My garden of musings

Of course this happens; actors aren't their characters. But still, particularly when the character's death is the movie's most iconic scene, it's slightly surreal.

The 1936 version of Camille is most famous for its tragic ending where Greta Garbo's Marguerite dies in the arms of Robert Taylor's Armand. But in real life? Robert Taylor died fairly young and Greta Garbo outlived him by more than twenty years.

West Side Story has its tragic ending with Tony's death in Maria's arms. In real life for the cast of the 1961 version? Natalie Wood was murdered by her husband tragically drowned, Richard Beymer is still alive.

Love Story is known for Jenny's death in Oliver's arms. In real life? Ali MacGraw is still alive, Ryan O'Neal is gone.

Or Brokeback Mountain: Jack dies and Ennis lives, but Jake Gyllenhaal is still alive and Heath Ledger is gone.

Since I've been exploring Into the Woods, I've been thinking of one controversial aspect of the 2014 film version: the casting of real children, 12-year-old Lilla Crawford and 13-year-old Daniel Huttlestone, as Little Red Riding Hood and Jack.

Traditionally, onstage, both of these roles are cast with performers in their late teens or 20s. And there's an article online, easy to find in a Google search, which argues that casting the roles with real children was the film version's biggest mistake.

Let's leave aside any concerns about the demands of the music and just look at the issue from a dramatic perspective.

Now, it seems clear that Little Red is supposed to be a child in-universe: all the other characters call her a "little girl" and the Wolf's song to her is titled "Hello, Little Girl."

But there’s no question that “Hello, Little Girl” is full of double entendres and intentionally plays out like a seduction, even though in-universe, what the Wolf wants is to eat her. The subtext that adults can see in all versions of Little Red Riding Hood, with the Wolf as a symbol of a sexual predator, is very close to the surface in this musical. When she's played by a real 12-year-old, I'll admit that "Hello, Little Girl" becomes much more creepy than when she's played by a 16-year-old.

But then, maybe it's supposed to be that creepy.

And then there are Little Red's own feelings about the Wolf, as expressed in "I Know Things Now." This writer argued that when she sings of how the Wolf made her feel both "excited and scared," she comes across as a teenage girl who's just had a sexual awakening and learned the danger of giving in to the charisma of a "bad boy," and that this subtext gets lost when she's played by a 12-year-old.

Or does it? It's not as if preteen girls don't have those stirrings yet! The preteen years are when they start!

As for Jack, while the libretto calls him a "boy" and a "lad," it never specifies if he's a child or a teenager, just like the original fairy tale is vague on that point. The article I found argues that he's supposed to be a young man who's lived like a child for too long with his overbearing, overprotective mother, but who wants to be independent and have adventures, as he should at his age. Then, after his mother is killed, we're supposed to agree with the Baker when he tells him that it's time for him to start taking care of himself. (Although in the end he does still live with two adults, the Baker and Cinderella.) But if he's a child, then we can't agree: it's only natural that he should still be sheltered and taken care of. Besides (the article argued), if Jack is in his late teens, it becomes easier sympathize with his mother's exasperation at his stupidity and her occasionally smacking him around – if he's a child, she seems meaner and more abusive. In "Giants in the Sky," the lyrics about his time with the Giantess also have what might be sexual undertones. ("And she draws you close to her giant breast/And you know things now that you never knew before...")

Outside of this article, TV Tropes also points out that when Jack and Little Red are played by children, it makes the Baker and Cinderella seem much more cruel in "Your Fault" when they blame them (as well as each other and the Witch) for the Giantess's rampage. Though in all fairness, it is partly their fault, especially Jack's.

All these objections are valid. Yet at the same time, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine were closely involved with the making of the 2014 movie, and though they were forced to compromise with Disney on some changes they disliked (e.g. omitting Rapunzel's death), I've never read any objection from them about the casting of Jack and Little Red as children.

In the Faerie Tale Theatre version, she ends up living with Jack and his mother and happily serving as their gigantic housekeeper, with no apparent hard feelings about her husband's death. (He was an annoying idiot, after all.)

In Into the Woods, she seeks revenge on Jack for her husband's death, and in her rampage she tramples the kingdom and kills innocent people until finally the protagonists band together to to slay her.

This post argued that after the reveal of Bertha's existence, Jane leaves Rochester not out of a sense of morality or religious duty, but because she refuses to be anything less than Rochester's wife; she loves him too much to settle for being just his mistress; if she can't be first to him in every way, personally and legally, then she doesn't want him at all.

After reading that interpretation, which was so different from my own, I had to reread every passage in the book related to Jane's choice to leave Rochester: her thoughts in her bedroom after the Bertha reveal, her last meeting with Rochester before she leaves, her thoughts as she leaves, and her later thoughts while living with her cousins.

I just had to see if I had misunderstood the whole story all these years. And personally? I don't think I did.

Jane describes herself as adhering to "principle and law” by leaving Rochester. She speaks of "Conscience" driving her to leave, says "I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man," speaks of fleeing "temptation," and reflects that to stay would be "to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me." She imagines that if she had gone to France as Rochester's mistress, then she would have been tortured by "remorse and shame," and insists that she's better off living a "free and honest" life as a country schoolteacher.

Now, it's true that it's not fear of God that drives her; she doesn't leave because she's afraid of going to hell. But her sense of self-respect, her dedication to her values, which are indeed shaped by her Christian faith, is what makes her refuse to be a married man's mistress.

Of course she also thinks to herself that if she were to become Rochester's mistress, he would lose his respect for her and eventually come to hate her as much as he hates his past mistresses. But that's not her main motive for leaving; it only strengthens her resolve.

If her motive for leaving were that she wants to be "first" to Rochester or nothing at all, I would think she was being much more childish and even selfish than she is in the actual novel. It devastates her to break Rochester's heart, and she worries that by leaving him, she's destroying his life. How could anything less than her core values and faith drive her to do such a thing to him, even though it agonizes her? Personally, I don't think "She loves him too much to settle for less than marriage" would be enough to justify it, at least not to herself.

...I have to applaud him for giving the Beast's anguished solo the title "If I Can't Love Her," not "If She Can't Love Me."

Of course the later reprise is "If She Can't Love Me," but that comes from a very different stage in the Beast's character development.

It would have been easy to have the Beast lament that Belle hates him. That would have been the more obvious choice. But a song like that would have come across as obnoxious whining, because the Beast's own behavior is what alienates Belle far more than his appearance.

It doesn't wicked stepmoms or stepsisters, but it has characters very familiar to us from Little Women, and the leading character is called Nan is very similar to Beth, and she is the Cinderella and also gets a love interest in the story.

I thought you might like it <3

Jerry Maren

In Oz

As Sleepy in the Muny's 1969 stage adaptation of Disney's Snow White

Billy Curtis

In Oz

As Barnaby in the 1984 Faerie Tale Theatre adaptation of Snow White