That’s not all. An evanescence of sprites and pixies and guardian angels, in shimmering gossamer threads. An abundance of adversaries (in ascending order) from dwarves to giants. A passel of princes, mostly charming, occasionally brave and clever besides. Some equally stout-hearted steeds nickering nearby; and cats watching with moon-phase eyes; and the bear who can speak and won’t is curled up next to the bear who can’t speak and will. The cock of the roost, the lark of the morn, the owl who issues the midnight summons, and the goose that lays the golden eggs. (This goose may be Mother Goose herself, fixing her eye on the proceedings, but she keeps her own counsel, delivering her elementary bounty but not her vital statistics.)

As for the setting, take a look at the interchangeable flats, the painted scrims, the wing-and-drop sets hoisted in darkness above. Most likely the settings are modest and indefinite — the garden, the kitchen; the castle, the hovel; the sea, the cave; the market, the meadow; the well, the woods; the prison tower, the island sanctuary. That’s a lot of world to be stacked backstage. But “To make a Prairie it takes / One Clover and one Bee / One Clover, and a Bee / And Reverie. / The Reverie alone will do / If bees are few—” as Emily Dickinson reminds us. To recognize a fairy-tale castle, we need little more than a Styrofoam throne. A woods is conjured by a single branch suspended on transparent Mylar fishing line. A cottage is conjured up by anyone onstage who utters the word cottage. Almost every spell begins with the conjure: “Now listen. ”

Props? Already on the ready. The slipper, the spindle, the seashell, the sword. The coach, the comb, the cauldron, the cape. The apple, the bread, and the porridge. And look, even simpler things in the dusty shadows, from earlier iterations of these tales. The feather, the stone, the bucket of water; the knife, the bone, the bucket of blood.