#also the only version i've seen live/in person had a butch playing the narrator/mysterious man and Y'ALL

[smallblueandloud]

the narrator is telling us, the audience, a story. that's the meta aspect of the show summed up -- he is narrating the plot of Several Fairy Tales to an audience that paid for it, but he is also part of the story of Into The Woods the show. and even though he dies before he can finish telling the story, it sure does seem like he was going towards the same point that the musical ends on, or at least a sub-point: you are not alone. there are consequences for your actions. see how these people experience the consequences of their actions.

and yet there is a larger theme of the show that encompasses his sub-point: that of parents and children. there are consequences for your actions, especially when your action is about your child, ESPECIALLY when your action is accidentally teaching your child that actions don't have consequences by telling them the same stories the narrator is telling YOU. once again, we have sub- and super-stories -- the narrator is outside of the fairy tales, but within the musical. he is outside of the moral about consequences, but within the moral about how these problems with consequences only develop BECAUSE of these SAME STORIES he is telling us in an attempt to teach us about consequences!

and to me, at least, that's the core reason why his being doublecast with the mysterious man makes sense. he knows that consequences are important, but he abandoned his son before he could teach him that (or maybe before he learned it) -- so now he's teaching it to us. of course, of COURSE that's why the cycle breaks with his son telling the story to his son, rather than starting to tell it to us again. we're not important anymore -- after all, the audience is very much conceived of as adults, to the point where they are told to be "careful the spell you cast (not just on children)", so telling us the story is just telling us things we kinda... already knew. in order to make things better, to REALLY break the cycle, you have to start with the kids. you have to teach the kids, you have to pay attention to the kids, you have to STAY with the kids just as the baker chooses to do!

this is a long and convolutedly-worded post all for me to say that this is why i think that, when the baker finally starts to tell the story to his son, he very clearly TURNS HIS BACK TO THE AUDIENCE. because it isn't a performance anymore! it isn't a work of fiction! it's his life, and more importantly his SON'S life, and he's going to teach this lesson to his son now instead of telling it to a bunch of strangers who paid money to watch him sing.