Into the Woods – Theatre du Chatelet, Paris

Into the Woods continues at Theatre du Chatelet until 12 April. Picture: Marie-Noelle Robert

Into the Woods continues at Theatre du Chatelet, Paris, until 12 April.

For a quarter of a century Parisians didn’t know Into the Woods from Babes in the Wood. Come to think of it, there are blank faces galore when you say “Into the Woods” in the UK too – but thanks to Chatelet supremo Jean-Luc Choplin’s ongoing love affair with the works of Stephen Sondheim, the French are warming to the great man’s genius.

Starting in 2010 with A Little Night Music and following up with Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park With George (with the touring West Side Story that later went to Sadler’s Wells thrown in for good measure), the Chatelet has been busy seducing a city with no previous tradition of Sondheim and the result has been encouragingly large audiences (this gorgeous 2,000-seater beside the Seine takes plenty of filling) and nightly standing ovations.

Of course, they’ve always known and loved West Side Story without realising they were Sondheim’s lyrics, although the French are not alone in that. But Into the Woods is a good deal more complicated than Story with its four classic fairytales interwoven with a contemporary couple, a baker and his wife, who would dearly love to start a family.

And at three hours ten minutes more demanding, particularly in a foreign language. With surtitles above the stage only having the space and time-span to give a flavour of Sondheim’s witty lyrics, it is a strange sensation hearing those fluent in English laughing first, with those relying on the translation joining in a second or two later.

All these shows are played in English with casts and creatives drawn chiefly from the world of opera rather than musical theatre and unsurprisingly this is a rather operatic treatment of James Lapine’s intricate ‘be careful what you wish for’ story.

Its structure is not dissimilar to Sunday insofar as Act I is the set-up, Act II the pay-off. Act I ends with ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ and the far-darker Act II tells us that life ‘in the woods’ very rarely works out how you imagined.

Out there along life’s path there are choices to be made with wicked giants, wolves and witches lurking to spoil every happy ending, ‘somewhere in the woods’ you sometimes have to lose those dearest to you, and that ‘whatever you tell them, children won’t listen’.

As with Sunday in the Park With George, the two acts could hardly be more different.

Once again Lee Blakeley, responsible for the three earlier Sondheims, directs with panache and MD David Charles Abell, his collaborator for Sweeney and Sunday, wields a mean baton, this time conducting the 29-piece Paris Chamber Orchestra.

No expense is spared with Alex Eales’ amazing set which boasts a revolving forest, seemingly containing more tall trees than the Bois de Boulogne, after opening with three tableaux side-by-side from which the three main storylines, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk, are introduced.

The lavishness of the decor, reminiscent of the recent My Fair Lady at the same theatre but even more extravagant considering this is only playing eight performances, must be the envy of many a West End theatre, but then they do not enjoy such government support.

Beverley Klein reprises the Witch she played at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio in 2007 and gives us a chilling ‘Last Midnight’, Christine Buffle, seen last year in Sunday, is a terrific Baker’s Wife, thoroughly relishing being ravished by Cinderella’s Prince, a hilarious Damian Thantrey (another Chatelet regular), Francesca Jackson’s Little Red Riding Hood eats well and sings lustily, and Pascal Charbonneau’s ‘Giants in the Sky’ is deservedly admired.

But this is an ensemble piece in which everyone has to be on his/her game and Canadian soprano Kimy McLaren is a winsome Cinderella, while the dependable Nicholas Garrett – seen in all previous Chatelet Sondheims as well as Carousel – never flags as the cuckolded and widowed Baker left holding the baby.

For musical theatre lovers fancying Paris in the spring (and who wouldn’t?), tickets are selling well but still available. Eurostar is faster than ever at well under three hours from St Pancras, and this spectacular, thought-provoking and cerebral Into the Woods will certainly reward the effort and expense.

Jeremy Chapman

www.chatelet-theatre.com/2013-2014