Into The Woods - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by James Lapine

Directed by Jordan Fein

Gracie McGonigal

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, revived last year at the Bridge Theatre, now transfers across the river to take up a West End residency at the Noel Coward Theatre. The genius of this show lies in its ability to strike an intriguing and often comic balance between fairy-tale whimsy and unsettling moral consequence. Whether this humour stems from directorial interpretation or is rooted more deeply in James Lapine’s book is open to debate, but either way, the result is an evening that proves unexpectedly entertaining.

While the story’s concept remains ingenious and innovative, the show is not without some minor flaws. Its opening sets the tone for the rest of the piece, introducing all of the (classically familiar) characters in such a way as to heighten the excitement felt by the audience. However, with a running time of close to three hours, this level of excitement is a challenge to sustain, particularly within the first act.  Another small note is the end of scenes – when the music draws to a sudden stop, the performers strike a pose and the lighting changes to envelop them in the most dramatic manner. While at first, thrilling, the repetition of this style leads to a blunting of its impact.  

The production’s visuals however are flawless. With much of the action unfolding within the eponymous woods, Tom Scutt’s arboreal sets sees the trees loom vast and threatening in one moment, before transforming into something almost magical in the next. Alongside Aideen Malone’s lighting plots, the staging creates a constantly shifting landscape, one that feels alive and reactive to the story being told. Paired with the exquisite costumes (Scutt again, complemented by Sam Cox’s wig designs), the overall aesthetic is so refined that this production could almost be frozen in time and displayed at the National Gallery without raising an eyebrow. 

At the centre of this world stands Kate Fleetwood as the Witch - anchoring the production with formidable authority. Commanding and deeply watchful, her Witch is at once terrifying and sharply funny, effortlessly balancing menace with wit. Fleetwood navigates her character’s volatility with control. Vocally assured and emotionally precise, she captures the complexity of one of Sondheim’s most demanding roles. Laura Pitt-Pulford is beautifully cast as the Baker's Wife, capturing her character's poignant complexities with an assured combination of vocal power and sensitivity.

An exciting casting choice is Gracie McGonigal as Little Red Ridinghood. Fierce, fearless and deliciously chaotic, McGonigal proves herself the smartest possible choice for the role. Grabbing attention effortlessly and wielding a single glare with remarkable authority. As the song rightly states, “scary is exciting”, and McGonigal leans into this with relish, every line landing exactly where it should.

Taking charge of the show’s comedic aspects are Lucas Koch as Rapunzel’s Prince and Matthew Seadon-Young as Cinderella’s Prince/The Wolf. Every jest and head movement had its own precise purpose – making the audience relish in the absurdity of a Prince ‘taught to be charming, not sincere.’

Jordan Fein's production succeeds in capturing the complexity of this musical that makes it so enduring. Embracing both darkness and humour, yet allowing neither to overpower the other, this production is elevated by striking design choices and performers who clearly understand the material. Confident and visually rich, it serves as a timely reminder that fairy tales are rarely simple - and that when told with care and intelligence, they still have plenty to say.

Reviewed by Emma Kaabachi

Runs until 9th January 2027

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Broken Glass - Review

Young Vic, London

*

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Jordan Fein

Eli Gelb, Pearl Chanda and Alex Waldmann

Rarely is a production as muddled and disappointing as its underlying script as is to be found in Jordan Fein’s take on Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass.

Set in 1938 in New York's Brooklyn, Broken Glass is one of Miller's later plays. Through the dysfunctional marriage of Phillip and Sylvia Gellburg, the playwright seeks to explore his own interpretation of the American Jewish experience, set against a backdrop of the rise of antisemitism in Nazi Germany - the play’s title drawn from the infamous Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass of November 1938 that saw German synagogues torched across the country. 

Miller explores a very tenuous connection that sees Sylvia lose the use of her legs, ostensibly as a reaction to the persecution of German Jewry. That Sylvia’s concern for events in Europe is dismissed by her isolationist husband and friends is plausible - but by rendering her immobile because of what the Nazis are doing, Miller, through such crass sensationalising, weakens his argument that seeks to explore her sense of ideological loneliness. Add in to the play's storyline the facts that: 1. the Gellburgs’ marriage has been devoid of physical intimacy for 20 years and; 2. Sylvia’s physician (Dr Harry Hyman played by Alex Waldmann) is a man whose sense of professional ethics has deserted him in his sexual desire for his patient, and it becomes clear that the whole (one-act)  evening really is a mess. Coming from a writer who’s demonstrably capable of literary genius, Broken Glass has to represent the nadir of Miller’s creative arc.

Fein has a lot to answer for too. A detail of his set, he has the Gellburgs' marital bed strewn with newspapers. If the newspapers had been facsimiles of 1930s newsprint that would have been fair enough. But with the subtlety of a brick however, Fein has selected real recent British publications, all with blazing headlines that have been chosen to demonise the right-wing of Britain's contemporary political spectrum, Fein clearly not realising that this country's current antisemitic hatred is largely being stirred up by the Islamist-sympathising Left. Fein's casting choices are equally mismanaged, Eli Gelb and Pearl Chanda as the Gellburg couple appearing far too young to have raised a 20 year-old.

Disappointing theatre.

Runs until 18th April

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Barbican Theatre, London

****

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Raphael Papo

Jordan Fein’s revival of Fiddler On The Roof first seen at London’s Open Air Theatre last year, returns to the city’s Barbican Theatre before a nationwide tour to last the rest of the year. As Tevye and Golde, Adam Dannheiser and Lara Pulver remain in their leading roles with both having matured from 2024.

Dannheiser always commanded the essentials of a Tevye . A big, bearded, Bear Jew of a man devoted to both family and faith and convincing as he deploys both humour and perfectly pitched pathos in his wrestling with life’s challenges, Dannheiser’s performance is one of the evening’s delights.

Pulver has grown in the last 12 months. Her role is now fully formed and be it gossiping with Yente, nagging Tevye, or just being the all-caring matriarch to her family, hers is a great Golde. While Tevye gets most of the juicy singing numbers in the show, Pulver, who’s musical theatre credentials are impeccable, makes fine work of the duetting balladry gifted to her by Harnick and Bock. Natasha Jules Bernard steps up to the role of Tzeitel, with Georgia Bruce returning as Hodel and Hannah Bristow as the clarinet playing Chava continuing to give Tevye one of the toughest challenges that can face an orthodox Jew.

Fiddler On The Roof is a Broadway classic and this production’s details are a treat. Beverley Klein’s maturely considered Yente and Raphael Papo’s enchanting Fiddler are fabulous. Julia Cheng’s choreography excites, while Tom Scutt’s ingenious design has beautifully translated the shtetl of Anatevka from the elements of Regent’s Park to the conventions of traditional theatre.

This musical remains a story of hope interwoven with never-ending tragedy. The show is set in Tsarist Russia around the turn of the 20th century when state-sponsored antisemitism was the norm, and the dark clouds of the Holocaust that was to befall European Jewry hadn’t even begun to form. Playing out in 2025, as calls for the destruction of the Jewish state echo around the world, the United Nations spouts blood libels that are echoed by governments and the media and murderous Jew-hate is manifest from Washington DC to Colorado, it feels like little has changed. 

This is a beautiful production playing to a very ugly world.

Runs until 19th July, then on tour

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

***

Adam Dannheiser

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Much like the village of Anatevka itself, Jordan Fein’s production of Fiddler On The Roof is a microcosmic melting pot, not only of the marvellous but also of the mediocre. It gives a curious message that the show's producers have decided that its main publicity image promoting and celebrating the show, should be of Chava (played by Hannah Bristow), the one daughter of Tevye and Golde who deserts her Jewish heritage to marry outside the faith, rather than upholding 'tradition'. Notwithstanding this unusual bias, Fein’s interpretation has managed to retain the show’s cultural essence.

This is of course the first Fiddler On The Roof to play in London since the horrors of October 7 2023. The pogrom that befalls a community of dancing, celebrating Jews and which closes the first act, leaving Anatevka in flames, chills in its identical ideology of hatred that led to the massacre at Israel’s Nova Music Festival last year.

Hannah Bristow as Chava in the show's main publicity image

Fein makes gorgeous use of Raphael Papo as The Fiddler. His violinist serves as a musical interpretation of Tevye’s (Adam Dannheiser) Jewish conscience, and intriguingly is rarely offstage. This is a beautiful touch, for Jerry Bock’s melodies written for the Fiddler deserve the centre-stage attention given to them by Fein.

Dannheiser himself (last seen by this reviewer as an outstanding Lazar Wolf on Broadway) is an adequate Tevye. Vocally strong, but occasionally disconnected, particularly in his brief exchanges his God, that feel as though they are played more for laughs than for sincerity. Lara Pulver is Golde, in possibly the worst miscasting to have been seen in years. Pulver is one of the more gifted musical theatre performers of her generation but her Golde lacks a shtetl-based warmth. Clipped and reserved, she appears more Lucille Frank (her outstanding 2007 role of an Atlantan Jewish spouse subject to horrific antisemitism) rather than Tevye’s loyal wife of 25 years.  Vocally strong, but with barely any detectable acting through song, her Golde disappoints. Similarly Dan Wolff’s Motel fails to convince us of the sincerity of his love for Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel. The show however is in its early days and both of these flaws can yet be remedied by Fein.

Tom Scutt’s set is enchanting, a roofed canopy across much of the theatre’s stage, itself topped with fields of corn. It is a visual that works stunningly. Tevye’s Dream too is a comic delight that has been cleverly conceived. Upstage, Dan Turek’s 11-piece band are a delight. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s songs are timeless works of genius and for the most part, especially in the company numbers, are worth the price of the ticket.

