Even in the magical space of musical theater, Sondheim’s characters are never made happy by the things they want. They are obsessives in pursuit of revenge, or art, or money, or a child.

Into the Woods exists in a world of overlapping fairy tales: Jack’s beanstalk, Cinderella’s slipper, Rapunzel’s tower. Red’s collision with grandmother and wolf. It’s Sondheim’s additions to these—a childless baker and his wife—that draw the stories together. They collect a totem from each so they might undo a witch’s curse and have a child.

From the start, the baker’s wife longs for more than the simple domesticity she’s been given. When she runs into Cinderella fleeing from her prince’s ball, the baker’s wife grills her about the prince: Is he handsome, charming, clever, passionate? Is he everything Cinderella ever wanted?

“How can you know what you want till you get what you want,” Cinderella asks, “and you see if you like it?”

This proves predictably fateful. By show’s end, half the ensemble will be dead. Cinderella’s prince reveals himself to be a cad, lusting after an unseen Sleeping Beauty and seducing the baker’s wife in the woods.

Still. The final line of the first act is “And happy ever after.” The curtain falls and rises again, proving this untrue. In the second act, this final line is repeated, but before the lights go, Cinderella’s voice rings out, defining all the show’s joys and tragedies: “I wish—”

Wishing is dangerous, wishing is unstoppable. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s better to get what you wish for; you go on wishing.

Edith spent the first part of the next morning at Peet’s Coffee, jumping from scene to scene of The Odyssey. She wasn’t sure she’d ever read it straight through, only absorbed its story in this fractured way. What was the book of The Odyssey anyway? One of the poem’s endless variations. If there is no true version of a thing, then there can be no false ones.

The clientele at Peet’s was either eighteen or sixty. There was the roar and hiss of the espresso machine, there were teens scrolling through TikTok. Edith would rather dwell on any other life. Any conversation but her and Tessa’s. She’d rather lose herself in climbing or in a bookstore or find a guy on Grindr to fuck her until she forgot the boundaries between sexualities.

We don’t get to choose what we think about.

For instance: their growing awkwardness, changing behind closed doors.

For instance: Tessa saying, I don’t think we should do this anymore. And when Edith asked why, Tessa said, Don’t ask me that. Do you think we should?

For instance: Edith saying, No, you’re right.

What did it mean that Tessa was dating a man? More than dating—living with him. What did it mean about their breakup, and the path Edith had taken to transitioning, and what might have come if she’d never gone.

You make decisions and you live out their consequences. It takes years for an insight to arrive. Every choice made with incomplete information—was that fair?

Adam’s voice: That’s life.

It’s a good thing Zoloft kept her from wanting to kill herself.