The Musical Moral of Into The Woods

this video is brought to you by viewers like you okay so here's the thing i love into the woods and i guess i had to substantiate that somehow so here we are but i appreciate that it's not everybody's favorite and even if you do like it it might have been a while since you last sat so just so everyone's on the same page here let's briefly go over what happens in this show so it opens and we have like 17 and a half fairy tales all happening at the same time cinderella wants to have a night out on the town and try her hand at maybe getting lucky there's jack who wants his bovine best friend milky white to be able to produce some milk otherwise his mother's gonna force him to sell her but the cow isn't able to cut it and jack's mother makes him go through the woods in order to get to the next village over to sell the cow then there's little red riding hood who wants to deliver bread to her granny in the woods and finally arguably the central characters of the show the baker and his wife who want to have a kid but can't and why is that well fertility is a complicated subject i'm just kidding it's because the witch next door put a curse on the baker's family after the baker's dad stole some beans from the witch's garden duh because in retaliation the witch cursed the baker's family so he can't have kids and she stole the baker's older sister who turns out to be rapunzel and has no idea about any of this because of course and if the baker wants to reverse the curse then the witch tells him that he'll have to go out and get four items namely cinderella's slipper jack's cow little red riding hood's little red riding hood and rapunzel's hair some shenanigans happen long story short cinderella goes to the ball falls in love with the prince jack climbs the bean stock and becomes rich by coming back with treasures from the land of the giants and chops down the beanstalk which also ends up killing the giant in the process rapunzel runs away with her own prince and has babies after fixing her prince's eyesight by crying into his face that actually happens as he approached rapunzel overjoyed is seeing him fell into his arms weeping two of her tears wetted his eyes and the touch restored his vision and the baker and his wife are successful and lo and behold the baker's wife is pregnant and the witch is young and beautiful again but all at the cost of her powers end of act one act two opens with everyone singing about how their happily ever after isn't actually so happily ever after they're like fairy tale hungover or something cinderella doesn't like being stuck in the castle all day and jack and his mother are loaded now but jack misses the land of the giants and his mother is still really overprotective the baker and his wife now don't have enough room because of the baby and now want and or need a bigger house and all this complaining is just in time for the giant's wife to come along and start crushing the village to avenge her husband's death her husband was the giant that jack killed when he chopped down the beanstalk and this is where things go buck wild all the stories completely intersect and characters start dying the cast breaks the fourth wall and sacrifices the narrator to try and appease the giant's wife who wants to kill jack as an act of retribution big mistake there must always be an outside observer to pass the story along some of us don't like the way you've been telling it jack's mom is killed by one of the princess stewards for trying to defend her son against the giant the giant's wife briefly leaves trampling and killing rapunzel in the process then everyone splits up the baker's wife has an affair with cinderella's prince in the middle of the woods right before singing about how she felt about all of it and is then immediately squashed by the new giant little red riding hood's mother and grandmother both get killed by the new giant along with both of their houses being destroyed the witch throws away the beans and gets her powers back but vanishes like literally just leaves the show because she's fed up with like actually put a pin in that cause we're gonna get to it and then cinderella the baker little red and jack all start literally pointing fingers at each other trying to figure out whose fault this all is the baker ends up running off only to find his long-lost father in the woods who he actually discovered was his father in the first act but he also died at the end of the first act so technically this is a kind of spirit and he convinces the baker to confront the giant with the remaining characters and together the four remaining characters and the baby come up with a plan and end up killing the new giant but by that time the village and the castle are already destroyed but now they're a family sort of and they get to rebuild together so yay the end it's a wild ride i know but where things start to get frustrating is how this musical is received this is a good musical that is an objective statement and i will not be taking questions at this time the subjectivity of art does not exist and after several years on the internet i have simply lost the ability to process irony and satire okay but really the show's great and it's frustrating that it isn't more popular and there's unfortunately a really good explanation for it see what happened was when it first came out into the woods