Out of all the Disney princess movies, “Sleeping Beauty” is one I have never seen from start to finish. As with most Disney animated films before the 90s, the creative team behind them takes creative liberties with the original fairy tale. Voices in the Wind Theatre — the same people who brought us a Snow White audio drama — try to up their game with this version of Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty as Both Active and Passive

As the title suggests, the title character of Aurora is asleep during what should be a moment of action. For most of the story, she’s reacting to other stimuli. It’s a problem with the source material where a character is asleep during the climax of the story. Diane Vander Hoven and George Zarr dance around this story problem by arguably making the three fairies the main characters.

Two out of the three good fairies have a distinct personality and voice in both characterization and performance. Hazel is the wise fairy, Marigold the comic relief, and Daphne lies somewhere in between. Because of this lack of differentiation, Daphne is the weakest of the three in terms of characterization. Unlike Hazel and Marigold, she doesn’t have a quirk that sets her apart. Her lines often meld together with Marigold in terms of the actresses’ voice.

Human Fairies and Magical Cliches

The midpoint of this audio drama is perhaps the most human in terms of emotion. Up until Aurora’s 16th birthday scene, there’s a sense of discrimination against the three main fairy characters. They aren’t invited to the princesses’ first birthday, yet we don’t know why. It adds an adult wrinkle to an otherwise whimsical children’s tale. The king and queen entrust the princess to the fairies until her 16th birthday after Tormaleen (the evil fairy) curses the child and Marigold counters with the “kiss of true love” trope common in almost every early Disney animated movie.

Children’s Content and a Lesson on Consent in Sleeping Beauty

While the age demographic for this show is geared toward kids, there are some frightening sounds and moments near the end that walk the line between off-putting and somewhat scary for a child at least. This is juxtaposed with moments of whimsy with the fairies in the somewhat annoying “Ready, Set, Land/Fly” they say each time they fly or land somewhere. It’s for children, yes, but it happened more often than was enjoyable.

Once the Prince and fairies defeat the dragon form of Tormaleen, the story takes a direction that the Disney film never addressed if memory serves. The issues of consent and betrothment. The problem with this is that the latter feels tacked on at the end to make it fit with modern sensibilities. It doesn’t detract from the story, but it’s just odd the way it doesn’t fit with the theme or setting of the story before the finale. Up until that point, it was a battle of good and evil, and love and hate. The consent issue isn’t even brought up except when dealing with Tormaleen’s backstory early in the story and that has more to do with theft. It sends a mixed message on who this is for and what the creator’s intent was in including some moments, but discluding or dancing around some larger issues.

Still, the acting is great as it captures that fairy tale quality while still attempting to deal with adult themes. Whether they succeed is open to interpretation.

7/10 Stars

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