Sola Fadiran is Juicy in "Fat Ham."                                                                              Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Fire up the grill, turn up the karaoke machine, send up every production of “Hamlet” you’ve ever seen before and you’ve got James Ijames’ parodic comedy “Fat Ham.”
            Damnedest backyard barbecue I’ve ever been to.
            The Old Globe is staging Ijames’ 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner under the direction of Sideeq Heard, who earlier this spring directed “Fat Ham” at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A. It’s an entirely new cast in San Diego, and it’s an exceptional one: funny, physical and, fittingly in the case of Juicy, the Hamletian character (Sola Fadiran), philosophical.
            “Fat Ham” is more than a mere nod to Shakespeare’s most famous (and many would say greatest) work. Ijames not only borrowed the basic premise of “Hamlet” – a son charged by his father’s ghost to avenge his murder by the brother who has wed the young man’s mother – but many actual lines from the play turn up in “Fat Ham.” They’re not always spoken with the same grim existentialism that the Prince of Denmark spoke them, but turn up they do. Like Juicy’s aside to the audience about how to expose his murdering uncle. Though in “Fat Ham,” Hamlet’s play-within-a-play device becomes an animated game of charades.
            When the script wink-winks Shakespeare to the audience, it doesn’t always connect. On opening night, for example, I seemed to be one of the few who got the “There’s the rub” reference when the pork barbecue was being prepped for cooking. But oh well.
            While Ijames absolutely knows his “Hamlet” and “Fat Ham” is presented with its particular moral dilemmas and self-examinations of being and identity, he’s created an often-hilarious comic romp that, whether in conflict or all in fun, has a life of its own.
            Somewhere in the American South in contemporary times, Rev (Ethan Henry) and Tedra (Felicia Boswell) are hosting a cookout (on a bucolic, back-porch set by Maruti Evans) to celebrate their recent marriage. Conspicuous in the foreground is a wreath on a pedestal inset with a photo of Tedra’s late husband Pap.
            First Juicy’s friend Tio (Xavier Pacheco, a Horatio knockoff) then Juicy himself witnesses the appearance of a ghostly figure. The perpetually buzzed Tio only sees a specter covered with a checkered tablecloth, but Juicy gets the full treatment when the spirit of his dead dad (also Ethan Henry) “materializes” in the first of several canny stagecraft cameos. (Credit Skylar Fox for this show’s illusion design.) A boisterous, raging Pap informs Juicy that he was murdered by his brother and that Juicy is duty-bound, or bound by blood, to exact bloody revenge.
            Juicy is a sensitive sort (“soft,” his stepfather insults him) decidedly not prone to violence in spite of his disgust and disappointment at his mother so quickly marrying his uncle. He’s also a searching, young queer man whose only path to a higher-ed diploma is the University of Phoenix online and whose stated vocation is “human resources.”
            Before he can process the ghostly visitation with its terrible indictment, the cookout is joined by guests: vivacious Rabby (Yvette Cason, in a reimagination of the Polonius character), her upright Marine son Larry (Tian Richards) in full dress uniform and her blunt and angsting daughter Opal (m). If you want to get technical, they are Ijames’ Laertes and Ophelia, though any resemblance is minimal.
            The eating part of the afternoon is thankfully brief. It gives way to the introduction of the karaoke machine, a sequence that is the best in the entire show. It begins with Tedra singing and gyrating to “Kill the Lights,” showcasing the boundless energy and kinetic elasticity of Felicia Boswell. Hers is a performance throughout “Fat Ham” that overflows with life.
            The tone shifts dramatically when the introspective Juicy is goaded into being next up at karaoke. Fadiran’s deep and alienated rendering of Radiohead’s “Creep” is a breathless departure from the prior partying and infighting. This is a song that I’ve long believed is the most haunting and beautiful ballad yet written in the name of those who feel out of place or cut off from the world. It fits Juicy as much as “To be or not to be” fits Prince Hamlet. I generally don’t recount how an audience reacts to a performance, but many at the Globe stood in applause when Fadiran finished.
