Arabella oder Die Märchenbraut (UA)

It is business as usual in the world of fairy tales – Little Red Riding Hood is getting eaten by the wolf, the hunter is ready and waiting, the prince saves Sleeping Beauty, over and over again. In the world of humans, a storyteller called Mayer reaches an audience of millions with the familiar old tales every day. One day, one of his characters, Rumburak the sorcerer, takes on a life of his own. He can move freely between the worlds and forges a cunning plan: Disguised as Mayer, he tells the old tales in a twisted new version. By becoming powerful in the media of the human world, he alters conditions in the world of fairy tales, where his influence grows.

The boundaries between the fairy-tale world and reality become more and more permeable – allowing for encounters that would have been impossible before.  Above all, a meeting between Arabella, princess of the fairy-tale land, and Mayer’s son Peter. Fascinated by each other, they join forces to put a stop to Rumburak’s perfidy. The to-and-fro between the two worlds creates great confusion: People turn into dogs, sorcerers into story-tellers and the dwellers of different worlds become friends. 

In 1979, Václav Vorlíček, who directed the legendary fairy-tale film “Three Wishes for Cinderella”, and screenwriter Miloš Macourek created the TV-series “Arabella” together. The show was a great success both on East and West German television under the title of “Die Märchenbraut (The Fairy Tale Bride)” and has continued to enthral new audiences ever since.

At Schauspiel Leipzig, creative team Stephan Beer and Georg Burger have already made a name for themselves with their productions of the trilogy “Der Zauberer der Smaragdenstadt”, “Der schlaue Urfin und seine Holzsoldaten” and “Der gelbe Nebel”, based on the books by Alexander Volkov, as well as of “Das Dschungelbuch (Jungle Book)”. Their most recent works in Leipzig were “Die Nachtigall” and “Die Eisjungfrau” by Hans Christian Andersen. With “Arabella”, they will rediscover a story about the common bonds between apparently separate worlds and about the power of story-telling.