was nominated for a total of 11 tonys because like i said it's a good musical and people like it but it only won three of them that's because into the woods went to the 1988 tonys and they had to compete with phantom of the opera that had already been out on the west end for two years and it completely overshadowed into the woods spotlight basically into the woods lost all those other tonys that it was nominated for too phantomed but what gets even worse is how it was adapted into a film in 2014 so i know that i kind of had the reputation for being the guy that screams and tears into musical movies but honestly i don't really think there's anything i'm gonna be able to say about that film that snug boy didn't already see in his video on the subject i'll link to this video in the description below but even so in an awkward way when it comes to explaining how and why into the woods works it actually might be easier to explain why the film didn't work something i really want to emphasize about the film what i consider to be a big problem if not the big problem with the film is that a lot like this video it's just not funny into the woods is a funny show it is packed with gags this show has my favorite joke from any broadway show in all of history because of the way you treated me i'll never never be happy i was just trying to be a good mother now this isn't just some oh make them laugh kind of situation the humor is kind of the whole point of the show and for some reason they decided to play a lot of the jokes straight in the film she restored his vision a warm environment might be just what milky white needs to produce his milk it's a she how many times must i tell you only cheese can give milk i thought if even us on warmth he might produce some milk it's a she how many times do i have to tell you that only cheese can give milk i don't know if it was like they felt like the jokes would only work in a live stage situation and they didn't want to rewrite the jokes for the screen or something but this kind of completely invalidates the point of the show like the whole reason the show exists see i've heard a lot of people compare into the woods to shrek and i think that might be one of the best comparisons you can make see into the woods is a critique of fairy tales you can argue that it's a criticism of the early disney movies but really it's more about the concept of fairy tales in general how can i ever thank you you can talk to birds this is going to get a little depressing but the point of fairy tales is to distract people from how horrible their lives are that and like nationalistic pride but that's a story for another time like if you're a medieval peasant and someone tells you a story about how that one time some peasant girl hooked up with the prince from a far off nation and it solved all her problems you can tell yourself that you have a chance of not spending the rest of your life in filth even though that isn't true it's the annie effect you tell yourself that even an orphan can get the upper hand in life by just the power of positive thinking and a really rich benefactor but that's just not reality into the woods seeks to challenge every aspect of these stories if you pay attention at the beginning of the story everyone's wish is pretty selfish they're only really thinking of themselves and they don't care for how it affects others throughout the first act you're shown how these characters aren't entirely good in fact little red has a whole line about it at the beginning of the show and take extra care with strangers even flowers have their dangers and though scary is exciting nice is different than good cinderella isn't entirely a great person if she isn't mindlessly pulling hair then it's sort of expecting her dead mother's ghost to do things for her only to then constantly change her mind and lead a bunch of people on for three straight nights she even ends the first act by not making a choice about her own life she lets the prince choose for her out of the blue and without any god you know what your decision is which is not to decide jack's mother is completely dismissive of all jack's feelings and jack is a little too airheaded to accept responsibility and take care of his mother and just like everything else little red riding hood literally steals from the baker on her way to give food to her granny and on multiple occasions the baker and his wife lie cheat steal and occasionally outright assault other characters to get their own way [Applause] i just wanted to make sure you really love this cape and obviously the witch sends rapunzel to the desert alone to suffer so like yeah she sucks too but act 2 kind of serves like a come to jesus moment by the end of act 1 everyone has their wishes granted and you think that they get to live their happily ever after but act 2 shows you what a happily ever after would actually look like even though they've all had their wishes granted from the first act it isn't enough and they're still miserable mostly because they literally wished for all their problems to be solved and haven't really developed the skills that they'd need to maintain that happily ever after now you must understand these were not people familiar with making choices their experience in the woods in no way prepared them for a force this great and they're made to continue confronting the consequences of