Fairy Tale

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

In the familiar fairy-tale plot, a prince eyes a beautiful young woman, falls in love at first sight, and they marry and live happily ever after. That is not the plot of Princess Ivona, a play by Polish playwright Witold Gombrowicz. Deliberately turning the story on its head, Gombrowicz has a prince take it into his head to marry the ugliest, most disagreeable young woman in the kingdom. They do not live happily ever after. Although his dark comedy was written in the late 1930s, Princess Ivona was not staged until 1965, when it was produced in Paris and Stockholm - Gombrowicz's work was banned in his native Poland until the mid-1970s, and it is now presented regularly in Europe.

After a brief but emotional trial, Brutus Benedict Wolf, a.k.a. "Big Bad," was found not guilty Friday on two counts, to the shock of the Three Little Pigs. During a mock trial before Common Pleas Court Judge Idee Fox, the defense successfully argued that although there was some huffing and puffing, it resulted from bad allergies rather than malicious intent. Curly, Wilbur, and Babe Pig v. B.B. Wolf was one of a half-dozen cases heard Friday in City Hall courtrooms as part of Law Week.

The ballet Cinderella might seem better suited for the winter holidays, yet here it is, capping the Pennsylvania Ballet's season. And judging by the opening-night crowd at the Academy of Music, that suits Philadelphians just fine. The Pennsylvania Ballet reprises Ben Stevenson's version of Prokofiev's Cinderella (the company first performed it in 1995) through the end of May. It's a sumptuous production, with big, gorgeous sets and shimmering costumes. This sweet, straight-ahead fairy-tale conception chooses not to reflect the piquant dissonances of Prokofiev's score with any hints of modern tartness.

Sometimes, dreams can come true. A dashing Prince Charming leading the woman he loves to happiness as they dance at their wedding is a fairy tale that can only come true in the dreams of young girls. But last weekend was Halloween weekend, when a fairy-tale wedding can become real - if only for one night. And in Bellmawr last Saturday afternoon, Cinderella did wed her Prince Charming. As a young girl, Sharon Rudnick, 26, of Westville, had dreamed of having a fairy-tale wedding.

It took four minutes for Stefanie to die. And if what prosecutors say is true - that her husband was the one who killed her - what was he thinking as he tightened his hands around her throat, squeezing the life out of her? Were his thoughts on Summer, the blonde dancer with the beautiful body at Delilah's Den who had become his afternoon obsession? During those four minutes, as his wife desperately gasped for breath, was Craig Rabinowitz thinking about the life insurance policies he had just taken out on her, the policies with the $1.5 million payoff that could get him out of debt?

Ronald Reagan wants you to buy a refrigerator. That's what the president told the City Club of Cleveland on Monday at a fund-raiser for Mayor George Voinovich, a Republican who wants to run for the U.S. Senate. The president said the bad news being reported about the economy "could bring on bad times and a recession, if people just go on strike and quit buying. " The Gipper explained that people putting off purchase of a refrigerator or a new car would help cause any serious economic downturn.

If you're among those whose first question about theater is "How does it look?," hie yourself forthwith to the Newman stage of the Joseph Papp Public Theater, where Caryl Churchill's The Skriker opened on Wednesday. If your curiosity runs more to "What does it mean?," you may proceed at a more leisurely pace. But I'd go anyway, if I were you. The helpful folk at the Public have provided a "Glossary of Fairies" in the evening's program, and I suggest you read it before the intermissionless play begins.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A senior Khmer Rouge leader insisted Wednesday that he had no real authority during the regime's brutal rule of Cambodia. He said allegations that he bore responsibility for its atrocities were a "fairy tale. " Head of state Khieu Samphan told a U.N.-backed tribunal that he was a figurehead leader who never joined key policy meetings in the radical communist government, which is accused of orchestrating the "killing fields" and causing the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

Well before the end of the Cold War bumped off the spy thriller, feminism already had buried Cinderella. In the equal-rights era, a young woman no longer aspired merely to marry the prince; she imagined becoming the (democratically elected or meritocratically selected) ruler herself. And while this was just and good, proponents of equal rights forgot to purge women of the princess lust imprinted on the female DNA. Thanks to Martha Coolidge's The Prince and Me, a sprightly fairy tale starring Julia Stiles as an American premed student courted by a royal, girls can entertain the question of whether one can be a practicing doctor and a princess.