            Revelations come fast and furious afterward. The tell-tale charades game aside, both Opal and, more surprisingly, Larry reveal their sexuality to Juicy (though it’s clear that Opal’s is no news to him). At the same time, the fire lit by the charades gambit is leading Rev and Tedra toward a reckoning that will shake that backyard porch to its foundation.
            If “Fat Ham” falters at all, it’s in the last 15 minutes or so when unlike most of what preceded those 15 minutes, things go over the top. The smiley-face-balloon Yorick scene – that’s fine. The rambling stoner monologue from Tio about gingerbread-man oral sex – not so much. Rev’s ultimate karmic undoing? Contrived.
            As for the finale … well, see what you think. Guaranteed it won’t be anticlimactic.
         Like multiple productions I’ve seen this year, “Fat Ham” is one that contemplates identity – sexual, social and personal. Juicy is not melancholy like Shakespeare’s Dane, but neither is he happy. He is presented at the end with the play’s moral directive about choosing pleasure over violent retribution, and there never was any doubt that he would make the right choice.
           The part of Juicy is a triumphant turn for Fadiran, anchor of a cast that one and all delivers the goods from start to finish and makes “Fat Ham” an exciting and unpredictable (just under) two hours of theater. It matters not whether you know a little “Hamlet” or a lot. Get thee to the Globe before it closes on June 23.

Sola Fadiran stars in "Fat Ham" at the Old Globe.                                                   Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Fire up the grill, turn up the karaoke machine, send up every production of “Hamlet” you’ve ever seen before and you’ve got James Ijames’ parodic comedy “Fat Ham.”
               Damnedest backyard barbecue I’ve ever been to.
            The Old Globe is staging James Ijames’ 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner under the direction of Sideeq Heard, who earlier this spring directed “Fat Ham” at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A. It’s an entirely new cast in San Diego, and it’s an exceptional one: funny, physical and, fittingly in the case of Juicy, the Hamletian character (Sola Fadiran), philosophical.
            “Fat Ham” is more than a mere nod to Shakespeare’s most famous (and many would say greatest) work. Ijames not only borrowed the basic premise of “Hamlet” – a son charged by his father’s ghost to avenge his murder by the brother who has wed the young man’s mother – but many actual lines from the play turn up in “Fat Ham.” They’re not always spoken with the same grim existentialism that the Prince of Denmark spoke them, but turn up they do. Juicy’s aside to the audience about how to expose his murdering uncle, for one. Though in “Fat Ham” Hamlet’s play-within-a-play device becomes an animated game of charades.
            When the script wink-winks Shakespeare to the audience, it doesn’t always connect. On opening night, for example, I seemed to be one of the few who got the “There’s the rub” reference when the pork barbecue was being prepped for cooking. But oh well.
            While Ijames absolutely knows his “Hamlet” and “Fat Ham” is presented with its particular moral dilemmas and self-examinations of being and identity, he’s created an often-hilarious comic romp that, whether in conflict or all in fun, has a life of its own.
            Somewhere in the American South in contemporary times, Rev (understudy Ethan Henry on opening night) and Tedra (Felicia Boswell) are hosting a cookout (on a bucolic back-porch set by Maruti Evans) to celebrate their recent marriage. Conspicuous in the foreground is a wreath on a pedestal inset with a photo of Tedra’s late husband Pap.
            First Juicy’s friend Tio (Xavier Pacheco, a Horatio knockoff) then Juicy himself witnesses the appearance of a ghostly figure. The perpetually buzzed Tio only sees a specter covered with a checkered tablecloth, but Juicy gets the full treatment when the spirit of his dead dad (also Ethan Henry) “materializes” in the first of several canny cameos of stagecraft. (Credit Skylar Fox for this show’s illusion design.) A boisterous, raging Pap informs Juicy that he was murdered by his brother and that Juicy is duty-bound, or bound by blood, to exact bloody revenge.