their actions right up until people start dying the second or third depending on how you count it the third the last number in the show has all of the remaining cast pointing fingers at each other trying to figure out whose fault this all is because none of them accept responsibility leading to quite possibly my favorite number in all of broadway history no one is alone only me beside you still you're not alone a song where the baker cinderella little red and jack all accept that it doesn't matter whose fault it is it doesn't even matter if it's morally correct to kill the giant what matters is that they need to band together if they're gonna make it through this ordeal no one acts alone careful no one is alone this whole show exists to point out the faults of the traditional disney princess story and no one is alone they explicitly say that it's not as black and white as the fairy tales might suggest witches can be right giants can be good you decide what's right you decide what's good but somewhere along the way most likely disney being disney they completely misinterpreted that message and just went oh it's about fairy tales that should work cutting the jokes out into the woods is like cutting all the gags out of shrek to some extent that's kind of the point of the show at the same time that's also why people tend to think that the second act always feels a little tacked on if you look at this like a straight fairy tale the happily ever after ends at act one if that's how you're watching the film then everything else just kind of feels like a really awkward and lengthy epilogue instead of the entire point of the show now it's really important i feel to understand the moral behind into the woods because i feel like it ties into what the music does in a really cool way first off it's important to keep in mind that into the woods is a really complicated story i tried to summarize it and i still missed a lot the story opens with 12 people on stage and they all want something different there's the narrator cinderella her two stepsisters her stepmother and her dad jack and his mother the baker and his wife the witch and little red riding hood and they're all doing something different well how sondheim makes sense of all this is that each character sings a modular melody they all start with i wish that whole step in a far-off kingdom i wish and a childless baker i wish with his wife and that is a single fragmentary idea just those two notes that represent their wish followed by music that is unique to them and their specific wish [Music] if you pay attention when people come on stage they tend to be accompanied by music that they've sung more often than not it calls back to the music that they sing during their wish i wish it's not for me it's for my granny in the woods what happened to your house oh we but we've had a baking accident on top of all that there's just a lot of music that reprises reprises it comes back multiple times for each of the three nights cinderella sings the same music but with different lyrics he's a very nice prince and and it's a very nice ball oh it's still a nice ball yes and and they have far too much food no the prince he's a very smart prince he's a prince who prepares agony comes back in the second act when the princess sing about the only thing that interests them strange vulnerable women stranded in the wilderness i found a casket entirely of glass no it's unbreakable the witch sings this children must listen song three separate times throughout the whole show and pay attention the lyrics change ever so slightly here each time she sings it what did i clearly say children must listen no no please what are you not to do children must see guide them along the way still they won't listen careful the things a sad young lad and if it isn't large passages if not entire pieces of music there's also a lot of smaller thematic material that reappears all the time and i don't just mean those individual wish motifs there are flies in her eyes there's a lump on her rump big enough to be a hump what can we do for you sir i am here to investigate the destruction that was brought upon our house today jack has been home with me like you know how the baker and his wife have that theme for the list of ingredients oh no the cow is white as milk the cape is red is blood the hair is yellow as corn the slipper as pure as gold what are you doing here you forgot your scarf well listen to it plays when they eventually feed all those ingredients to milky white she's milking i don't understand no not now and then you have a whole theme for cinderella whenever she's talking to birds quick little birds look through the ashes pick and pet but swiftly sift through the ashes oh good friends what news have you you can talk to birds that then comes back when the birds are attacking the giant now this is by no means a comprehensive list of either all the themes and motifs or every instance of every motif i most likely honestly absolutely have missed something that you're probably going to read about in the comment section this show is absolutely slam packed with all kinds of fragmentary musical associations between themes ideas people and even items and that's what really fascinates me about this show not necessarily that it's filled with all of these associative musical ideas because really all of these themes and motifs all this