NOW Magazine Online Edition

INTO THE WOODS music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, directed by Peter Hinton, with Bruce Dow, Peter Donaldson, Susan Gilmour, Mary Ellen Mahoney and Kyle Blair. Runs in rep to Oct 30. $44.14-$114.39. Avon Theatre, Stratford. 1-800-567-1600, www.stratfordfestival.ca. Rating: NNN

Into the Woods – fabulous, beautiful, and I hated every minute of it. I've always blamed Stephen Sondheim for the earnestness that has taken over the American musical, and everything about Stratford's Into The Woods confirms my bias.

It has tons of content – too much, I think, fracturing familiar fairy tales to comment on parent-child relationships and the meaning of choice while warning us all to be careful what we wish for.

But we go to see musicals for the song and dance, right? There isn't a single dance number in this show. And while Sondheim's virtuosic lyrics are awfully smart, he cannot write a melody. Oh, wait, yes he can. Who can forget A Little Night Music's Send In The Clowns? Sondheim can't. He's reworked it here almost note for note in the show's emotional climax, No More.

If you're looking to see a musical composer redeemed, Stratford is the place to go. There's creative design by Dany Lyne and energetic performances, especially by Kyle Blair as Jack (of beanstalk fame). Bruce Dow and Mary Ellen Mahoney are electrifying as the baker and his wife.

You get the feeling as you're watching them that they just can't wait for a real musical to break out. susanc@nowtoronto.com

Laurie Paton and Blair Williams go the open marriage route in The Constant Wife.

When fooling around isn't such a bad thing

THE CONSTANT WIFE by Somerset Maugham, directed by Neil Munro, with Laurie Paton, Blair Williams, Peter Krantz and Glynis Ranney. Presented by the Shaw Festival at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake. Runs in rep to October 9. $42-$82. 1-800-511-7429. Rating: NNN

You'd never know that the Constant Wife, with its progressive talk about the evolving nature of love and marriage, is nearly 80 years old. Author Somerset Maugham threw a few curve balls at his audience, including the ideas that extramarital affairs can be a positive thing, that the other partner isn't always upset by them and that a woman needs economic independence to be an equal partner in a relationship.

He presents the ideas in witty and sometimes brittle fashion, focusing on the 15-year-old marriage between well-off surgeon John ( Blair Williams ) and his elegant wife Constance ( Laurie Paton ). John's having it off with Constance's best friend Marie-Louse ( Glynis Ranney ), but Constance – realizing that the fire's out in her marriage – doesn't mind.

But her friends and relatives in their upper-class circle do, and Maugham's good at showing the hypocrisy and snootiness in their attitudes toward the public and private spheres of marriage. Things change for everyone when Constance's former wooer Bernard ( Peter Krantz ) shows up on the Middletons' doorstep and is encouraged to spend time with Constance.

Paton's expert at being the society wife, with a Cheshire-cat grin and purring voice, ignoring her husband's affair and doing her best not to let it cause an eruption amongst her acquaintances. When her initially quiet manner turns steely as the play goes on, she reveals there's more to Constance than we initially see.

Williams has John's well-born charm and narrow-sighted views down pat, and Krantz brings some real feeling to the humour that's part of Bernard's character. But director Neil Munro turns Ranney's Marie-Louise into a foolish comic figure, thus unbalancing the relationship between the two women and between the lovers. Ranney plays it well, but the interpretation dulls Maugham's point for the sake of a few laughs.

Amy Walsh plays Rapunzel (left) and Susan Gilmour is the Witch in the Stratford production of Into The Woods.

Grimm tales

You thought the Grimm Brothers' stories were dark? Take a peek at Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine 's Into The Woods , which suggests that the tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and others didn't end happily ever after. Peter Hinton directs the Stratford Festival production with Peter Donaldson , Susan Gilmour , Bruce Dow , Mary Ellen Mahoney and Jennifer Waiser , with design by Dany Lyne . Runs to October 30, Avon Theatre , Stratford. 1-800-567-1600.

Mama mia!

There's hardly a more mesmerizing figure in American musical theatre than Mama Rose, the real star of Gypsy . The show, by Jule Styne , Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents , actually gets its name from Rose's daughter, who becomes stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Nora McLellan is a natural for Rose, and in the Shaw Festival production - helmed by artistic director Jackie Maxwell - she's supported by Julie Martell , Trish Lindström , Ric Reid , Jeff Lillico and Kate Hennig . Runs to October 30, Festival Theatre , Niagara-on-the-Lake. 1-800-511-7429.

Twins peak

Though Shakespeare's early play The Comedy Of Errors is a farce, with not one but two sets of twins causing comic confusion, it also has a dark side, something that director Richard Rose understands. The Theatre by the Bay production features Brandon McGibbon and Brendan Murray as the upper-class twins and Kyle Horton and Michael Rubenfeld as their clownish servants, with Philippa Domville and Kelly McIntosh as understandably confused sisters. Previews from August 11, opens August 13 and runs to September 3 at Heritage Park , Barrie. 1-866-735-9243.

Scottish gothic

In Belle Moral: A Natural History , novelist and playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald uses a gothic whodunit framework to look at a turn-of-the-century Scottish family who are not quite of their time, what with the women's involvement in science and feminist philosophy and the men's preference for eating shortbread over more manly activities. Alisa Palmer directs this Shaw Festival production, with Fiona Byrne , Jeff Meadows , Peter Hutt and Donna Belleville as the articulate, eccentric characters. Previews from July 7, opens July 16 and runs to October 7 at the Court House Theatre , Niagara-on-the-Lake. 1-800-511-7429.

Trippy Bard

Look for day-glo colours and unisex costumes in Stratford's staging of As You Like It , in which the Bard's cross-dressing plot gets period support from director Antoni Cimolino 's summer-of-love staging, complete with big hair and hippy beads. The cast - including Dion Johnstone , Sara Topham , Graham Abbey , Sophie Goulet and Stephen Ouimette - cavort to a new score by Barenaked Ladies . Runs to October 30 at the Festival Theatre , Stratford. 1-800-567-1600.