What happens to Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods?

We only provide suggested audition monologues or songs for an individual character if our system finds content that matches a character's traits. Results may vary.

Click the keyword tags below to see more results.

*Our system only provides suggested monologues or songs for select characters if we have matching monologues and song information in our database.

Into the Woods, a stage musical composed by Stephen Sondheim and scripted by James Lapine, retells the fairy tales “Jack and the Bean Stalk,” “Rapunzel,” and the Grimm’s renditions of “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Cinderella,” interconnecting these classic tales with the story of a baker and his wife going on a quest to break an infertility curse. While Act One of the play concludes with the expected fairy tale endings, Act Two explores the repercussions of the characters’ actions. Two protagonists with arguably the most intriguing character arcs are the indecisive Cinderella and dreamy-eyed Baker’s Wife who must confront their own flaws and ignored desires as they journey through the woods.

For this analysis, I’ll reference the 1991 PBS American Playhouse performance, starring Kim Crosby, Joanna Gleason, Robert Westenberg, and Chip Zien. Since this production cuts one song short, I’ll reference the 1988 cast recording for the extended version’s lyrics. I’ll also reference the script for most lyrics, song titles, and other direct quotes.

Female Archetypes

Throughout Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tale anthology, the authors frequently portray low-class women as virtuous maidens who receive a husband or child as rewards for their behavior. The younger maidens or damsels in distress take center stage more often than their older, married counterparts, the most popular of the cannon using the damsels’ names as story titles. Into the Woods’ Cinderella embodies this role, best shown through the social expectations thrust on her and the similarities she shares with the other ingénues in the play. During her parts of the first song, “Prologue: Into the Woods,” Cinderella laments about her parents’ strict behavioral expectations, singing, “Mother said be good, / Father said be nice, / That was always their advice. / So be nice, Cinderella, / Good, Cinderella, / Nice good good nice.” Kim Crosby punctuates the “nice good good nice” mantra by aggressively yanking her stepsister’s hair, demonstrating her frustration with suppressing her resentment. Judging by her responses to her family’s abuse – rushing to complete fruitless tasks, complimenting her bossy stepsister, and turning the other cheek once she’s slapped – one can assume that her parents define goodness as obedience and niceness as having a pleasant disposition. But Cinderella interpreted these definitions to the extreme, becoming subservient and not standing up for herself. The next set of lyrics, “What’s the good of being good / If everyone is blind / Always leaving you behind?” shows the audience how Cinderella has internalized the idea that virtue is always rewarded. Consequently, she holds on to wishes and daydreams about the king’s festival to cope. Like the musical’s other damsels in distress – Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White – Cinderella waits for others to rescue her. First, the birds pick the lentils out of the ashes, then her deceased mother’s tree bestows her with the dress and slippers, both paving the way for her to attend the balls. Their assistance makes her co-dependent and incapable of making proactive decisions.

In the Grimm’s cannon, wives typically only desire children and are relegated to the background once their wishes come true. They’re secondary characters for neglectful husbands, violent mothers-in-law, and adventurous children. Into the Woods only identifies Joanna Gleason’s character as the Baker’s Wife, linking her to her husband and her wifely duty to carry on his lineage. Before the journey in the woods, she has no autonomy, especially in her husband’s eyes.

Wishes In the Woods

Though the central characters vocalize their wishes in the opening number, the musical’s titular woods expose their suppressed wishes and flaws. A key moment to note in “Prologue: Into the Woods” is that while Cinderella repeatedly sings that she “[wishes] to go to the festival […] and the ball,” it’s her stepfamily that adds “and dance with the prince.” The stepmother and stepsisters voice the wishes of stereotypical fairy tale women who seek social and fiscal mobility. Yet, all Cinderella wants is a change of scenery and an escape from her abusive family. Her scenes in the woods in Act One not only highlight how the expectation to conform to this traditional mindset takes a toll on her, but they also reveal her general indecisiveness. Since the prologue and “Cinderella at the Grave” demonstrate her reliance on others to take care of her, her two main sequences in the woods – “He’s a Very Nice Prince” and “On the Steps of the Palace” – dissect her unpreparedness with lines such as “How can you know what you want / Till you get what you want / And you see if you like it?” and “What I want most of all / […] Is to know what I want.” Her story expects her to accept the Prince as her escape, but she later realizes that she wants “something in between” (Act Two, Scene Two). So, with the pitch-smeared steps pushing her to make a choice, she chooses passivity, letting the Prince decide her future.

Not only do the woods spotlight the Baker’s Wife’s capability during the curse-breaking scavenger hunt, but they also expose the shortcomings of her marriage. Her husband expects her to sit at home while he goes on this quest alone, despite her proclaiming that “The spell is on our house,” not just his (Act One, Scene One). This demonstrates that their marriage lacks teamwork. Considering their round-about pregnancy quest, its’ safe to assume the Baker’s infertility has caused strife in their marriage as well, affecting their sex life. During “He’s a Very Nice Prince,” the Wife fantasizes about the Prince’s character, prompting Cinderella to share more details about him. The qualities she imagines that he has – flirtatious, “sensitive / Clever / Well-mannered / Considerate / Passionate / Charming / As kind as he is handsome / As wise as he is rich” – not only reveal how she wishes that her husband would woo her, but also categorize romance as a luxury by linking it with wealth. Her and her husband’s poverty only leaves room for practicality, as confirmed by her lamenting, “I never wish / […] Just within reason” and “When you know you can’t have what you want, / Where’s the profit in wishing?” The Baker grows more assertive during the quest, resulting in the couple acquiring three of the four items by their duet “It Takes Two.” During this song, the Wife compares her husband to the traits she imagined the Prince would have – passionate, charming, considerate, and clever – and praises him for “thriving / […] Not just / Surviving.” The Baker’s changing character gives his wife a glimmer of hope for their marriage, and they end their duet with their first, and only, on-stage kiss.

