Students present twisted fairy-tale musical
A week before the opening tonight (March 21) for the Haldane Drama production of Into the Woods, spontaneous applause erupted seven times during a four-hour rehearsal at the high school.
It takes musical dexterity to sing atonal songs that sometimes shift tempo midway through, but the actors pulled off the elaborate production with a joie de vivre that belied the play’s dark themes.
Cast and crew have worked for the debut since January. The longtime Haldane Drama director, Martha Mechalakos (“Ms. Mek”), holds everyone to high standards and claps out each beat as the action unfolds, offering sporadic diction advice and stage directions.
A Broadway hit in 1986, the play is a staple of high school performances in part because it can accommodate a large cast and there are good female roles, says Mechalakos.
The trippy mishmash of fairy tales has a somewhat grim ending that cautions storytellers to think about what “you say to your [children] in the night” because they “will listen.” Several characters die in the second act and the woods are filled with fright. The plot gets knotty but the musical can be fun to perform because it’s campy, there’s plenty of movement and the dialogue is challenging. Several scenes require players to exchange rapid-fire lines with precision. Even the sung-spoken part of narrator Lincoln Wayland sometimes requires him to deliver a firehose of prose.
The expansive, elaborate set includes Rapunzel’s tower and a tree from which characters pop out to deliver lines and disappear like whack-a-moles or jump onto the stage and keep talking (often it’s Louis Ferreira as Mysterious Man). Some scenes call for 30-plus actors to swirl around the stage.
Photos by Jim Mechalakos
An early showstopper, “The Witch’s Rap,” unfolds at a machine-gun clip and earned Louise Denehy the rehearsal’s first ovation. She received two more later. Playing the juiciest role helps, but Denehy has a strong stage presence and a sly comedic undertone that disarms any menace.
“I love the role’s complexity, and it’s so over the top,” she says. “The witch is selfish and wants to control everybody, but it all backfires and her daughter dies, so be careful what you wish for.”
Oliver Petkus, a senior playing his final role at Haldane, portrays The Baker. He’s headed to SUNY New Paltz to study jazz drums and is a “legend” in the theater program, according to Lucius Bell, who plays Jack, the beanstalk guy.
Spontaneous ovations followed Bell’s rendition of “Giants in the Sky,” “On the Steps of the Palace,” by Sophie Koch as Cinderella, and the duet “Agony,” performed by Owen Powers and James Llewellyn as the princes. Plum Severs plays up Rapunzel like a victim in a horror flick, screaming like a banshee when danger appears.
During downtime, cast members sat on the auditorium floor to finish homework or clustered in the stairwells to talk. Somehow, the constant clatter of the heavy doors opening and closing as the players head backstage and return to their books and computers never rattled anyone’s focus.
“We’re so locked in,” says Petkus. “We don’t even notice it.”
Haldane is located at 15 Craigside Drive in Cold Spring. Into the Woods will be performed at 7 p.m. today (March 21) and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $15 ($8 students and seniors) at dub.sh/woods-tickets, or at the door.
Stephen Sondheim’s music is not “atonal.” Nor is the plot “campy.” Please keep in mind that there are theatrical professionals living in the community who object to such inaccurate characterizations.
My wife and I attended Haldane Drama’s performance of Into the Woods on March 21 and were blown away by the quality of the performance (“Into the Woods with Haldane Drama,” March 21). We left deeply impressed that such a small school could put on such a great show. It was also a joy to see in the program how many community members came together to help build and paint the set, which was as first-rate as the acting.
The evening was a great testament to the quality of our community and school. Credit goes to the directors, Martha Mechalakos and Andrea McCue, who must be extraordinary people. To all those who missed this great performance, don’t miss the next one! No need to travel into the city. We have great theater right here.
Full disclosure: Our daughter Maria was a member of the stage crew. We are grateful she had this experience, which she will re-member for a lifetime.