Captain(enters the room): Yes, Your Majesty?
Briar-Rose
Characters: Story-teller, King, Queen, Princess, Briar-Rose, Page, Captain, Soldiers, Fairies, Wicked Fairy, Prince.
Scene 1:
Setting: A room at the palace.
Story-teller: Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there lived a king and a Queen. They were happy for at last they had the little baby girl they had longed for.
Queen(as she rocks the cradle):
Oh, go to sleep, my baby,
Close your pretty eyes,
While I sing you lulla,
Lulla, lullabies.
Your father is a King, dear,
Your mother is a Queen,
And you are a Princess,
The fairest ever seen.
(Addressing the King): My king, no one knows of our baby yet.
King: No, my Queen. We must spread the good news throughout the land.(He claps his hands and the Page walks up.)
Page: Yes, Your Majesty?
King: Send my Captain to me.
Page: Yes, Your Majesty.
Captain(enters the room): Yes, Your Majesty?
King: March with your soldiers throughout the land and tell the people that a Princess has been born.
Captain: Yes, Your Majesty.(Goes away.)
All the Soldiers(marching round a ring):
Spread the news,
Spread the news.
Far and wide,
A Princess has been born,
A Princess has been born.
King(to the Queen): She is a dear little baby. What shall we car her?
Queen: Let’s call her Briar-Rose.
King: Briar-Rose. That’s a lovely name.
Queen: Now we must invite the good fairies to come and bless our little Briar-Rose.
King: my Queen, I shall go and invite them to come.
Story-teller: And seven fairies came.
The First Fairy: Briar-Rose, you shall have a beautiful face.
The Second Fairy: You shall think beautiful thoughts.
The Third Fairy: You shall do kind deeds.
The Fourth Fairy: You shall dance like a fire.
The Fifth Fairy: You shall sing like a nightingale.
The Sixth Fairy: You shall be clever.
The Seventh Fairy: You shall be happy.
Queen: Thank you, good fairies.
All the Fairies:
Sleep, little baby, fairies are near,
They all have blessed you, my little dear;
Sleep, little baby, sleep, little dear.
(Suddenly the Wicked Fairy appears. She looks angry.)
Wicked Fairy: You did not invite me you come and bless your baby, and so I have come to punish her instead.
Queen: You shall not touch my baby!
Wicked Fairy: I do not want to touch her, but I tell you this! On her fifteenth birthday she will prick her finger wit a spindle and die!
Queen(tearfully): My baby, my baby!
The First Fairy: Do not weep, Queen. Your daughter will not die. She will sleep for hundred years, and then a Prince will wake her up and marry her. (The fairies go away.)
King(to the Queen): Do not be sad, my Queen. The Fairy has promised that our daughter will not die.
Queen: But I don’t want her to prick her finger and I do not want her to sleep for a hundred years.
King: Then we will forbid spindles to be used in any house. The punishment will be death.
(He claps his hands and the Page walks up.)
Page: Yes, Your Majesty?
King: Send my Captain to me.
Page: Yes, Your Majesty.
Captain(entering the room) : yes, Your Majesty?
King: March with your soldiers throughout the land and tell the people that I forbid the use of a spindle in any house. The punishment is death.
Captain: Yes, Your Majesty!(Goes away.)
All the Soldiers(marching round a ring):
We are soldiers,
We are soldiers,
Of the King,
Of the King.
Listen to the message,
That we bring,
That we bring!
Captain(stepping forward): If you have a spindle, bring it out, bring it out! That’s the King’s order!
Story-teller: Then the soldiers made a bonfire of the spindles. But there was one spindle that everyone had forgotten. It was at the very top of the palace in a little room that no one entered. Year after year Briar-Rose grew up into a beautiful Princess. Everything the fairies promised had come true and she was happy.
Scene II.
Setting: the garden and the little room at the palace.
Briar-Rose: I’m happy all the day,
All the day,
All the day,
I’m happy all the day,
All the day.
Story-teller:
But on Briar-Rose’s fifteenth birthday the Wicked Fairy came back dressed as an old woman. She stole up to the little room at the top of the palace. She began to spindle.
Wicked Fairy: Ha-ha, soon Briar-Rose will come to prick her finger with the spindle.
Story-teller: As the Wicked Fairy sat spinning, Briar-Rose came out to walk in the garden.
(Briar-Rose stands still and looks up at the little window at the top of the palace.)
Briar-Rose: I never noticed that little window before. There must be a room up there that I don’t know about. I am going to have a look.
(She enters the room.)
Wicked-Fairy: Come in, come in, my dear.
B.-R.: Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.
W-F:I am just an old woman spring for the Queen.
B-R: And what is that pretty thing?
W-F: It’s a spindle, my dear.
B-R: May I try?
W-F: Yes, come along. Hold the spindle like this.(She takes Briar-Rose’s hand and places it on the spindle.)
B-R: Oh… my finger! I’ve pricked my finger. Oh, I fell so sleepy! I want to lie down.(She lies down on the floor.)
W-F: Ha-ha-ha! Sleep, Briar-Rose! Sleep and never wake!
Story-teller: Then the Wicked Fairy left the palace and hurried far away. When the King and Queen missed Briar-Rose, they went from room to room, calling her. Finally they climbed the stairs and opened the door of the little room.
Queen: Briar-Rose! My child! Look! She has pricked her finger!
King: Yes, on a spindle. There is the spindle that we all forgot!
Queen: It’s the Wicked Fairy’s spell!
King: I thought there were no spindles in my Kingdom.
The First Fairy(coming in): Do not weep, O King! Do not weep, O Queen! Your daughter is not dead, she is only asleep, dreaming beautiful dreams.
Story-teller: Then the fairy went through the palace and the garden touching everyone, and they too fell asleep. A thick forest sprang up and hid the palace from view. Years and years went by and one day a noble Prince came riding by.
Scene III.
Setting: A wood near the palace. The room in the palace where the Princess is sleeping.
Prince: I’ve never seen such a dark forest!
Story-teller: Suddenly to his amazement the trees vanished.
Prince(in astonishment): A palace! I wonder who lives there! Why, everyone is asleep!
Story-teller: At last he came to the room where the Princess lay.
Prince: Oh, what a beautiful girl! I must speak to her! Wake, wake up, please!
(Briar-Rose sits up.)
B-R: My Prince, I have waited for you a hundred years!
Prince: And I have found you at last!
Story-teller: And you, my friends, may guess that they were soon married and lived happily for a long, long time.