Into the woods Wolf Eating

[josh88]

Ok folks, quick question. How do most people go about doing the scene in Into the Woods when the wolf eats granny and little red, and then later they emerge?

I know I've seen a lot of the exiting of the wolf and it seems most people do a split sheet with fake legs and the wolfs head and they cut the people out and climb through the slit in the sheet. is that the easiest? How about the actual eating bit? Is it feasible to do a flash black out and have them duck behind something?

The show is quickly coming up and I've been so distracted with all the other things going on that I haven't had time to think this one out yet. so I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Theresa]

We've done it in silhouette behind the cyc, with a light upstage. The wolf was a 2-d cut out (with an articulated puppet-like mouth, and the actor doing a voice over). We would mark a line on the floor (to keep the actors on a consistent distance from the light) and then work with the actors to make their gestures read well.

 

[josh88]

Sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately I've only got about 5 feet from my cyc to the wall. I'm thinking The only option I have is to go with a blackout to deal with the eating. I'm just out of time and there's too much on my plate. (No pun intended)


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[Theresa]

We didn't have much more than 6 foot of space to work with.

 

[Andrew McNamara]

What I suggest is something a little beyond community theater, yet it can be done on a cheap budget. Have the wolf kneeling in a big hole inside the bed, with arm holes and fake feet that the actor/actress playing Granny can puppeteer with their hands. There should be a slit in the nightgown so that as the wolf mimes dragging her in, she can safely step into the bed, and there should be a wall behind as the house, because without it, it would destroy the illusion. When the baker stabs the wolf, Little Red and Granny step out, the slit is sealed with velcro, and the audience can't even comprehend what happened.

 

[MNicolai]

Keep in mind this show is punctuated heavily with comedy. It doesn't have to be a perfect illusion. It can be hokey, which is great for a few laughs. Just has to look like that's what you were going for.

Gotta be careful with effects like this. More elaborate and serious you are in trying to perform it, the more unforgiving the audience will be if it doesn't look quite right. If you go for comedic effect, you can just about get away with murder in how you perform it.

 

[Les]

Agreed with MNicolai. For example, our horse was an obvious and slightly out-of-proportion plywood cutout (ala Waiting for Guffman), and the birds were controlled by a fishing pole with a cross-shaped bracket (not unlike a baby crib mobile) on the end of the line. Milky White was a stiff paper mâché thing about the size of a poodle and had casters as hooves.

Have fun with it .

EDIT: Just remembered - our wolf scene took place in a "hut" with the 4th wall being a small scrim. It was fairly melodramatically acted out.


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[alyx92]

We had a Granny house unit that was a plywood cut out of the house exterior, but a large section of the middle was painted scrim, and we did the whole thing in silhouette.

 

[josh88]

we had an actual house on stage that lived there and big enough open windows that served as everybody's house so ultimately we put him in there, granny walks in the door, gets in the window, sees the wolf, gives her line and then the wolf jumped her behind the wall so it worked out perfectly fine in the end.