            Juicy is a sensitive (“soft,” his stepfather insults him) sort decidedly not prone to violence in spite of his disgust and disappointment at his mother's so quickly marrying his uncle. He’s also a searching, young queer man whose only path to a higher-ed diploma is the University of Phoenix online and whose stated vocation is “human resources.”
            Before he can process the ghostly visitation with its terrible indictment, the cookout is joined by three guests: vivacious Rabby (Yvette Cason, in a re-imagination of the Polonius character), her upright Marine son Larry (Tian Richards) in full dress uniform and her blunt and angsting daughter Opal (m). If you want to get technical, they are Ijames’ Laertes and Ophelia, though any resemblance is minimal.
            The eating part of the afternoon is thankfully brief. It gives way to the introduction of the karaoke machine, a sequence that is the best in the entire show. It begins with Tedra singing and gyrating to “Kill the Lights,” showcasing the boundless energy and kinetic elasticity of Felicia Boswell. Hers is a performance throughout “Fat Ham” that just overflows with vivacity.
            The tone shifts dramatically when the introspective Juicy is goaded into being next up at karaoke. Fadiran’s deep and alienated rendering of Radiohead’s “Creep” is a breathless departure from the prior partying and infighting. This is a song that I’ve long believed is the most haunting and beautiful ballads written in the name of those who feel out of place or cut off from the world. It fits Juicy as much as “To be or not to be” fits Prince Hamlet. I generally don’t recount how an audience reacts to a performance, but many at the Globe stood in applause when Fadiran finished.
            Revelations come fast and furiously afterward. The tell-tale charades game aside, both Opal and, more surprisingly, Larry reveal their sexuality to Juicy (though it’s clear that Opal’s is no news to him). At the same time, the fire lit by the charades gambit is leading Rev and Tedra toward a reckoning that will shake that backyard porch to its foundation.
            If “Fat Ham” falters at all, it’s in the last 15 minutes or so when unlike most of what preceded those 15 minutes, things head over the top. The smiley-face-balloon Yorick scene – that’s fine. The rambling stoner monologue from Tio about gingerbread-man oral sex – not so much. Rev’s karmic undoing? Contrived.
            As for the finale … well, see what you think. Guaranteed it won’t be anticlimactic.
         Like multiple productions I’ve seen this year, “Fat Ham” is one that contemplates identity – sexual, social and personal. Juicy is not melancholy like Shakespeare’s Dane, but neither is he happy. He is presented at the end with the play’s moral directive about choosing pleasure over violent retribution, and there never was any doubt that he would make the right choice.
           The part of Juicy is a triumphant turn for Fadiran, anchor of a cast that one and all delivers the goods from start to finish and makes “Fat Ham” an exciting and unpredictable (just under) two hours of theater. It matters not whether you know a little “Hamlet” or a lot. Get thee to the Globe before it closes on June 23.

In their T-Bird Sophia Araujo Johnson (left) and Sara Porkalob in "TL;DR." Photo by Talon Reed Cooper

            Foremost among the urgent questions posed by a world-premiere musical at Diversionary Theatre is: Whether it’s in film, on television or onstage, why do strong female characters always have to die? Taking it a step further at Diversionary, why do strong gay female characters have to die?
            EllaRose Chary and Brandon James Gwinn’s “TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix” (yeah … cumbersome title to say the least) proclaims that these characters don’t HAVE to die, imagining for Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer a raucous queer afterlife following their memorable T-Bird plunge into the Grand Canyon in the 1991 film.
            Chary and Gwinn told me in an interview prior to my seeing this production that not only are T (Sophia Araujo-Johnson) and L (Sara Porkalob) as they’re called here seeking a “queer happy ending” but so are the members of the onstage, unnamed band (Lyric Boothe, Faith Carrion, MG Green and Steph Lehane) who welcome or try to indoctrinate (take your pick) the new arrivals to this rock ‘n’ roll afterlife.
