Delayed for a year by Covid, Rufus Norris and Tanya Ronder's dark, tonally muddled reworking of Sleeping Beauty is by turns dazzling, moving, disturbing, and bewildering.
It's unclear what age it's pitched at - but probably not under 10s. During an overlong second half involving a baby-eating ogress and the sacrifice of several animals, my 11-year-old was sobbing with distress - while the grown up behind us guffawed at the macabre choreographed spectacle. Who to please?
The myth of a King's daughter put to sleep by magic spans cultures and centuries, and Ronder rightly jettisons saccharine versions for something more contemporary and complex. But when she stirs in a woke agenda with the grimmer, atavistic side of fairytales - of child eating, and monstrous mothers - it sticks in the throat.
In a world where men are wet or wrestling with masculinity, and women are feisty or crazed, a wingless lonely Fairy (kooky, sweet voiced Lisa Lambe) stumbles into the court of a sleep-deprived Queen and ends up hexing Royal baby Rose, who grows up to be a hover-parented rebellious teen. (a spirited Rosie Graham)
To fix her mistake, Fairy persuades Ogress Queenie (anguished Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) not to eat her half-human baby son Bert, and grooms him to defy the sleep-inducing thorns to re-awaken the Princess.
By act II, Rose and Bert are a bickering couple with two children and mother-in law-issues, Fairy rejoins her crew of hovering mean girl fairies to be 'above it all,' but ends up rejoining the humans and their messy lives.
Norris marshalls beautiful visuals with Katrina Lindsay's set of floating lights and palace that turns into Sleeping Beauty's bower. There's some perky choreography, and Jim Fortune's songs occasionally take flight into stirring balladry (The One, In the Middle) or witty numbers (Hello). But too often they are pastiches - a crew of working class thorns get a ska number, ethnically diverse Prince Bert gets a rap, and Irish Fairy ethereal folk tunes.
I'm all for complexity but this is a confused mess of storytelling and messages about motherhood; the beast within; be yourself or tame your unsociable desires? This magical thicket needs some judicious pruning.
Hex runs until January 14. https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/hex
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