Synopsis

Scheherazade is the storyteller of "The Arabian Nights" and Shahryar is a Persian monarch who has the unfortunate experience of finding his favorite wife in the arms of a none-too-favorite slave. To arrange for perfect fidelity in the future, he fixes it so that he has a different virgin every night, cutting her throat at dawn. With Scheherazade he meets his match. She offers to cure his insomnia by telling him a story before the throat-cutting. He agrees and she arranges that at dawn each story is not quite finished. Then clears her throat for the next night, and the next dawn, and so on, cliffhanger after cliffhanger. By the time 1001 nights, dawns, cliffs and throat clearings have come and gone, the shah realizes his love for Scheherazade and marries the girl. Included in the stories listed below are lusty romps, lovely fables, tales of savagery, comedies and proverbs, stories of dreams within dreams, tales within tales within tales. They all tumble forth - danced, sung, narrated, and enacted by a 12 member cast.

The Madman's Tale
The Perfidy of Wives
The Pastrycook's Tale (The Dream)
The Butcher's Tale (The Contest of Generosity)
The Greengrocer's Tale (The Wonderful Bag)
The Clarinetist's Tale (Abu al-Hasan's Historic Indiscretion)
Sympathy the Learned
The Mock Calipha/Aziz and Aziza
The Confusion of Stories
The Forgotten Melody

--Clive Barnes from the "New York Post"