            Occupying more than half of this show, which is skillfully directed by Sherri Eden Barber, are the dialectics of queer politics and both the misconceptions and expectations inherent in them. Soon after their arrival, T-Bird and all, T and L are given an “Encyclopedia Lesbianica” for reference; they’re also thrust into game-show Q&As (during a three-art “Vagilantes” series), role playing and closeup observation by the omnipresent band members.  
            No doubt Callie Khoury, who wrote the script for “Thelma and Louise,” couldn’t have dreamed that her characters’ kiss at the end of the film would someday spark a show like “TL;DR.”
            What’s promising about this world premiere is not so much what it has to say, but how it sounds – Gwinn’s music and lyrics are alternately audacious and quite affecting, and the actor/musicians onstage are skilled in spite of less than ideal acoustics at Diversionary. Then there’s just how much giddy fun “TL;DR” can be. It’s got puppets. It’s got a giant lobster and a giant unicorn. It turns T and L into cartoon characters.
             It’s not a stretch to say anything goes here.
            It’s also got Sara Porkalob, whose one-person show “Dragon Mama” was a high point of San Diego theater last year. As the wiser, tougher, more skeptical half of the T&L twosome, Porkalob can win laughs with just a facial expression – and she does much more than that over the course of this freewheeling 90-minute one-act. Her solo tune “Stuck” is also one of the show’s best musical moments.
            Sophia Araujo-Johnson as T has the long-legged height of Geena Davis and the requisite chemistry with Porkalob. Her own solo, “Put Up A Fight” near the end of the show, is a crowd-pleaser.
            MG Green on bass is the snarkiest of the band members and Lyric Boothe, the guitarist, renders possibly the musical’s essential message song, “Love, Yourself.”
            The reprising ballad “Powerful Love” hovers over “T;L” and implies the answer to all pressing questions about identity and truth to self.
            But regardless of what this show is trying to say in Chary’s script, its double entendres and f-bombs, and its stage props and physical comedy are what you’ll remember when you walk out of the theater. You might even have one of Gwinn’s songs in your head, and not every new musical can achieve that.
            Could the premise of “TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix” have worked as a 12-minute bit on “The Big Gay Sketch Show”? Sure. But then you wouldn’t have had all the musical numbers that are really responsible for giving this work its life flow.
            One more thing: If you’re one of the few who’s never seen “Thelma and Louise,” that won’t matter a bit. You can enjoy this adventure in the afterlife and the personal journey of its two “sheroes” just fine.
            “TL;DR: Thelma Louise; A Dyke Remix” runs through June 9 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights.

Christine Carmela and William BJ Robinson in "Notes."                                             Photo by Daren Scott

             Let’s begin with a ground rule: I am only going to refer to Mara Velez Melendez’s “Notes on Killing Seven Oversight Management and Economic Stability Board Members” by its full title now. Henceforth this muddled piece onstage at Moxie Theatre shall be simply referred to as “Notes.”
            Now that that’s out of the way, it’s worth noting that even at an hour and 40 minutes (a hella long one act), “Notes” has the feel and vibe of a show that could’ve kept going and going and going. William BJ Robinson (as a Nuyorican receptionist in search of a name and an identity) impersonates seven people (it felt like more) in drag; he could’ve done 17. Christine Carmela (as trans would-be Puerto Rican assassin Lolita) could’ve engaged in twice the number of political diatribes and who’d know?
             When “Notes” does end – fresh outta board members – it’s like it doesn’t.
            Inspired by the real-life armed attack on Congress by Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron 70 years ago, “Notes” offers up a modern-day Lolita (no relation) who arrives bearing her father’s gun at the Wall Street office of a board empowered to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt. Convinced that the myopic board will do what benefits IT and not her homeland, she is bound to shoot them all dead.
           Here’s where suspension is disbelief is absolutely mandatory: Lolita faints on arrival and her gun is grabbed by the above-mentioned receptionist. So is everything after she wakes up going to be a dream, we wonder? I did. But moving on.