musical material really helps stitch the show together but that they create a really solid through line throughout the show in a way that helps you as the audience keep your place and understand what's going on within this absolutely enormous cast with all these intersecting stories going on like who the hell is this oh wait that's cinderella because she wants to go to the festival right she just had a costume switch anyway whose prince is that oh right now he must have been to the festival because of the brass fanfare that's cinderella's prince right i got it have you seen a beautiful young woman in a ball gown pass through again it's difficult to keep track of who's who and they're all running around like okay what the hell are these people doing oh right they want the cow as red is corn the hair is yellow as milk got it that's right these guys have the fetch quest yeah cow is white as milk the cape is red is blood the hair is yellow as corn the sliver is pure as gold but again this all comes back to usage while you do have these large sweeping musical numbers that go on and on and are absolutely wonderful to listen to some numbers clock in at a round or under a minute as an example jack's singing i guess this is goodbye is only about 30 seconds long and then it directly leads into a different number if you pay attention there are these wonderful little moments where you have talking interspersed with singing no i go home immediately i wish to help no this fellow's on my house only i can listen the prince what was he like he's a very nice prince and and it's a very nice ball and when they interrupt the dialogue it tends to be with one of these critical motifs these themes and motifs weave throughout the show and create really clear musical associations that don't just tie the musical fabric of the show together but also help you as the audience maintain a sense of direction in this really dense story and that doesn't even begin to discuss what is the main musical idea for the whole show the bean theme if you don't know what i'm talking about it plays note for note when the baker trades the beans to jack [Music] and it shows up all over the place [Applause] all right now let's see if that was the mossy knoll now having cast out rapunzel to a remote desert [Music] i've been wearing sick mother look the most beautiful harp and you can tell that this bean theme ties back to the witch in her curse because it's in the background whenever she's on stage [Music] in the past when you are no more than a babe your father it's in the melody that rapunzel sings because remember she's in that tower because the baker's dad stole the beans in the first place so she's there because of the beans ergo bean theme in her song i would but i can't wanted to pay a visit she called for [Music] till you're climbing her hair [Music] you can hear it when jack sings about the castle in the sky because he got there via the beanstalk the melody's core is just the bean motif there are giants in the sky there are big tall terrible giants in the sky big tall terrible giant you can hear it in this scene that kind of gives everything away when the old man which we don't know is the baker's father at this point bothers the baker right after the witch cuts off rapunzel's hair everything about what's happening on stage right there all revolves around this bean situation and again you hear it basically every time the witch is singing don't you know what's out there in the world someone has to shield you from the world all right now i'm just gonna out myself here this next section is one of my favorite moments in all of music theater history ever and i just kind of want to prep you for that okay so check it out as far as i'm concerned sondheim is kind of a master of developing his musical ideas and taking these little musical fragments and just bending them and reshaping them all over the place if you see my video on sweeney todd then you know what i'm talking about eventually when you get to the big moments there is a sense of structure because you've been using the material that you've been setting up all the way through i found incidentally it's not this sounds so potentially intellectual but in fact what it does is save you a huge amount of work because if you can take i got this idea and i got this idea and i got it now i'm going to build a score you don't have to invent very much do you you take this one and you turn it upside down and it's a new tune you take this one you take the harmonies and say instead of major let's make it minor and suddenly it's a new song you take this one and everybody says oh see how he held the score together so what's so fascinating to me here is how sondheim manages to utilize this bean theme in so many different contexts without losing its sense of musical identity there's a quote from understanding the light motif by matthew bribitser stole that i absolutely love themes themselves can be lovely powerful heart wrenching or foreboding but it is only in their development that we experience a sense of progress through musical dramatic or musical narrative time if your music is telling the story then it should change with the ebb and flow of how that story unfolds right we hear the bean theme in countless contexts in all kinds of different situations sung by basically every single member of the cast in some way at some point in the