A bit late review, anyway...
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Generally, the local staging of “Into the Woods” is good. This can be attributed to the brilliance of five actors in the play – Menchu Launchengco-Yulo as the wife, Michael Williams as the baker, Lynn Sherman as the witch, Cathy Azanza as Cinderella, and of course Julia Abueva as Little Red Riding Hood (very promising kid). Among the actors, they were those who were really able to sing a pretty hard musical of Sondheim. It's not easy to perform the songs of Sondheim; too tricky. Not to mention, most of the music were done in staccato (jumpy notes).
I was actually excited about seeing the cast's performance for four particular songs ("Agony", "It Takes Two", "Moments in the Woods", "Children Will Listen". When I was browsing through the script, the lyrics of these songs caught my attention (I love the word play). These are the first batch of “Into the Woods” songs that I viewed on Youtube. I think you really should look after the performances of the local actors of these songs.
For instance, “Agony” performed by John Mulhall (as Rapunzel's Prince) and Jamie Wilson, I must say, is one of the good performances. Wilson's & Mulhall's voices blend really well. It's comparable to the Broadway performance of Chuck Wagner and Robert Westenberg. Well, may except for the apparent “s” problem of Jamie. Of course, “Moments in the Woods” by Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo is classic and brilliant.
It's Sondheim. Music is quite playful (hard of course). But of course, music is soulful and beautiful. Just don't expect that it is something you can sing-along with like Avenue Q or Rent. I can't think of a more apt comparison but its music is near to Sound of Music. Although SOM is easier to sing-along with (I guess). You just have to enjoy and internalize the music to be entertained. The play has a well-written lyrics you can reflect on (The problem though is that there are some points where you couldn’t understand the lyrics maybe because of the hard and playful music)
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