Sleeping Beauty (Faerie Tale Theatre episode)

Infobox Television episode


Title=Sleeping Beauty
Series=Faerie Tale Theatre
Season=2
Episode=3
Airdate=July 7 1983
Writer=Jeffrey Alan Fiskin
Director=Jeremy Kagan
Prev=The Nightingale
Next=Jack and the Beanstalk

"Sleeping Beauty" is the 5th episode of the television anthology "Faerie Tale Theatre". The story is adapted from the classic fairytale of Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault and stars Bernadette Peters as the title character.

Plot

A woodsman (George Dzundza) who is busy chopping wood meets a prince (Ron Rifkin) and his squire (Christopher Reeve) who are passing through the forest. The pair stop for a drink and a story, and the woodsman enthusiastically starts on the tale of the enchanted castle that is in view of where they are sitting.

The woodsman tells the story of King Boris (Rene Auberjonois) and Queen Natasha (Sally Kellerman), monarchs of the castle,who had a daughter and invited all the fairies in the kingdom to her christening. The parents unfortunately forgot to invite Henbane (Beverly D'Angelo), a wicked fairy who decided to crash the christening anyway and vindictively put a curse on the princess that she will die when she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel. The last good fairy (Carol Kane) to give a gift to the princess counters the curse with a spell of her own, saying that a prince's kiss will save the princess, but Henbane declares that she will prevent any prince from getting anywhere close to the princess.

Years pass and the princess grows up (Bernadette Peters). Her father has banned all spinning wheels in the kingdom, but is desperate to marry his daughter off quickly and send her to another kingdom where she will be safe. He invites King Murray (Richard Libertini) and his son (Christopher Reeve) to the castle, but when the princess sees the cowardly prince she is to marry, she runs through the castle looking for a hiding place. She eventually finds a secluded room, in which an old woman is spinning a spinning wheel. Amazed by this machine she'd never seen, the princess tries to spin the wheel but pricks her finger and collapses into sleep.

King Boris and Queen Natasha are sad that the curse came to pass, but take hope in that the good fairy's counter spell will rescue their daughter. The good fairy decides to put everyone in the whole kingdom to sleep as well so that the princess will not outlive everyone that she loves, allowing them to wait in peace for a prince to come. Henbane counters this by casting a thick bramble around the castle and turning herself into a dragon to defeat any prince that tries to enter the castle.

Back in the forest, upon the completion of the woodsman's story the squire declares that he will save the princess. The woodsman tells him that only a prince can rescue the princess, to which the "prince" reveals that he's actually the squire, and the "squire" is actually the prince. The (real) prince then proceeds to tell his own story about why they switched places.

In the princes' story, he reveals that he'd been having dreams about a beautiful and kind princess who has been waiting for him. He set out to travel the world with his squire in search of this princess, and one of the kingdoms he went to belonged to a Queen Farrah (Sally Kellerman) and her daughter, Princess Debbie (Bernadette Peters). The prince attempted to get to know this princess, but she eventually turned out to be a selfish gold-digger. After leaving that kingdom, the prince decided to switch places with the squire so he would be in a better position to ascertain the honesty of princesses.

His story finished, the prince then borrows the woodsman's axe and sets out to the enchanted castle, where he encounters the fierce brambles and the bloodthirsty dragon guarding the way to the Sleeping Beauty.

Cast

Production

The writing of this episode deliberately played up on the "prince charming" convention by initially introducing Ron Rifkin as the handsome prince and Christopher Reeve as the "not so handsome" squire, though it is later revealed that the prince and squire had exchanged places.

Additionally, leads Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve each performed double roles as alternate versions of the classic prince and princess. Bernadette Peters played a selfish princess who attempted to charm the handsome prince, and Christopher Reeve a cowardly prince who was supposed to marry Sleeping Beauty. This episode featured Bernadette Peters (an accomplished Broadway and film actress and singer) singing the song "I'm Nobody's Baby."

Quotes

* Queen Natasha: (reading a book) "A few years ago in a nearby country..."
* King Boris: "That's not what it says. It says 'Once upon a time in a land far away'."

ee also

List of Faerie Tale Theatre episodes