show each instance feels somewhat unique without ever losing track of the fact that it's the bean theme i feel like that alone is an amazing accomplishment but one of the ways i think he does this is that for the most part you always hear the bean theme in order those five critical notes what are you doing there nothing i swear just passing by i touch that hair don't you understand i cannot touch the ingredients now and what i've been able to find you'll always hear them in that specific order except for two specific moments there's just a few notes that accompanies her when she uh uh when she's telling them about this but the top notes are going and then by putting a combination of those notes together we get this chord which coincides with the first task one the cow as white as milk one the cow as white as milk two the cape as red as blood this corn which is always associated with a witch and always associated with four objects is opposed to the [Music] these are and will represent the beans the magic beans now this is really interesting think about it why does the witch's mother tell her not to mess with the beans in her garden you see when i had inherited that garden my mother had warned me that i would be punished if i were ever to lose any of the beans not special beans of all the plants why is it the beans that affect the witch's powers why is it that when the witch throws all the beans away she also vanishes similarly it's the witch's magic or her beans that really initiates all the conflict in the show but we have no bread of course i have no bread what do you wish it's not what i wish it's what you wish so when you think about it it feels like the witch using her magic which came from the beans really started all the conflict in the show to begin with and then the second place that we hear the bean motif really transform is right here at the very end of the show the other thing is that of course this is where the bean theme finally becomes calm it's neither sinister anymore nor is it agitated it is though it's in the accompaniment only you hear it suddenly is and it's at its most simple harmonically and at its most legato sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood others may deceive you you decide what's good but if as you rehearse it you think of it that way and you think of the bean theme as finally having come to some kind of resolution and underlying this song then both although it sounds symbolic both emotionally and symbolically it will feel as if the story has been resolved because the story in a sense is about the bean theme and how all the beans which caused all this mischief have finally come to fruition here they will kill the giant in a moment or two and it will become a resolution and also i'd like to point out that uh when you're singing the release of the second part when they're all singing together people make mistakes it's going like this and that of course is the inversion of the beam thing it's the upside down version of so that everything finally comes together in in one song [Music] [Music] and this moment is not for nothing this is the exact moment where the cast realizes their responsibility and seizes control over their mistakes just before this moment the baker completely loses his nerve and runs away only to bump into the ghost of his father who convinces him to not make the same mistake he did and they all end up not pointing fingers at each other and they accept a communal responsibility for what's happened it doesn't matter whose fault it is people make mistakes and it's up to us to fix it the buck stops here in inverting the bean sequence i feel it functions like an inverted waveform they cancel each other out in this moment when they decide to accept responsibility for their actions here's the moment where they've truly managed to undo the witch's magic that's been persisting and propagating throughout every aspect of all of these characters lives in every other instance of the bean motif at least the ones that i could find it more or less sounds like you can hear that bean theme in its prime form those five notes in that order now there might be a new harmonic context maybe it's slower or it's been rhythmically altered maybe it's developed into an entire melody but you hear those five notes in that order and this continuation of the bean theme at least to me represents the continuation of the witch's magic and the source of the conflict that the cast of characters are unable to resolve it persists for so long in its prime form in the same order of notes because these characters spend most of the show unable to learn or really change so it's your fault no yes it is it's not it's true wait a minute but i only stood the goal to get my towel back from you yes think about it nobody really learns anything until the very end of the show they make their selfish wishes and they lie and cheat and steal and attack and even until the end of the show they are literally pointing fingers at each other and not accepting responsibility for their actions they haven't learned a thing and they aren't bettering themselves the circumstances surrounding the witch and her curse are completely unchanged everyone is more or less continuing the cycle the baker is just as selfish as his father and the witch makes a point to bring this up you're so nice you're not good you're not bad you're just nice