I love the Harry Potter books. A world in which problems can be made to disappear with the flick of a wand is attractive. But adults know that anything worth doing can't simply be waved into existence. Calling on the government to solve problems usually involves fantasizing. The fairy tale begins with the words "The government should ... " and ends with a litany of wonderful results. How we get from start to finish is anyone's guess. The latest example of such fantasizing is in the debate about alcohol markets.

BUDAPEST, Hungary - There's an easier way to see Europe than being crammed into tour buses or crowded hostels. A river cruise is one of the most relaxing and picturesque ways to view the wonders of the Continent up close. While many cruise operators prowl the waterways, one of the most comprehensive is Viking River Cruises, which boasts 19 ships (six more next year) and explores most of the navigable rivers in Europe, plus parts of Asia and Africa. Of these, the eight-day Danube cruise embarks in the historic city of Budapest and weaves its way slowly down the green margins of the Danube, through flamboyant Vienna; fairy-tale towns such as Germany's Regensburg; the lush vineyards of Austria; and, finally, Hitler's favorite city, Nuremberg.

DALLAS - On Nov. 21, the hockey world was abuzz when Sidney Crosby lit up the New York Islanders for four points in his first game in more than 11 months. Claude Giroux' stint on the injured list lasted just 11 days, but in his first game back in the lineup after sustaining a concussion, Giroux matched Crosby's storybook return with a fairy tale of his own. Giroux factored into each one of the Flyers' tallies as they scored four unanswered goals to top the Stars, 4-1, and end a two-game losing streak.

By Kirsten Kaschock Coffee House Press. 286 pp. $16. Reviewed by Alison Barker By the end of Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel Sleight , questions abound. How does she do that - create a novel like a set of Russian nesting dolls, each whimsical creation housing a new wonder? And, can someone please do the performance art she invents - called "sleight" - in the real world? Most important: Why can't more novels use fairy tale to ask big questions? In Sleight we encounter part-living, part-inanimate objects called Needs and Souls; artists who apprentice as "hands" in secluded farmhouses; a girl's imaginary friend who is her late grandfather (as a young child)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A senior Khmer Rouge leader insisted Wednesday that he had no real authority during the regime's brutal rule of Cambodia. He said allegations that he bore responsibility for its atrocities were a "fairy tale. " Head of state Khieu Samphan told a U.N.-backed tribunal that he was a figurehead leader who never joined key policy meetings in the radical communist government, which is accused of orchestrating the "killing fields" and causing the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

NICOLAS WINDING REFN won the best-director award at Cannes for his new movie, "Drive," and should probably win another award for not saying "I told you so. " Although the movie was a big hit at the festival, it wasn't a hit among everybody at the studio that bankrolled it. "I was told, after this movie was completed, by certain people, 'Great, you made this little singular movie, as they would say, but just so you know, this will not make...

By Kamala Nair Grand Central Publishing. 305 pp. $24.99 Reviewed by Karen E. Quiñones Miller For those who have wondered how old is too old to be fascinated by fairy tales, Kamala Nair has answered the question in her debut novel, The Girl in the Garden . The answer? There is no such thing as too old. This beautifully written story is filled with intriguing characters, hints of mystery, and sprinklings of magic that will touch any reader's heart as a young girl - struggling to save her parents' shaky marriage - sets out to unlock the family secret that she senses hangs over everyone's head and affects all of their lives.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Barely a month after their fairy-tale wedding, a new film depicting the budding romance of Prince William and Kate Middleton is being rushed out for television viewers. A mixture of fact and fiction, "William & Kate: A Royal Love Story" is expected to be released in August on the Hallmark Channel. Director Linda Yellen, took some time out from filming at MediaPro Studios in Romania to speak with the Associated Press. The American was also producer of CBS' "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana" in 1982, a film that had a huge audience at the time.

CANNES, France - Even before it was announced as a title in the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious competition section, "Sleeping Beauty" was gaining buzz for its slyly shocking trailer. In the spot, which portrayed a young middle-class woman voluntarily becoming a kind of upscale geisha for middle-aged men, there was a coldness, but also a subversive sex appeal. We'd seen movies about young women in compromised sexual situations before, but rarely with this much ambiguity about their victimhood.

The patients at a sleep-disorder clinic are at wit's end. Their legs shake constantly, their snoring is out of this world, they are daytime zombies. "Pills and pillows," as one of them sings, don't help. In walks a man carrying his daughter, on the cusp of adulthood. She is weird - dressed in storybook fluffy red and white, and her problem is not that she can't sleep but that she can't wake up. The patients eye her suspiciously - until her dreamy slumber embraces them like a contagion.