The school musical is an annual occurrence at West Side. The shows chosen are usually little-known musicals that have questionable morals (for example, last year’s undoubtedly politically-incorrect and confusing “Little Mary Sunshine”), but the musical chosen this year was a lot more well-known.

This year’s choice was “Into the Woods,” a play about Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel whose lives cross in the woods.

The characters that bring the stories together are a baker (Jake Weiss) and his wife (Annie Ellis) who are cursed by a witch so that they can’t have children until they find four items. They find the items, the baker’s wife gets pregnant, Red Riding Hood’s (Anna Roberts) grandmother is safe, Jack (Alec Canada) becomes rich, Cinderella (Mayfawny Bergmann) gets her prince (Nick Larew) and Rapunzel (Maggie Oates) is also united with her prince (Brian Anderson). It’s all great and everyone’s happy. But wait, there’s more.

I seriously thought that the play was over. I was getting ready to leave when I realized there was another act. How could things get better? All of the problems are solved. But no, I sat back down and watched the next act.

In this act everything goes crazy. A giant comes down from the beanstalk and terrorizes  everyone, wanting to kill Jack. Rapunzel ends up committing suicide because she was abused as a child. The baker’s wife cheats on her husband with Cinderella’s prince and then dies. Jack’s mom (Darian Williams) is killed too, and the witch also meets an end. Basically half of the cast, including the narrator, dies in the second act and Little Red, Jack, Cinderella, and the baker decide to live together. The end.

Despite the wacky (and/or depressing) story line and the fact that my favourite childhood fairytales were corrupted, I was pleasantly surprised because the actors’ performances were quite good.

One scene that especially stood out to me was when Little Red Riding Hood comes across the wolf. The scene itself is quite disturbing; but the actors, Anna Roberts and Paul Yoon, executed it flawlessly. I even checked the broadway recording to see if that’s really how it is in the play and their performances were absolutely identical.

The whole cast stood out to me as performers. Mayfawny Bergmann’s Cinderella was loving and sincere without being useless, Gaia Attardo’s witch was comical but still terrifying, and Maggie Oates’ Rapunzel was confused but also tragic.