State Opera South Australia. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 22 Aug 2026
There is something particularly fitting about State Opera South Australia's (SOSA) choice of Into the Woods for its Jubilee Season. Dane Lamb, Artistic Director of SOSA, introduced the production by celebrating a cast of Australian performers who have grown up, trained or now live in Adelaide. It is a welcome showcase of local talent, brought together on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre in one of musical theatre's most demanding scores.
Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods is a deceptively demanding musical. Beneath its familiar fairy-tale characters and irresistible melodies lies a work about desire, consequence, loss and the uncomfortable realisation that happily ever after is rarely the end of the story. SOSA's production, directed by Constantine Costi with associate director Shannon Burns, assembles a technically accomplished cast and an excellent Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (ASO), yet for all its considerable musical strengths, this production doesn’t quite make the journey from fairy tale to human drama.
There is much to admire. Anthony Hunt conducts the ASO with impressive clarity and energy, and the cast handles Sondheim's famously intricate vocal writing with assurance. There are no weak links technically. Jessica Dean brings an appealing emotional intelligence to Cinderella, finding the person beneath the fairy-tale character. Rosie Hosking gives The Witch the powerhouse treatment the role demands, while Hugh Sheridan and Johanna Allen make a convincing and warmly matched Baker and Baker's Wife.
Nicholas Cannon and Andrew Crispe make a wonderfully entertaining pair of Princes, their chemistry and comic timing matched by stunning duets. Eleanor Brasted and Michaela Burger bring an immediate lift whenever Lucinda and Florinda appear, while Jessica Mills's vocal trills as Rapunzel are immaculate. Joey Haenen gives Jack plenty of comic energy, while Catherine Campbell is vocally assured as Jack's Mother. Nicholas Lester carries the dual roles of Narrator and Mysterious Man with authority.
Eliza Brill Reed's Little Red Riding Hood, Mark Oates's Cinderella's Father, Millicent Brake's Snow White, Gianna Guttilla's Sleeping Beauty, Rod Schultz's Steward and Cherie Boogaart's Stepmother, Granny and Giant complete a solid, vocally accomplished ensemble.
The comic performances are excellent on their own terms. It is, however, the production's success with comedy that ultimately creates one of its greatest difficulties.
The characters are frequently played with broad, heightened comic characterisation; Jack’s foolishness is overemphasised, the Steward and Stepmother/Granny are deployed largely for comic relief, and the Princes revel in their absurdity. These choices are entirely defensible within the first act, where the production frequently finds the humour in Sondheim and Lapine's fairy-tale constructions. But cumulatively, they begin to erode the emotional connection the second act requires.
Everyone can sing. Everyone can execute Sondheim's extraordinarily difficult material. The orchestra is excellent. The cast can deliver the comedy. But Into the Woods eventually asks us to stop watching fairy-tale characters and start caring about human beings.
This is particularly problematic because the second act deliberately abandons the security of the fairy tale. The characters have got what they wanted, and now they must deal with the consequences. It is darker, more reflective and considerably less forgiving. Yet the emotional weight of these developments struggles to register because the production has spent so much time establishing its characters as comic constructions. The result is a curious distance: technically impressive performances without ultimately giving us emotionally compelling characters.
There is another challenge, and this one belongs to the work itself. Into the Woods is long. Very long. Sondheim's dense, recitative-like writing demands considerable concentration, and the production's commitment to the original material brings the evening close to three hours including interval. Dramatically, the first half feels so complete that the second has a considerable mountain to climb to maintain momentum, and three hours of Sondheim's densely verbal writing can become numbing when the production does not continually renew its visual and emotional energy.
Jonathon Oxlade's set is a fascinating example of this tension. Two opposing revolves are used with great ingenuity, carrying performers into and out of scenes and giving the production an impressive fluidity. Functionally, it is superb. A cluster of towering, childlike tree cut-outs establishes the woods, but the aesthetic is less convincing. The deliberately simplified forest never quite matches the sophistication of the staging mechanism, and the repetition of the device eventually contributes to a sense of sameness. Jamie Mensforth's sound design and Bernie Tan-Hayes's lighting are both effectively executed.
A few of the production's more playful visual choices, including performers appearing as an oversized golden egg and harp and the unconventional dolls used for Rapunzel's babies, provide moments of whimsy but feel more like opportunities for an easy laugh than additions to the storytelling.
The technical execution was impressive, although opening night was not without its blemishes. The ASO occasionally overwhelmed the singers, making Sondheim's complex lyrics difficult to follow, and there were a few instances where microphones were activated fractionally too late. A projection intended to create the Giant's eye on a suspended circular disc failed during the first Giant sequence, leaving the disc initially perplexing; when the projection worked for the Giant's second entrance, the visual idea became considerably clearer.
This is a production of considerable technical accomplishment that might benefit from a little editing and a deeper emotional excavation. The performers are unquestionably capable. The musicianship is excellent. The staging is often clever. And there are genuine moments of theatrical pleasure.
But Into the Woods ultimately asks more of its performers than technical mastery. It asks us to believe that these people have lived, loved, wanted, lost and changed.
The musical demands that the laughter eventually give way to consequence. This production finds the laughter with ease. It is the consequence that never quite lands with the same force.
Paul Rodda
When: 22 to 29 Aug
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: premier.ticketek.com.au
