Word: tales
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Lancelot challenges and kills the dragon. But Lancelot is severely wounded in the fight, and while he leaves the town for a year to heal his injuries the opportunistic mayor and his son replace the dragon as dictators. Finally, in the happy ending so inevitable in a fairy tale. Lancelot returns, stripping the dictators of their powers, wedding the beautiful maiden he saved from the dragon's clutches and promising to re-educate the townspeople so they can enjoy a humane and democratic government. "The dragon," Lancelot says, "must be killed in each and every one of them...And after...
...students of Slavic 197, "Survey of Russian Drama," who did much of the work for this production of The Dragon, have emphasized the play's fairy-tale qualities. The backdrop shines a luminescent blue, with hints of a leafy forest in the foreground and a decidedly Russian castle, topped with domes, in the back. The sets are appropriately simple: a cottage hearth, a wooden throne, a table set for a peasant feast. The costumes fit the set, with most of the characters dressed in traditional Russian style, and the dragon, in human form, wearing a military costume...
...good in his role as the not-quite-sane mayor, who switches mental illnesses to suit the moment. Charles Weinstein, as the mayor's conniving son who gives up his fiancee to the dragon in return for a position as private secretary, may overdo his sliminess somewhat; but fairy tales deal in black-and-white characters, and outrageously villanous villains are funnier than more complex ones. And, since every fairy tale must have a heroine, Elsa is pure, chaste and loving. Cindy Cardon is adequate in the role, although she sometimes adds a touch of bitchiness that conflicts oddly with...
...TRUE fairy tale style, The Dragon relies on the dynamics of a few major characters against the background of simple but peace-loving folk. With a few exceptions, the members of the supporting cast play their unassuming roles well without detracting from the heroic figures of the leads...
This defense of the fairy tale provides the hard, glistening surface of Bettelheim's book; the very title The Uses of Enchantment suggests utility over literary delight, therapy before amusement. Deep within the volume are less convincing "proofs" of this attitude. The legends of Snow White, of Hansel and Gretel, of Goldilocks are parsed for every psychological nuance. Here the reader leaves the nursery for what Vladimir Nabokov calls "the fundamentally medieval world of Freud, with its crankish quest for sexual symbols (something like searching for Baconian acrostics in Shakespeare's works) and its bitter little embryos spying...