           Once roused from stupor, Lolita is informed by the wily receptionist that she can’t be admitted into the board offices until she proves herself – by faux-assassinating the seven as drag-impersonated by you-know-who.
        This is where the narrative tug-o-war of this play begins: the series of broad drag impersonations vs. the protagonist’s high-strung political ferocity.
            Entertaining as it (the drag) can be at times, the gambit is excessive. It doesn’t help that though the costumes (designed by Regan A. McKay, the real star of this production) are outrageous fun, Robinson tends to play each character the same way with the same delivery. Other than appearance, one “board member” blends into another.
          Carmela, on the other hand, is a compelling presence on the Moxie stage. Tall and physical and coolly intense, she’s like a Puerto Rican iteration of The Bride from the “Kill Bill” movies. Carmela originated the part of Lolita in 2022 at Soho Rep in New York so she knows it backward and forward.    
           Maybe she could explain it to me?
           Really, it’s not that complicated – it’s just that “Notes” tries to say far too much even in an over-long one-act. You could start with the notion of “self-determination.” In Melendez’s script, that’s at the heart of Lolita’s causey foray on behalf of Puerto Rico. It also informs both her and, more so, the receptionist’s assertion of gender identity.
            Too bad that this justifiably important component becomes just one of many many in “Notes.”
         Andrea Agosto doubtlessly did her best in directing this production. Trying to balance the polemics with the physicality and flash had to have been arduous.
            So, was it all Lolita’s fever dream or did a drag show break out and hijack her quest for truth and justice?
            Don’t ask me. I was only in the audience.
          “Notes On Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members” runs through May 26 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando.

Joel Perez and Melinda Lopez in "Stir."                                                                      Photo by Rich Soublet II

            In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I like many others found myself in isolation, I wondered: When this was all “over,” if it ever would be, how would artists, including theater makers, respond? Would there be a slew of real-life-inspired fictional stories about the darkest days and loneliest nights, about the losses and sacrifices, about the struggle to survive an unprecedented viral enemy?
            More than four years after the onset of the pandemic, the answer is … no. There have been a few notable attempts to document artistically what we all went through, such as the collaborative novel “Fourteen Days” or Jodi Picoult’s “Wish You Were Here.” “The COVID Confessions” by Louisa Vilardi was a New Play Exchange production, and Richard Nelson’s “What Do We Need to Talk About?” from 2020 was hailed by The New Yorker as “the first great original play of quarantine.”
            But I ask you: Have you seen or read any of these?
            I’ve been considering this for some time and am drawing closer and closer to the conclusion that rather than attempting to reflect on life during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, creatives have decided to do what many of us have chosen to do as well: move on. For some, the years between 2020 and 2022 were deeply painful and best not exploited as “art.” For some others, including theater makers, it’s better to move forward than to re-examine the past.
          The cost to live theater and to theater companies in general from COVID isolation is well documented. But some positives did come out of having to reinvent the wheel in order to keep the flame alive, artistically and financially. One of them was experimenting with Zoom technology to present virtual theater to audiences stuck at home.
            That’s how a one-act drama by Melinda Lopez and Joel Perez (who also co-star) began: as a Zoom production originating at the Huntington Theatre Company where Lopez is artist-in-residence. What was originally called “The Black Beans Project” taps into all the devastations and disorientations of COVID isolation while also telling an intimate story of family.
            Its potential recognized by Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, “The Black Beans Project” would be workshopped as a live play at the theater’s Powers New Voices Festival. Now a world-premiere production, the retitled “Stir” is onstage at the Globe in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre space. Marcela Lorca directs.
            Make no mistake, “Stir” has a pandemic foundation: Siblings Mariana (Lopez) and Henry (Perez) communicate throughout the 80-minute show via Zoom. (Not literally, but much of the time they are looking into the screens of laptop computers.) The worst of COVID lockdown is over and vaccines are available, but both Mariana and Henry are still isolated – she in her Buffalo home, alone after the departure of her husband Carlos (the reason for that is made out to be a big reveal later), he sharing a place with their viejo but sprightly Papi (Al Rodrigo) in an Orlando retirement home. Their mother has passed away (during COVID but not from it).
