Comparing James Lapine And Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods

The book by James Lapine and the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Into the Woods greatly compare and contrast with one another. I love how both elements drive along the story and keep it moving forward. Lets look at the first scene for example. We have a narrator overlapping with the music and speaking parts of the characters. It catches the audiences attention and leads to smooth transitions.The music intertwines the fairtale plots that are originally written by the Brothers Grimm, but James Lapine incorporates their plots for Into the Woods into a musical adaptation that makes sense and explores themes surrounding each characters choices, desires, and the resulting consequences. Without the storyline being rewritten the music and lyrics wouldn't make sense.

I feel like character is the most important element in this play because it is through the characters we understand the message fully of this story. Each character represents life struggles and the consequences of trying to get what we want. Into the woods can be seen as a metaphor for life and the deeper we get into it, the harder decisions become, the more enemies we potentially can make, and the sacrifices our decisions cause. It is easy to see that literary and musical components nicely compliment each other in this play. The music becomes more intense at the right times, the music during scenes where a character is telling a story of what they learned is incorporated nicely. An example of what I am talking about is seen in Little Red Riding Hoods, “I Know Things Now”. She sings it with her light hearted innocence, but as she gets to the parts in her song where she describes the more macabre lessons she has learned, the music gets more minor, but then she comes back to her light heartless by the end of the song. Absolutely