"The Wise Child and Magic. Three Plays" is a creative adaptation from classical fairy tales. "The Emperor’s New Clothes," originally written by Hans Christian Andersen, is a satire on human vanity, narcissism, mendacity, and pretentiousness. "The Maiden without Hands," originally included in the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, is a surreal story about the fears and hopes a girl experiences during puberty. "Psyche," originally written by Hans Christian Andersen, is a tragic story about a talented Renaissance artist who seeks perfection in art. But he gives up his vocation as a sculptor because a girl breaks his heart.
~ Table of Contents ~
Table of Contents ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ vi
Introduction ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ vii
The Emperor’s New Clothes ~ ~ ~ 3
The Maiden without Hands ~ ~ ~ 33
Psyche ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 69
About the Author ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 113
~ Introduction ~
The Wise Child and Magic. Three Plays contains three one-act plays that are adapted from classical fairy tales.
The Emperor’s New Clothes, originally written by Hans Christian Andersen, is a satire on human vanity, narcissism, mendacity, and pretentiousness. Everybody sees that the emperor is naked but only an innocent child dares to speak it. Why is only this child truthful to himself but all the adults embrace falsehood? Well, they are all afraid to be canceled, but the child does not know how to lie yet. The play is absurdly funny, but it also has a bitter message for contemporary times about the possible dangers and falsehood of political correctness. Let it be a warning that people must be free to speak the truth. The play is set up in rococo style, and it shall be highly theatrical in realization.
The Maiden Without Hands, originally written by an anonymous writer, is included in the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It is a surreal story about the fears and hopes a girl experiences during puberty. At times the story is like a nightmare, at others, like a beautiful dream. Nothing is realistic about it, but everything is true. The story explores the depth of her psyche through symbolic images, and its function is to initiate adolescent girls to adulthood. The play is set up in the Early Medieval Period that is full of fantastic creatures, superstition, and miracles. It has a feel of a poetical folk fairy tale.
Psyche is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s lesser-known story of the same title. As of yet, it has never been adapted to anything else, which is curious because it is one of his best works. It is not a fairy tale, as most of his works are, but a realistic story. Still, it features the supernatural that occurs in art. It is a tragic story about a talented Renaissance artist who seeks perfection in art. But he gives up his vocation as a sculptor because a girl breaks his heart, and then he spends the rest of his life in a monastery. He escapes from life because it is too dirty for him, and he can’t handle it. He hides in the monastery to find a heavenly peace but instead he is tormented by the devil from within. The moral of the story is this: follow your calling and don’t waste your talent because you will suffer.
~ Christopher Vened
~ About the Author ~
Christopher Vened is originally from Poland where he had an illustrious career as an actor in an internationally renowned theatre company, the Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre of Henryk Tomaszewski. When martial law was declared in Poland in the end of 1981, Christopher defected to the West for political reasons. First, he stayed in West Berlin, where he worked in Transformtheater and founded his own company, Impuls. Then, in 1984, he permanently moved to the USA, where he rebuild his career teaching acting, choreographing, directing, and writing plays.
He wrote the acting book, In Character: An Actor’s Workbook for Character Development, which is published by Heinemann Drama since 2000. His writing credits include a one-man show Human Identity; a play Infidel; and A Theatrical Memoir: An Interview with Myself. Recently, he wrote The Theater Manifesto of an Old Man, where he talks about his own philosophy of theatre. He leans towards the theater of meaning, and believes that in modern, postmodern culture, meaning has been relativized, distorted or lost, and needs to be restored or rediscovered.
His most delightful project was the theatre production of Three Stories, which consists of three plays based on classical fairy tales: The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Maiden Without Hands, and Psyche. He was commissioned to write these plays by the Acting Conservatory of OCSA, where he also directed these plays in the school’s Studio Theatre, in the fall of 2019.