            Mariana and her younger brother connect virtually, ostensibly to cook up in each other’s kitchens (niftily designed at the Globe by the ingenious Diggle) their mother’s secret and wonderful black beans recipe. Well, Mariana knows the recipe and Henry is kinda comically learning as they go through the cooking process.
            As expected, the beans and the preparation of them are a pretext for the dramatic revelations and admissions – and conflagrations – that ensue over the course of this slowly simmering one-act. I never saw the original Zoom iteration of this production. Like most Zoom theater I watched during COVID isolation, it must have seemed very talky and claustrophobic. Not so with this stage production, where not merely the business of chopping and slicing and stirring but also the actors moving in and around the two cleverly mobile “kitchens” works to create a piece that is very live. These are working kitchens too – you can smell the onions from anywhere in the theater.
            Conflicts major and less so abound in “Stir,” a pot full of crises. The chief ingredient is grief. Because of the enforced isolation of the pandemic, neither sibling (nor their father) was able to formally lay the beloved family matriarch to rest. Her ashes wait in a closet at the retirement home. Henry it turns out is most tormented by this. At once haunted and soothed by a memory of a family camping trip, he becomes more and more determined to do right by his mother. Mariana, a busy tax expert, missed her last opportunity to visit her mother before the pandemic arrived and is as such ridden with self-recrimination. As for Papi, his strategy is live for the moment. Though he misses the woman who first beguiled him in Miami’s Little Havana, he’s got his dominoes and friends and Fox News (ugh) to keep him going.
            Where “Stir” overreaches is overcomplicating the recipe. While the story never loses sight of its arc – a family separated physically and emotionally by not just COVID but by the loss of its dearest guiding light – it addresses seemingly every other aspect of Mariana and Henry’s troubled lives. Her wayward spouse and grown gringa daughters. His “emotionally unavailable” romantic history as a gay man. Her COVID-initiated and ongoing agoraphobia. His frustration with and resentment about living with his father. Her obsession with work. His not having any.
            To be fair, if we learned one thing about those Zoom conversations we had with each other it was that closeup-to-closeup we found ourselves sometimes rambling to fill the silences. That’s how “Stir” feels at times. Got to keep the convo moving.
            There is comic relief now and then, which also feels very Zoom-y. And the cast is excellent. Lopez, who starred in the Globe’s one-woman play “Mala” two years ago, carries this production, and the slings and arrows of Mariana’s life as such have emotional authenticity. Perez’s is the flashier, funnier role, which he does well by, and in mainly cameo appearances onstage (until a rather strained, dreamlike sequence near the end of the play) Rodrigo is delightful as Papi. It’s a character that wasn’t in the early versions of the play; its inclusion was inspired.
            Dominoes is the metaphor for “Stir,” the game having been not only the first impetus for the parents’ relationship but the go-to glue that kept the financially poor family together for years. The dominoes are the “bones” of the family, Papi tells us. They allow this play’s characters to escape for a little while their pain but also to honor their family roots and the love that made them grow.
            You could actually take COVID-19 out of “Stir” and still have a meaningful play about family, loss and love. But somebody has to say something about how our shared global nightmare took its toll in so many ways. That is part if not all of Lopez and Perez’s play.
            Food for thought.
           “Stir” runs through May 26 at the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.

Left to right: Allison Spratt Pearce, Larry Raben and Bets Malone in "Into the Woods."   Karli Cadel Photography

            Making my way out of the Moonlight Amphitheatre on opening night having just reveled in the enchantment that is “Into the Woods,” I heard someone behind me ask someone else behind me: “So which act did you like better? The first or the second?”