i'm not good i'm not nice i'm just right i'm the hint i'm what no one believes i'm the witch you're all liars and thieves like his father like his son will be two of my father nothing's really changing so what happens is through varying levels of transformation development and variation sondheim has been able to tell this story through one critical motif it comes from the witch which is why we're able to hear those notes come from this vertical structure that represents the witch's magic and then that critical motif is put through all kinds of different musical and dramatic contexts where it feels and functions slightly differently every time you hear it all while maintaining its salience as the bean theme when you hear it you recognize that it's the bean theme right up until this moment where instead of utilizing it in a reharmonization or a new rhythmic pattern or something like that sondheim inverts it one of the most substantial transformations we've seen of that motif yet in a way that directly challenges the way that we've heard that motif in its presentation at every other point in the show since first hearing it with the witch through this intensely controlled sense of development and transformation sondheim has managed to communicate the central moral of the show through a single motif alone i don't think i've ever seen a score do something like that before which at least to me is why it's one of my favorite moments in musical theater ever this is the moment where the cast of characters actually genuinely learned something profound that sondheim and lapine felt was necessary to say and show to a generation of children who will listen there's no such thing as a happily ever after because there's always something new to learn especially if you're listening to sondheim thanks for watching i think my patrons make these videos possible and extra special thank you to abby rose alec kulkowski alex klinkert always posh amaranth andy muse artemy artemy r2dantu ariela jaklam basugasu bakuhatsu bakumatsu fantastic mr ben brent dubrock brunhilda charlie holly christian darren almgren don marie kieran dokos edith with the man hands elira elise and thomas constantine every time sideways says for the horde another horde leader dies oh no fen wise and tome for the horde oh god freaky pooh free anne g7g gable larson genevieve google it gregory holdenness hayden jontro hazel j holik juen tu dao i want you to tell me if my fear is justified that no one will pay attention to me if i'm honest about my addiction to ice cream i was going to use a really long name because it's funny but decided not to you're welcome thank you i'm here to learn about light motifs so i sound interesting at parties jan von fragstein jason kim joe angle john egbert joseph spiros josh bachday justice for the diaz era and andrew lambert justin hurley justin sargent karen rosenau kdo knight of chaos like that cobalt cobalt cobalt korak let the truth be known 20 73 65 63 72 65 74 6c 79 20 73 75 70 70 6 f 72 74 20 74 68 65 20 41 60 60 69 61 6e 63 65 21 literal ghost looney michael hubbard mike wisnick mr kamesama myron john tatarin nicole nicholas cohen prelock rasputin russia's greatest heat machine rachel augsberger rafael martinez raquel monterossa raven horn rich marzullo ryan vick snaps guys tell sideways to stream more scuba doos sebastian cannino also known as cinema getting reviews source 41 stefan h stupid dog sydney fox tabitha ockleford take that rewind it back cider's music theory make your brain cells go clap tara femira they wanted me to stop referencing sideways every five minutes little do they know friends are temporary and light motifs are eternal this name thing is getting out of hand and i think everyone should probably stop transpanic power hour vox you are loved you are valid you deserve to live you are not the exception morgan loberg i changed my name so i could be a part of the fun you shall call me the pumpkin queen and rue um i'd like to thank everybody who requested that i talk about into the woods uh i really love it this has just honestly been me just gushing about one of my favorite musicals if you like what you saw here be sure to check out my other videos and subscribe uh follow me on twitter and twitch to every musical questions answered live and if you really like what i'm doing then consider supporting the channel on patreon that's all i got for now thanks for watching

Channel: Sideways

Views: 309,213

Rating: 4.9863329 out of 5

Keywords: Into The Woods, Sondheim, Steven Sondheim, Musical, Music Theory, No One Is Alone, Stage Musical, Broadway, Jack, Little Red, Fairytales, Fairytale, Disney, Bean Theme, Bean Motif, Leitmotif, Baker, Baker's Wife, Cinderella, Rapunzel, I Wish, Witch

Id: 9b6OEjF4s1M

Length: 31min 29sec (1889 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Cheshire_Cat8888]

I love sideways' channel. I recommend that yall check it out especially his Sweeney Todd and Cats videos. Besides musicals, his video about the music in Avatar the Last Airbender is also really dope.

[u/bvnguyen]

One of my alltime favorite musicals. Bernadette Peters is a LEGEND!!!

[u/xNoa]

This video was very insightful and I learned a lot about Into the Woods that I hadn't realized before, even though I had seen the recording multiple times.

[u/jillthesaxamaphone]

Yesss Sideways is the best channel on YouTube and that is a fact