If real fables ended in chaos, children would never get any sleep.

Imagine rocking a 4-year-old into slumber with the thought that the prince finds his princess only to cheat on her. Or that Little Red Riding Hood, disillusioned by her experience with the wolf, packs a knife to ward off future predators.

Yet that's exactly what happens in "Into the Woods," the fairy-tale-noir musical by Stephen Sondheim now in a production by Theatre Harrisburg. Moral ambiguity might not make great bedtime reading, but it's the stuff of a brilliant show.

Bits and pieces from classic fairy tales collide here to form one ingeniously warped story. The familiar characters begin their individual quests but end up pursuing a common goal.

In the process, they learn a lesson that complicates their black-and-white world view: The grass is always greener. Cinderella, for instance, realizes she actually enjoys scrubbing floors.

With their minimalist realization of "Into the Woods," director Tom Hostetter and scenic designer Yevgenia Nayberg are taking a safe but effective path through the forest of conceptual possibilities.

Their partially abstract vision consists of a few barren trees and some spiky underbrush; The prince's castle is a flat cut-out. With the shadows from Lori Friedlander's lighting, though, everything appears dense and menacing.

The cast turn in worthy performances despite a tricky score with potentially tongue-twisting lyrics. Richard Fowler conducts an alert chamber orchestra. Together they are responsible for moments that truly soar, "No One is Alone" in particular.

Beth Ann Cowling, as Cinderella, has an agile and shapely voice. She is matched in those terms by Maria Petrilak as the Baker's Wife and Bridgette Gan as golden-haired songbird Rapunzel. Gan's younger sister, Natalie, makes a bratty Red Riding Hood.

George Diehl and Tallen Corby Olsen, as the two princes, pile on love-sick sentiment in their duet, "Agony." Among the men, though, the strongest voices are in Richard William Stevens, the Baker, and Michael Zorger, who plays Jack.

Wisdom abounds in "Into the Woods," but the tone is hardly serious. In fact, this production offers plenty of the absurd, as when Cinderella's prince, inspired by Monty Python, struts along on an imaginary horse as his servant makes clopping sounds.