Props for no props

A shoestring budget inspires some very clever moments as stripped-down staging goes a long, long way for ‘Into the Woods’

The trees are ropes resembling piano strings. The birds are folded sheets of stationery. The princes ride on stick horses. And the wolf stalking Little Red Ridinghood is mounted like a hunting trophy.

Fiasco Theater’s frisky “Into the Woods,” which opened on Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre, is as economical a rendering of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical as it is an imaginative one. A tight budget has set the creative juices flowing. The eager-to-please production overstays its welcome, but its shoestring delights are manifold.

Originally produced by Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center in 2013, this adventurous take on a popular if problematic show combines the f luid precision of a professional troupe with the gleeful insouciance of an amateur theatrical company. The score may be diminished by an orchestra downsized to just a few instruments, but the production makes up in playfulness what it lacks in cascading sound.

No theater has the resources to compete with the visual splendor of Rob Marshall’s 2014 film version of “Into the Woods.” Fiasco’s pareddown approach, while not as dramatically assured as John Doyle’s minimalist Sondheim reinterpretations, exposes the simple means by which scenic magic can be achieved.

The bare-bones sets by Derek McLane never let us forget that this trip into the woods is taking place inside a theater. A ladder, a dress dummy and a speaking trumpet are all that’s needed to bring the most unruly fantasy elements to life.

Plucked from tales by the Brothers Grimm, the characters of “Into the Woods” (which had its premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in 1986) have all been given neurotic makeovers by Sondheim and Lapine. Little Red Ridinghood has a sour temper and a taste for

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays; ends May 14 (call for exceptions) Tickets: $25-$125 (subject to change) Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes, including intermission Info: (213) 972-4400, www .centertheatregroup.org

Photographs by Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times ANTHONY CHATMON II as the Wolf with Lisa Helmi Johanson as Red Ridinghood in a pared-down production of “Into the Woods.”

“INTO THE WOODS” at the Ahmanson Theatre combines the f luid precision of a professional troupe with the gleeful insouciance of an amateur company operating on a bare-bones budget.