The Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights
Aurora Fox Theater
Aurora, CO
January 8 - February 14, 2016

In the years since Disney's Aladdin, pop culture has designated The Arabian Nights as a collection of children's stories. This couldn't be farther from the truth. While many of the stories are family friendly, many of them are decidedly adult content. The Arabian Nights which The Aurora Fox Theater is presenting is a more mature take on the tales.

In the opening minutes the cast presents the indiscretions of the queen and her murder as well as the killings of many innocent brides in her wake. The precarious position Scheherezade finds herself in is quite clear early on and the audience is not allowed to forget it. While her character as well as the king's are never well defined, you can see that she is a clever woman and the king's fascination with her is easy to understand.

The script brings to life many of the tales told over the famous 1001 nights. They are bawdy, violent and magical filled with sex, violence and gross humor. When Scheherezade begins a story, her voice doubles over the actors as the focus shifts. It is an effective mechanism.

Less effective was the times when the actors all acted as narrators and attempted to speak as one. More often the dialogue became garbled and was difficult to understand. The elderly patrons behind me had a particularly difficult time.

Apparently after telling many stories, the playwright had a need to show the audience that additional stories remain. So the cast members took to telling some of those stories at the same time. So over an excruciating ten minutes, four or five stories played out simultaneously. It was impossible to focus on any part of the scene. The result was almost white noise.

The set is magnificent and the costumes stunning. The talented cast are called upon to quickly change character and they do so in a convincing manner. Subtle costume changes are used throughout when changing characters. In some cases the changes are too slight and the change of character too fast for the audience to keep up with.

The scope of the subject is enormous and it is an ambitious project. Clearly it would be impossible to cover all the stories in the original tale. However, the Fox production captures the vastness of the work while showing the timelessness of the stories. While not perfect, it is an enjoyable production.