Cygnet Lake

If, after enduring a long week of dreary clouds and rain, you should find yourself facing a glorious spring Saturday, and wondering how you should spend it, you COULD do as my family did this weekend and sit inside a darkened middle school theater for several hours watching a production of the ballet Swan Lake. You might do this if the production featured many, many female Tiny Dancers dressed in full swan regalia, and you were a relative of one of the female Tiny Dancers and wished to retain your Favored Relative status. (If you did not currently hold Favored Relative status, then I would advise you by all means to go out and enjoy that glorious weather.)


If you are unfamiliar with Swan Lake, it is a classic tale of romance between a Prince, a maiden-turned-swan, and 892 little swans, which for some unknown reason are called cygnets rather than swanlets. 


Strictly speaking, the 892 cygnets are not needed for the advancement of the story line, but they do help take the audience's mind off the fact that, instead of enjoying a nice sunny day, they are inside this dark theater. Mostly, the cygnets help ensure that there IS an audience, because although the mature dancers are by far more technically precise than the Tiny Dancers -- some of whom looked as if they had come straight from the newborn nursery -- everyone of course comes to see the Tiny Dancers, and the older dancers might as well be invisible for all the attention they get from the audience. Had the Tiny Dancers done nothing more than simply stand on the stage in their darling swan costumes, they would have engendered as much wild applause and cheering as is typically experienced at the Super Bowl.


But of course the cygnets did much more than just stand around looking adorable. They also waved their arms gracefully around, and looked adorable. They pointed their toes this way and that, and looked adorable. Occasionally one would forget which way she was supposed to walk off the stage and would bump into another cygnet going in the opposite direction, and both of them would look adorable. The adorableness meter was registering extremely high.


Due to a dearth of male dancers -- for reasons we shall not go into here, other than to say that it was the opinion of some that the males' appearance might actually be helped if they, too, had worn tutus -- the two males who appeared in this production were woefully outnumbered by females, and therefore played all the male parts between the two of them. Actually this task fell to the one who was NOT the Prince, because the Prince had too much face recognition, which left the second male to play various parts including the bad guy (who had an actual name, but who was merely referred to by the eight-year-old with us as "the bad guy"), the Prince's best friend, and a crossbow. This crossbow was added to the show mainly to keep young male persons from rebelling outright at having to attend the ballet. (Desperate parent: "You'll like it! There's a real crossbow!")


This particular production of Swan Lake consisted of almost equal parts watching the action on stage and then staring at the closed curtain while mysterious things happened behind it. Occasionally the eight-year-old watching with us needed to know when he could anticipate freedom. "How much longer?" he asked his father periodically.


"Only one more act," his father lied.


"When does the bad guy get killed?" the eight-year-old asked.


"Next act," his father lied.


When the bad guy finally did get killed, he certainly took his time dying. The dancing was concluded and the cleanup crew had nearly dismantled the set by the time he finally gave up the ghost. Of course, as the entire set consisted of a large forest mural and a tree stump, this did not take extremely long.


After all 892 cygnets had each taken an individual bow, they were hustled backstage to change as their families eagerly waited out front, hoping they could still get a glimpse of sunlight outside. While we waited, the eight-year-old with us amused himself by allowing some younger children to pretend to knock him down, and he would pretend to fall down. Both fathers looked on occasionally, checking for any blood, mindful of what the mothers would say if anything happened to the children while the fathers were in charge.


It was clear that the younger children were highly amused by the antics of the eight-year-old. "We rent him out for parties," the eight-year-old's father said helpfully.


When the cygnets finally returned, many received roses from their adoring family members in honor of the occasion. Ours was no exception. She was grateful, but expressed some concern over the possibility of thorns on the stem. "You should take off all the thorns," she said seriously, peering closely at the stem for any potential dangers. "I'm only five, and five-year-olds aren't used to getting and holding flowers all the time, you know." 


Something tells me that might change, at least for her. Clearly, she was born for the stage.