            It’s a reasonable question if you know this legacy musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, their second collaboration following “Sunday in the Park with George” (and to my mind the more entertaining of the two shows): Act One of “Woods,” which was born at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986 and premiered on Broadway a year later, is a charming and just a little subversive deconstruction of the Brothers Grimms’ greatest hits – “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Rapunzel.” Everyone wishes in his or her own way for a happily ever after and – SPOILER ALERT – gets it.
            But as with “Sunday in the Park,” which also has a darker, forward-in-time second act, “Into the Woods” Part 2 finds its fanciful characters confronting the consequences of their wishes-come-true. There is revenge, retribution and death.
            Reality bites in Fairy Tale Land.
            It’s not a question of which half of “Into the Woods” is more appealing – they work together, owing to the ingenuity of Lapine’s adaptation and the brilliance of Sondheim’s music and lyrics.
            Moonlight Stage Productions’ season-opening staging of “Into the Woods” is a faithful, full-fledged reminder of that ingenuity and brilliance, which endure nearly 40 years after the show was first seen in Balboa Park.
            “Woods” is not your typical season opener for family-friendly Moonlight. Kids were few and far between in the Wednesday evening audience. Not a surprise: The darkness and subtle comic treatments of the characters would fly over the heads of most children or, in the case of the second act, possibly prove unsettling.
            Moonlight Artistic Director Steven Glaudini, who also directs this production, wanted to start the season with a theatrical atmosphere to match the vestiges of a lingering winter giving way to a new spring. He also wanted to honor Sondheim, a personal hero and inspiration, who passed away in 2021.
            In a poetic stroke in itself, Glaudini’s wife, Bets Malone, portrays the Witch in this “Into the Woods” – a role she also played years ago at Moonlight when she was only 18 years old.
            Another poetic stroke? The cast of this “Into the Woods” is wearing costumes worn by the original Broadway cast.
            I hadn’t seen this show in 10 years – not since the McCarter Theatre Center and Fiasco Theater staged a production at the Old Globe in summertime 2014. (I unfortunately missed the New Village Arts/Oceanside Theatre collaboration two years ago.) It is gratifying to be reminded of the beauty and cleverness of “Into the Woods” and most of all of Stephen Sondheim and one of his many enduring gifts to American theater. The precise ensemble numbers. The lyrical flourishes that give delightful momentum to the storytelling. The hilarity of the two princes’ “Agony” and the surprising emotion of Jack’s “I Guess This is Goodbye” (sung to a cow) and the Witch’s “Stay With Me” (sung to Rapunzel).
            As for “No More” and “No One is Alone” near the end of the show, they are as thoughtful and stirring as the best of Sondheim, and that’s some best.
            Bravos all around for a marvelous cast, led by Malone reprising her Witch role with supreme bad-assness. The principal parts of the Baker and the Baker’s Wife are charismatically realized by Larry Raben and Allison Spratt Pearce, respectively, with Courtney Blanc shining as a Cinderella who, in this telling, articulately bridges the two halves of “Into the Woods”: She wants neither the oppressed life she had under the thumb of her malevolent stepmother and sisters, nor the “perfect” life in the kingdom of her prince. She wants something in between.
            For all its cerebral reflections, “Into the Woods” is a very funny affair. Moonlight’s production exploits that with animated turns from Brooke Henderson as a sharp-tongued Little Red Ridinghood, Samantha Tullie as a sobbing, downtrodden Rapunzel, and David Burnham and Evan White as dashing if doltish princes.
            Neither Steve Gunderson, who doubles as the narrator and the “Mysterious Man,” nor Sandy Campbell, portraying Jack’s put-upon mother, ever turns in less than a memorable performance. It’s great to have them in this ensemble.
            Moonlight is debuting its new LED screen with this show. That and Blake McCarty’s projections fashion a wondrous woods. And as always, an orchestra conducted by music director Elan McMahan is first-class.
            All due credit to Steven Glaudini for bringing back (for the third time) this classic to Moonlight and also for helming this inspired production which demonstrates that none of the magic has dissipated in these woods.
            “Into the Woods” runs through May 18 at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista.