Into The Beanstalk

Into the Woods (1987) links several familiar family fairy tale stories, crossing them over with one new story which is what glues the whole musical together, instead of having separate fairy tales on their own. ‘The new story endeavours to carry those tales into an adult realm without stripping their archetypal characters of their (initially) child-based sensibilities.’(Knapp, 2009) An audience ember however may wonder when the shows ‘once upon a time’ basis will soon enough be compromised by its adult themes. Three stories are what initiate the action, one is Cinderella, another Jack and the Beanstalk and the last one being the authors invention. A story about The Baker and his Wife who live next door to the Witch, the couple find themselves
the Witch, Cinderella’s Stepmother and her Prince, most of these relationships are more often parent-child relationships. The characters situations in one fairy tale share features or are included somehow in another fairy tale, each story nevertheless complete and self-sufficient. However, The Baker and his Wife never interfere with the stories that the items belong to, although they look like they are going to, they never do so. The Baker plays out pre-existing roles in two of the other stories i.e. rescuing Red from the Wolf and buying Jack’s cow for five magic beans. Naturally an individual fairy tale is clear demonstrations of cause and effect ‘presenting actions and their consequences within a closed system in which those consequences will last “ever after’ (Knapp,2009) What is most important is the way the show undermines the conventional fairy tale story by showing the audience how different real life is from this fantasy life in these insular far-off