DRAMATURG’S NOTE

From Dramaturg Ahon Gooptu

We see fairytales as cautionary stories. Regardless of where we come from, we read these tales and take away a moral or two, often presented to us neatly tied up in a pretty bow. That’s why fairytales are so unique in their universality. Every culture and tradition might have their own version of a tale, but the takeaways remain largely the same.

Mary Zimmerman weaves together traditionally unfamiliar tales, allowing us to experience these stories anew without prior bias or attachment to any of them, especially the key players in each of the tales. She brings to life the dark, the mysterious, and the evocative. Every member of the ensemble depicts a different role in each of the tales, thus exemplifying the universality of fairytales in a diverse sense. Together, they bring us into their world of familiar characters and creatures—beauties and beasts, wicked stepmothers and stern fathers, kings and queens, princes and princesses, snakes and swans—but at times, they might feel a little too familiar. And that is at the core of Zimmerman’s intentions: delving deeper into these familiar in-betweens and unwrapping what we store away as adolescents, only to have the memories of our childhood and youth catch up to us as adults.

The Secret in the Wings acknowledges the vulnerability that adolescents—especially, adolescent girls— feel as they navigate the grey areas. The two-part structure of most of the tales presented in the play warrant that the actions of the past have consequences in the future. It’s not necessarily horrific and violent nor is it purely jovial and carefree.