<b>INTO THE WOODS</b> 4110 Bailey Avenue, Amherst/O'Connell & Company SpeakupWNY | Buffalo NY and Buffalo News

Through May 18
INTO THE WOODS 4110 Bailey Avenue/O�Connell & Company

By Augustine Warner

The forests of Germany have always been part of that national mythology and when the Brothers Grimm put together their anthologies of mysticism and fairy tales, the forests were there.
So, when James Lapine put together a book for a musical and turned to Stephen Sondheim for the music and lyrics, the show not only focused on the woods, but carried the name �Into the Woods.�
The story is built around old fairy tales: �Cinderella,� �Little Red Riding Hood� �Jack and the Beanstalk and �Rapunzel.�
Now, most of us are generally familiar with those stories and if Disney fans, the softened Hollywood versions.
As this marvelous O�Connell & Company production and the occasionally violent Grimm stories make clear, these are a little political, since the princes don�t do much to solve the problems while the citizens fight back, particularly women, and re-create peace and quiet in the forest.
The show begins with relatively minor problems: neglected daughter Cinderella (Sydney Conrad;, Baker (Nathan Andrew Miller) and Baker�s wife (Heather Casseri) trying to become parents; Little Red Riding Hood (Sam Crystal) heading into the woods to bring bread to Grandma (Mary Rappl Bellanti); and, Jack (Joe Greenan) and his mother (Sara Kovǎcsi), who have a cow who stopped giving milk and must be sold.
In the end, all must deal with a giant (Rappl Bellanti), here, a female giant.
Those stories are familiar, generally, although not often sewn together as Sondheim does here.
Everything spins around the enchanted baker and his wife and the Witch (Mary Coppola Gjurich) who blackmails them into dealing with her problems by promising to let them have a child.
That leads to the events and the violence and the music which tell the tale.
The show features Sondheim�s complicated and pointed music, �Agony,� �It Takes Two,� �Any Moment� and �No One is Alone.�
That means director and choreographer Terri Filips Vaughan needs strong voices, individually and as a group and she has that.
She also has strong dancing from the company, �Prologue: Into the Woods� and �So Happy.�
The key role is the Baker, with everything revolving around Miller�s character and that works here.
The show takes maximum advantage of the high vertical space used as the stage to showcase Kyler Sterner�s set design.
Timmy Goodman kicked in good costumes, including some masks like that worn, early on, by the Witch.
Filips Vaughan is a long-time local college teacher, used to working with younger performers like so many of those in this show.
It�s that fundamental quality, from Sondheim�s music through the Brothers Grimm and this strong cast to a production of �Into the Woods� which is a must-see show.