Age-old tale weaves in modern-day angst

The tale of Sleeping Beauty, whose hex-derived coma is reversed only by a kiss from a valiant prince, sounds outdated. Even the most retro TV shows, like “The Bachelor” and “Joe Millionaire,” at least require the “winning” woman to be awake enough to impress her guy.

In “Beauty,” at La Jolla Playhouse, writer and director Tina Landau digs under the surface of the story in an attempt to find resonance for modern audiences. Her reflections are intellectually tantalizing, but they don’t evoke the deep emotion or the spiritual dimension that was her goal, judging from her remarks in an interview in the program.

Landau’s prince is a modern-day student, James (Jason Danieley), who wanders into the theater in search of jumper cables and finds Constance (Lisa Harrow), a crone who lures him into searching for a sleeping princess.

Later, when we meet Princess Rose (Kelli O’Hara), we see that her sleep is hardly undisturbed. In her dreams, she scans her memories of what happened before she pricked her finger at age 16 and fell asleep. She is trying to figure out how she can resume her life or even create a more vital one than that of a pampered princess.

Constance, who is her only companion as she sleeps, guides Rose into flashbacks to her infancy, when the curse on her was decreed by none other than Constance herself. The crone was the jealous mistress of the king, Rose’s father.

The play’s protagonists operate on parallel tracks through most of the 85-minute one-act.

James must overcome his excessively cerebral tendencies and self-doubts to take the action necessary to reach the unknown princess through a thicket of briars. Along the way, he encounters dead princes who have failed in their own attempts.

Rose must conduct her search for the truth of her history and then decide whether she wants to risk an unknown future with a total stranger.

Landau wants us to identify with both James and Rose, and even with Constance. But the narrative is too cluttered and fragmented to achieve those aims. That James is from our own age does not make his quest more comprehensible. And the little jokes that arise from his clashes with fairy-tale logic make the entire production seem like an ironic, postmodern exercise -- which appears to be exactly what Landau was trying to avoid.

She doesn’t help her own case with some of the crone’s comments either, such as a discussion of how witches and fairies are too often commingled in people’s minds, just as Mexicans and Guatemalans are both called Latinos. Is this a graduate thesis or a play?

Not that Landau, as a director, hasn’t tended to her play’s theatrics. There are plenty of spooky sound effects and lighting changes. Riccardo Hernandez’s set pieces fly rapidly around the stage, suggesting the thicket of briars in a fluidly figurative way.

“Beauty” has a few songs. They are designed primarily for atmosphere, not for the narrative purposes they might serve in an actual musical. They don’t enhance the emotions, as the songs do in fairy-tale musicals such as “Into the Woods” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The one recognizably gorgeous melody is uncredited, though in fact it’s Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante defunte.”

O’Hara looks a little too much like a storybook princess to credibly depart from that stereotype in the ways Landau wants. Harrow crisply enunciates the crone so much that she sounds more regal than the queen. Danieley makes the transition of James from student to swashbuckler more convincing than Landau’s script does.

*

‘Beauty’

Where: La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road

When: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.

Ends: Oct. 19

Price: $39-$49

Contact: (858) 550-1010

Running Time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Lisa Harrow...Constance

Jason Danieley...James

Kelli O’Hara...Rose

Corey Brill...King Bertrand

Amy Stewart...Queen Marguerite

Simone Vicari Moore...Madeleine

Adam Smith, David Ari...Princes

Written and directed by Tina Landau. Sets by Riccardo Hernandez. Costumes by Melina Root. Lighting by Scott Zielinski. Music and sound by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen. Stage manager Nevin Hedley.