Sitting here in my beautiful home on a hot but not overly oppressive summer evening, I'm working on analyzing data from my school's latest round of state assessments (we did really well! Better than last year with an over group of students who had greater needs.)
In this context I'm listening to the soundtrack from the original Broadway production of "Into The Woods" by Stephen Sondheim. Perhaps a facet of my rambling intellect, I'm crunching numbers and creating graphic representations of my school's data while I'm again struck by the immense and profound work of art that this musical is.
Its cast was so perfectly appointed that each of them became THE icon of their character. The themes are so intensely rich and universal a representation of what it means to be human, to be alive, to know love, loss, forgiveness.... grace.
Of all the artistic creations of the past 20th century: "Guernica" by Picasso, "The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, or "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak...(the latter was added to express the absurdity of the premise, which, in turn, only highlights the profundity of the observation that)..... "Into The Woods" will always percolate to the top of the pool.
It's so rich in ideas and archetypal images. A wealth that only the convergence of hundreds of years of folklore-established ideas passed down, first in the oral tradition and later codified by the likes of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm among others, combined with broader more contemporary themes of what it means to be alive and give expression to that meaning. I never tire of listening to it.
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