The Fairy Tale Dilemma

Fairy tales rarely center characters’ interpersonal journeys. Instead, they focus on the tangible journeys characters embark on, whether they manifest as a series of balls or a scavenger hunt to break a curse. The actions are only steps towards achieving the conventional Western aspirations of wealth, marriage, and nuclear families. Sporadically, they’re gruesome cautionary tales told to veer listeners into Catholic or Protestant morals. More often than not, fairy tale characters don’t feel the weight of their actions’ consequences. They do as they’re told, and their wishes fall into their laps. Into the Woods emphasizes that this results in discontent characters who don’t understand the importance of responsibility.

By Act Two, many characters revert to their original personalities, having retained nothing from their first journey through the woods. Though most of them have obtained their wishes, their lack of character growth spurs discontentment. The Baker resorts back to his survival mentality, leaving the responsibility of childcare to his wife. Not only does this lack of teamwork re-establish a divide within the marriage, but it also leaves room for his wife’s thoughts to wander back to fantasies about Cinderella’s Prince, inciting their affair. Meanwhile, Cinderella occupies her mind with planning a festival while her husband pines over Sleeping Beauty in the woods.

To link Acts One and Two’s plots, Lapine utilizes the wife of the giant Jack murdered as the vehicle of consequences. Seeking vengeance for her husband’s death, the giantess requests that the fearful ensemble bring Jack to her. However, with the boy nowhere to be found, they ultimately sacrifice the Narrator. Before his death, he warns the group, “If you drag me into this mess, you’ll never know how the story ends. You’ll be lost. […] You don’t want to live in a world of chaos” (Act Two, Scene One). Shortly thereafter, the cast sees that such chaos manifests as the dark consequences of the real world.

From Reverie to Reality

Though she falls to the background for most of Act Two, Cinderella’s arc has the more optimistic conclusion compared to that of the Baker’s Wife. After Cinderella’s bird friends prompt her to investigate the giantess, she discovers that her mother’s grave has been destroyed in the aftershock, leaving her directionless. While she claims in “On the Steps of the Palace” that her potential marriage was her “first big decision,” confronting her husband on his infidelity, choosing to leave him and his financial security is her first choice that demonstrates her growth. Her arc comes full circle during “No One is Alone” as she sings, “Mother cannot guide you / Now you’re on your own” and “You decide what’s good,” cementing her autonomy and rejection of blind obedience. While some consider her choice to help the Baker raise his son, Jack, and Little Red Riding Hood as a reductive reinforcement of gender roles, one can argue that she’s choosing to guide and assist others the way her mother and the birds helped her. She’s transitioning from a helpless child to a capable adult.

After the Narrator and two other characters die, the Baker and his wife separate to find Jack. While the Baker eventually finds Cinderella at her mother’s grave, his wife runs into Cinderella’s Prince, who distracts her from the life-or-death dilemma with compliments on her bravery and fantasies of amoral spontaneity. Her response to their first kiss, “This is ridiculous / What am I doing here? / I’m in the wrong story,” acts as both a clever fourth wall break that recognizes the impact of the Narrator’s absence and harkens back to her scenes with Cinderella in Act One (“Any Moment”). During “He’s a Very Nice Prince,” the Wife comments, “To be pursued by a prince. All that pursues me is tomorrow’s bread. What I would give to be in your shoes.” After noticing Cinderella’s golden shoes – one of her quest items – she chases the young maiden, attempting to steal them twice. The Wife attempting to steal Cinderella’s shoes foreshadows her stealing the Prince’s affection. She wants a chance at the life Cinderella gets for being young, beautiful, and virtuous. While initially, she resists the affair, her marital strife and the giantess’s looming threat make the fantasy’s escape appealing. Living this temporary fantasy leaves her at a crossroads, making her contemplate if she can have it all – “a child for warmth, and a baker for bread / And a prince… for whatever” (“Moments in the Woods”). Ultimately, she blames these thoughts on the “trick of the woods” and resolves to return to her family (“Moments in the Woods”). One annotation for “Moments in the Woods” by caitwmarie on Genius.com highlights Sondheim’s wordplay where “wood” could be confused with “would.” In most of her songs in this setting, these homonyms reveal how she considers what her life could be like if she had different options.

Tragically, the Wife dies immediately after her song as a result of the giantess’s earth-shaking footsteps. Many critics consider her death a sexist punishment for her infidelity, especially considering that the Prince doesn’t reap any consequences for his frequent cheating. But many other characters die because of other people’s mistakes. One may blame her death on Jack since he murdered the first giant. Or, one could point to Cinderella’s mother’s wise words for an explanation: “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor and good fortune, like bad, can befall when least expected” (Act One, Scene Two). Her death could be a random accident. However, considering the timing of the earthquake, one can blame the Wife’s death on her lingering in the woods too long. While Cinderella slowly gains confidence in her own decisions and takes on responsibility, the Wife reels back into her fantasies. The consequences reinforce that you can’t live in reality and fantasy at the same time. At some point you must leave the “would” behind. Or else, reality will crush you.

Who saved Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods?

Is Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods?

How does Red Riding Hood end?

Does Little Red Riding Hood get saved?