Stripped-down ‘Into the Woods’ makes Sondheim accessible Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics It seems as if most theatergoers either have a love or hate relationship with composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Since the 1970s, Sondheim has taken all that is simple, predictable and harmonious in the American musical and transformed it into something quite the opposite. His creations blur the line between lyric and dialogue, fill the air with a dense and steady stream of discordant sounds and images, and offer stories that are as complex as the people who populate them. Some get it; some don’t care to. Regardless, patrons approach productions of Sondheim and librettist James Lapine’s “Into the Woods,” which first opened on Broadway in 1987 and was recently turned into a star-studded film, as if it were children’s theater. Because the Tony Award-winning “Into the Woods” intertwines the familiar plots of several well-known Brothers Grimm fairy tale characters – including Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of beanstalk fame), Rapunzel and Cinderella – parents often bring their wide-eyed tikes to the theater, who arrive expecting a coddling bedtime story but leave tearful, traumatized and by intermission. The show may revolve around a Baker and his wife venturing into the woods in an effort to reverse the magic spell that has kept them childless, but it bears all the foreboding theatrical trademarks typical of Sondheim musicals. Put Sweeney Todd in lederhosen and brightly colored socks and he is still the demon barber of Fleet Street. But the significantly stripped-down Fiasco Theater version of “Into the Woods,” which originated at the McCarter Theater in New Jersey in 2013, had an Off-Broadway run, and is currently on national tour and at Playhouse Square, is different. For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.