Ever After

Inside Into the Woods's first-act finale

At first glance, Into the Woods might seem like one of Sondheim’s more structurally conventional works. This is an easy case to make if you place it alongside a show like Merrily We Roll Along, which proceeds backwards, or Company, which eschews linear plot almost entirely. But compare it to other forward-flowing shows—Sunday in the Park with George, for instance—and Into the Woods still feels like the more formally familiar musical. Unlike Sunday, it does not leap forward a century during its intermission; the characters we meet in Act I are (mostly) still present in Act II; and the intertwining tales that make up its plot are woven deftly together, into a single, linear narrative.

In this context, we could be forgiven for having a fairly traditional set of expectations when it comes to Into the Woods’s first-act finale, “Ever After.” We might reasonably imagine a number that is climactic, cathartic even, without being overly conclusive. Such a number, we might suppose, should satisfy but leave us wanting more. This is a delicate line to walk, but one that musical theater writers frequently navigate with facility and flair. 

But “Ever After” is not that sort of number, and Into the Woods, despite its outward appearance, is not that sort of show. There is a clear dividing line between its two acts—subtler than Sunday’s hundred-year hiatus, to be sure, but no less stark. 

Until the very last seconds of “Ever After,” during which the Narrator cries, “To be continued…”, it could scarcely be more conclusive. The show’s central quest appears resolved, all wrongs seem righted, and our heroes are granted that most elusive of things: a happy ending. Cinderella marries her Prince; Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother are saved from the Wolf; Jack is able to provide for his Mother with the Giant’s riches; Rapunzel is rescued from her tower by the other Prince, whom she also marries; and the Baker and his Wife have the child they have so desperately longed for. Even the villains of the tale, for their part, experience a certain kind of breakthrough, as they review their own wicked ways with remarkable moral clarity. Florinda and Lucinda, Cinderella’s stepsisters, reflect on their blindness, which at first was only figurative but is now literal. The Witch, meanwhile, muses on what she has lost: 

I was perfect.
I had everything but beauty.
I had power.
And a daughter like a flower,
In a tower.
Then I went into the woods
To get my wish
And now I’m ordinary.

In this particular number, Florinda, Lucinda, and the Witch might be the only characters we can take seriously. Late in Act II, Cinderella’s Prince will observe that he “was raised to be charming, not sincere.” In “Ever After,” we could easily believe the same of all our protagonists. Here, we witness them at quite possibly their most charming, but not one of them seems sincere. As a group, they become as much a narrator as the Narrator himself, soon entering into a self-satisfied, criss-crossing call and response:

NARRATOR
There were dangers—

ALL
We were frightened—

NARRATOR
And confusions—

ALL
But we hid it—

NARRATOR
And the paths would often swerve.

ALL
We did not.

NARRATOR
There were constant—

ALL
It’s amazing—

NARRATOR
Disillusions—

ALL
That we did it—

NARRATOR
But they never lost their nerve.

ALL
Not a lot.

NARRATOR, ALL
And they (we) reached the right conclusions,
And they (we) got what they (we) deserve!

Our assembled characters recount their first-act journeys almost exclusively in generalities; it is a vainglorious self-portrait, all primary colors, broad brushstrokes, and flattering light. After witnessing the various compromises and concessions they have each made throughout Act I, it is almost unsettling to see these characters sanitize their own tales to this degree—but perhaps we are all unreliable narrators, and none of us can truly be trusted to tell our own story.

We go into the intermissions of both Sunday and Into the Woods with a strong sense of finality: an artwork completed, a fairytale concluded. But in Sunday, the whole of Act I leads irresistibly, almost inevitably, towards the fulfilment of the first George’s creative vision. Here, by contrast, we cannot fully shake off a nagging sense that these narrative threads have been tied off rather too neatly, that this happy ending feels conspicuously unearned. And this, of course, is the whole point. “Ever After” wrong-foots our expectations of first-act finales by being too conclusive—almost suspiciously so. The Narrator’s eventual “To be continued…” is the sole indication that there will even be a second act.

Little Red Riding Hood, upon meeting the Wolf, quickly learns that looks can be deceiving. When it comes to our own encounters with Into the Woods, it is useful to be equally cautious. Its structural garb may seem familiar, enticing even, but make no mistake: this is a show, most unusually, with two endings. “Ever After” is the first of these: the all-too-easy resolution, the fairytale finale. It is the sun-soaked canopy that conceals the dark woods beneath—pristine, perfect, but ultimately all surface.

We take our seats again for the second act of Into the Woods not because of a lack of closure, but instead because of a curious excess of it—and we can’t help but feel that there might well be a sting in this particular tale.

Listening links:

If you’re most familiar with Into the Woods from seeing it on screen, this number may come as a slight surprise—it was cut from the movie. It does, however, feature on its soundtrack in a purely instrumental version, the orchestration of which makes me think of the best John Williams/Steven Spielberg collaborations:

The two most widely available recordings of Into the Woods are of the original Broadway cast, released in 1988, and the most recent Broadway cast, from 2022. “Ever After” makes for a great side-by-side listen—two phenomenal casts, 34 years apart: