Awaking Beauty: Synopsis

Cast: 5 male / 5 female
Running time (approximate): 2 hours and 15 minutes - not including the interval.
Availability: Awaking Beauty is available for both professional and amateur production.
Acting edition: Published by Samuel French.

Act 1

Characters

○ Carabosse
○ The Prince
○ Princess Aurora
○ The Pigcutter

All other roles are played by the narrators.

○ Narrator 1
○ Narrator 2
○ Narrator 3
○ Narrator 4
○ Narrator 5
○ Narrator 6
And so the story goes....

The Princess Aurora has been in a deep slumber for 100 years, cursed by the evil witch Carabosse, awaiting the kiss of true love. Fighting his way through the brambles which have surrounded the castle, the Prince finds Aurora and is instantly smitten. Declaring his love, Aurora awakes and declares her own love for the Prince.

Unfortunately, the ever watchful Carabosse also feels the twang of something pulling at her frozen heart and decides the Prince must be hers. Intent on immediately consummating their love, the call of (100 years of) nature leads Aurora to momentarily leave the Prince. Carabosse locks her in the toilet and assumes her form, continuing where Aurora left off with the unaware but deeply satisfied Prince.

The next morning the Prince awakes to discover he has been sleeping with Carrabosse - for whom the spell has worn off - and is immediately repulsed, vowing to find his beloved Aurora. Carabosse puts a spell on him again and takes him back to her cave, letting Aurora see her Prince in the amorous clutch of the witch along the way. Aurora vows revenge and that she will regain her Prince.

At Carabosse's cave, the Prince - wearing a magical pair of rose-tinted glasses - meets Carabosse's cursed familiar Pigcutter - a former woodcutter turned into a pig as a result of an unfortunate tragic accident involving a tree and Carabosse's cat familiar. Carabosse takes the Prince to her stony bed imploring him to do his worst. She is deeply disappointed the experience does not live up to their previous night of passion and believes the Prince no longer finds her attractive. She resolves to seek help, leaving the Prince with the Pigcutter, who professes he loves the witch in his own particular way.

Carabosse arrives at the Grand Hall of Sorcerers where she meets the Supreme Sorceress and professes she needs help in making the Prince find her attractive again. Deeply repulsed and irritated by the witch, the Supreme Sorceress tells Carabosse she is in lust, not love, and strips her of her powers, telling her if she wants to get her man, she must do it as any mortal would.

Back at the cave, the spell broken, the Prince races off to find Aurora, saving her just as she has given up hope and is intent on drowning herself. They declare their love for each other and decide that they must flee to the city to escape Carabosse and go to find a house in the suburbs.

Carabosse arrives at the cave, powerless and clueless about how to attract men. In desperation, she takes all her gold and heads off to the city to seek a solution to her problems.

In the city, the Prince and Aurora discover their fairy-tale finery cannot survive in the real world and they are reduced to buying a flat with what remains of the Prince's gold. Carabosse, meanwhile, stumbles into the exclusive Mr De Vine's salon where the sight of her more impressive gold bullion see the beauticians promising to make a perfect woman of her.

Act 2
The Prince and Aurora are now settled in 29 Brown Brick Road with the Prince employed as a supermarket shelf stacker and the now pregnant Aurora as a topless waitress. At the cave, the Pigcutter has embarked on a round of DIY to declare his love for the witch, transforming it into a abode of custom-built, individually designed stripped pine fitted units - or as close as a man with no thumbs can get to this ideal.

At De Vine's, Carabosse is revealed to be a transformed woman; her haggish looks changed to a nipped and tucked, enhanced and enlarged beauty. Renamed Cara, she is sent for elocution lessons with Miss Chasum in a bid to rid her of her evil laugh, before she begins her search for the Prince, unexpectedly bumping into Pigcutter along the way buying woodscrews.

Aurora gives birth to triplets - Arthur, Boris and Conrad - straining the couple's already pitiful resources even further. Cara's resources are also running dry and her search proving fruitless, practically down to her last ingot, she goes to shop in a cheap supermarket and bumps into the Prince. Smitten, she persuades him to carry her case of green peas back to her cheap room, where she attempts to unsuccessfully seduce him. He leaves, afraid he will have lost his job.

Cara arrives at the couple's flat, disguised as a representative of the Woman's Apple Marketing Board with a lush red apple for Aurora to taste. Poor and exhausted, Aurora is tempted by both the apple and the enticement of a lottery draw for untold riches. At her wit's end, Aurora declares how the Prince means the world to her, just before he returns having been sacked. Unexpectedly moved by the couple's plight, Cara takes the apple away and leaves her final ingot before fleeing the flat. The couple are amazed to find the ingot.

Epilogue
Cara returns to her cave, destitute and without her man. There she finds the Pigcutter and his 'improvements'. She breaks down. With that out of the way, she realises the curse has been lifted from the Pigcutter - although the actual difference between man and pig is minimal - who decides to leave, much to Cara's consternation. Painfully, she admits that - at least until someone better turns up - she'll settle for him.

And they all live happily ever after....

Possibly.

Article by Simon Murgatroyd. Copyright: Haydonning Ltd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.

Awaking Beauty: Songs

Act 1:
  • This has to be love (Prince, Aurora & Carabosse)
  • Aurora's Vow (Aurora)
  • Do Your Worst (Carabosse, Prince)
  • Peculiar (Pigcutter)
  • Love Comes Later (Sorceress)
  • Animal Chorus (Narrators)
  • Busy In The City (Narrators)
  • Welcome (De Vine & Narrators)
Act 2:
  • Awaking Beauty (De Vine & Narrators)
  • The Laughing Song (Miss Chasum & Cara)
  • Multiple Birth Refrain (Prince, Aurora & Narrators)
  • Busy City Reprise (Narrators)
  • Only Then (Cara & Pigcutter)
  • Baby Fugue (Narrators)
  • Aurora's Lullaby (Aurora & Narrators)
  • He Means The World To Me (Aurora)
  • I'll Settle For You (Cara & Pigcutter)