe I shouldn’t have attended the Ball… (122)
These characters take the first steps toward a different future, but the baker, caught in a generational cycle of avoiding guilt, chooses to keep passing the blame. He says, “Yes. Maybe you shouldn’t have” (122), and leaves the other characters—including his infant son—to fend for themselves.
When the baker runs away from his son, his father confronts him with a confession, saying, “I ran away from my guilt. And now, aren’t you making the same mistake?... Trouble is, son/the farther you run/the more you feel undefined/for what you have left undone” (123–124). They meet in a moment of mutual confession of their failures and the ways they impact others.
[BAKER’S FATHER]: We disappoint/we leave a mess/We die, but we don’t…
BAKER: We disappoint/In turn, I guess/Forget, though, we won’t…
BOTH: Like father, like son. (124)
The baker faces a decision: to keep running from his legacy or accept his wounds and keep on loving anyway. And in a moment of breathtaking confession and forgiveness, he declares, “No more” (125). Despite “All the wondering what even worse is/still in store” (125) he chooses to break the cycle of suffering in his family and return to father his son. In breaking the cycles of abuse, we find a path forward to a different future.
Sondheim said, “For Jim Lapine, the second act is very much about the legacy of what our parents teach us and how, even if we've rebelled against them, we hand that down to our children. For me, it isn't just parents and children, but everybody who teaches or who is an artist. 'No One Is Alone' is about how we are all interconnected.”[5] Sondheim affirms that artists, too, have a say in the cycles we perpetuate or choose to break.
In this way, Into the Woods also calls us to social awareness and compassion. Sondheim explained, “All fairy tales are parables about steps to maturity. . . . The final step is when you become responsible for the people around you, when you feel connected to the rest of the world.”[6] When Jack declares his plan to kill the steward for the death of Jack’s mother, Cinderella and the Baker caution him, “You decide alone, but you are not alone” (129).
BOTH: People make mistakes
BAKER: Fathers
CINDDERELLA: Mothers
BOTH: People make mistakes/Holding to their own/Thinking they’re alone…
Cinderella: Everybody makes—
BOTH:--one another’s/Terrible mistakes./Witches can be right/Giants can be good./You decide what’s right/You decide what’s good.
CINDERELLA: Just remember:
BAKER: Just remember:
BOTH: Someone is on your side
JACK, LITTLE RED RIDINGHOOD: Our side
BOTH: Our side—/someone else is not./ While we’re seeing our side…/Maybe we forgot:/They are not alone/No one is alone. (131–132)
A voice above the chaos, Sondheim and Lapine speak out. You must make your own decisions, but be careful. No one acts alone, and your decisions do not affect you only. Actions create cycles and right and wrong aren’t always what—or who—they seem. When reality disabuses us of our happy endings, Into the Woods proposes we look elsewhere. It does not give us concrete answers; instead, it guides us back to community—back to us. Whatever the answers are, they lie somewhere in the chasms we have built between us.
[1] All Shall Be Well: A Modern-Language Version of the Revelation of Julian of Norwich. United States: Anamchara Books, 2011. Page 11.
[2] Sondheim, Stephen, and James Lapine. Into the Woods. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2006.
[3] Emenyo̲nu, Ernest. Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe. United Kingdom: Africa World Press, 2004. Page 146.
[4] Holden, Stephen. “A Fairy-Tale Musical Grows Up,” November 1, 1987. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/01/theater/a-fairy-tale-musical-grows-up.html.
[5] Holden, “A Fairy-Tale Musical Grows Up.”
[6] Holden, “A Fairy-Tale Musical Grows Up.”
Callie Johnson works as Editorial Assistant at Kelli Sallman Writing and Editing with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts and Creative Writing from Calvary University. She previously interned with Kelli for two years, working as proofreader and copyeditor on several manuscripts. Her strange obsessions include kerning, East Coker, and the sound of cows chewing.