Runs until 21st September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Oklahoma! - Review

Young Vic, London

*****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Based on the play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs

Directed by Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein

Patrick Vaill

In one of the most stunning interpretations of a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical to hit London in recent years, Daniel Fish’s interpretation of Oklahoma! crosses the Atlantic to open at the Young Vic. Fish developed his take on the show as a student production for Bard College in 2015. Three years later the show was to play Off-Broadway at New York’s St Ann’s Warehouse, before reaching Broadway in 2019 where it picked up eight Tony nominations with two wins including Best Musical Revival. Fish is accompanied at the helm by fellow director Jordan Fein.

Oklahoma! may hail from the Golden Age of Broadway but Fish’s vision is lean, simplistic and stripped back. Played almost in the round on a stage of bare timber, plywood and trestle tables, the only scenic enhancements are a sketched out backdrop of prairie farmland, with racks of rifles mounted high around the remaining the remaining three sides of the thrust performance space. Terese Wadden’s costumes are simple cowboy-chic with Levis de-rigeur for most, ranch chaps prevalent for the men and an array of purty frocks for the women as the scenes demand.

Amidst this simplicity of staging, the production has to stand solely on the strengths of its actors – and the troupe assembled here are amongst the finest musical theatre companies in town. Arthur Darvill and Anoushka Lucas lead as the hesitant lovers Curly and Laurey. Both are immaculate in their roles, with many of Curly’s numbers down sized to Darvill singing accompanied only by his own solo guitar playing. Powerful lighting plots wash some of the verses in The Surrey With The Fringe On Top and People Will Say We’re In Love into impassioned love scenes, never previously contemplated mid-number. It’s a bold move by the directors and lighting designer Scott Zielinski that is strikingly effective. There is boldness too in Daniel Kluger’s orchestrations of Richard Rodgers’ score that the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation have shrewdly seen fit to approve and which allows Musical Director Tom Brady to see his 9-piece band having more guitars than violins. With the musicians on stage, the new orchestrations give a powerfully Western twang added to the original, that only enhances the evening.

Arthur Darvill and Anoushka Lucas

The musical magic of this production however lies not just in its leads, nor in its creative enhancements, but in the extraordinary talent assembled around them in the featured roles and here follows a roll-call of excellence.

Lisa Sadovy as Aunt Eller is everything her character should be – and then some more. Fish and Fein play fast and loose with the show’s structure and where we may have expected the first act to conclude with Laurey’s Dream Ballet, itself preceded by a soprano chorus singing Out Of My Dreams, it is Aunt Eller who here kicks off the second act of the show with that number, before the ballet gets underway. It’s an innovative shake-up of the show that works. And in mentioning the ballet, a note of massive praise to Marie-Astrid Mence who mesmerizingly dances the solo work.

Next up on this roll-call is Marisha Wallace as Ado Annie Carnes. Wallace is simply sensational. For sure, Ado Annie provides welcome moments of comic relief in the narrative but Wallace immerses herself in the woman to provide a portrayal of her character that is more fleshed out than the typical two-dimensional comic-book portrayals of Ado Annie, so often seen in the past. Not only is Wallace’s acting out of this world, her vocals take the Young Vic’s roof off too. One to watch for next year’s Olivier nominations.

Ranking alongside Wallace in talent and impact are two actors who have travelled with the show from Broadway. James Davis’ Will Parker is again a thoughtfully presented delivery of a comedy classic. Davis’ hapless bungling, matched only by his character's  blinkered love for Ado Annie is simply a delight to watch.

Patrick Vaill has also crossed the pond with the show, with an even more intriguing pedigree connecting him to the production. His involvement incredibly dates back to 2015 when he was a student at Bard, creating this iteration of Jud Fry for Fish. Vaill’s Jud is extraordinary, taking this most complex of the canon’s villains and imbuing him with an unexpected tender sympathy. We find Jud to be “othered” by the community around him, culminating in his shocking death and while Jud clearly has a monstrous past, Vaill creates an intriguing, credible, complexity to the man, that has to be seen to be believed. Vocally magnificent too, Vaill’s turn leaves a deep and troubling imprint on the audience. A combination of contrasting light, blackout and video projections add an equally ingenious twist to the interaction between Curly and Jud.

Stavros Demetraki is a delight as pedlar Ali Hakim. His is a simple role to play in the narrative, oiling the story’s comedic wheels. Like all good comedy however, the role demands perfection in its timing and delivery and Demetraki hits his marks with pinpoint accuracy.

Another casting gem sees a grizzled Greg Hicks playing gnarled farmer Andrew Carnes, administering what Quentin Tarantino might have called 'frontier justice' in the show’s finale. It’s a troubling moment for the audience to reflect on, but Hicks delivers it with his hallmark first-class standards.

Producers Sonia Friedman and Michael Harrison have shrewdly backed this production, so one can only hope for its deserved West End transfer. Until then, at the Young Vic, Oklahoma! remains unmissable.

Runs until 25th June 2022

Photo credit: Marc Brenner