THE WILD SWANS
The fairy Morgana appears to Elise in a dream and tells her how to break the curse: she must prove her love by plucking nettles from the rocks and sewing shirts from them; flung over the swans, they will restore their humanity. Until then she must speak to no one, though that injunction almost costs her the love of a handsome king who befriends her. Nearly burned alive as a sorceress–her silence means she can’t explain her obsession with nettles–Elise is saved by her flying brothers, whom she in turn redeems from the curse. Oddly, we never learn of any punishment inflicted on her wicked stepmother or the credulous father who so easily believed that his children forsook him.
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The 12-member cast seem stuck in their stereotypes. Jean Elliott Campbell’s wicked witch mugs automatically in the Margaret Hamilton manner patented over half a century ago. Debra Schommer gives Elizabeth the kind of ingenue screaming fits that Princess Leia of Star Wars should have destroyed forever. Kevin Farrell’s melodramatic Prince Cimon looks as if he might reinvent the railroad just to tie Elizabeth to the tracks.
