Once upon a time, in a place far, far away, there were two adjoining
kingdoms, one ruled by King Hildebrand and the other by King Gama. As was
often done in the days of yore, the kings, in order to insure peace between
their kingdoms, arranged a childhood marriage between their eldest children.
Gama’s daughter, Princess Ida (aged 1), was married to Hildebrand’s son,
Hilarion (aged 2). King Gama swore to deliver Ida to her husband on her
twenty first birthday. (No, she was not born in leap year – we did that one
last season!)
As the show opens, Gama (a certifiable misanthrope) has put in an appearance
on Ida’s birthday, but sans the Princess. It would seem that somewhere along
the way, Ida grew up liberated. She believes not only in the equality of,
but in the superiority of, women. To that end, she persuaded her father to
give her a spare castle (appropriately called Castle Adamant) in which to
establish a university for women.
King Hildebrand (by his own admission a “peppery potentate”) is in no mood
to hear excuses from Gama and takes him and his three sons hostage until
Princess Ida gives up her strange notions and accepts Hilarion as her
husband. If she does not, Hildebrand vows to storm Castle Adamant, hang
Gama, or worse!
Prince Hilarion, along with two of his buddies, Florian and Cyril (all full
of pithe and vinaigrette), decide to sneak into Ida’s castle to “check
things out” and perhaps persuade her (and whatever other young lovelies they
come across) to give up this higher education nonsense. Their thought
processes are typical of sophomores the world over whose hormones greatly
outweigh their worldly experiences.
The three manage to climb the castle wall and steal some academic robes. The
grand plan quickly evolves for them to pretend to be women applying for
entrance to the university. As luck would have it, the first person they run
into is Ida herself. They soon discover that she is not exactly a
light-hearted girl, but she does welcome them as new students.
The first faculty member they run into however turns out to be Florian’s
sister and they are forced to confess their subterfuge. In asking her why
the women have such disdain for men, she explains that they are taught that
man is no more than a “monkey shaved,” while woman is a “radiant being with
a brain far-seeing.” Let Darwin chew on that one for a while.
Next they encounter Melissa, daughter of the Vice Principal, who quickly
sees through their disguises (and falls for Florian). The Vice Principal
herself, Lady Blanche, shows up and astutely notices the oddity of young
freshman girls singing baritone and smoking cigars!
Blanche is convinced by her daughter that if Hilarion is successful in
taking Ida away as his wife, then Blanche would take over as Principal. This
suits Blanche so she decides to join the conspiracy.
It would seem that the only person who doesn’t immediately recognize the
three as men is Ida herself. She gives the standard lecture on the evils of
mankind and before they know it, it’s time for lunch.
Unfortunately, lunch includes copious amounts of wine, which the ladies have
been taught to partake of in very small quantities. Cyril however has not
been so taught and proceeds to get drunk enough that he starts telling tales
of when he knew Prince Hilarion and how they often went drinking together.
He then launches into an old favorite drinking and wooing song to prove it.
Ida at last dimly perceives that these three “ladies” have been putting her
on. She becomes furious and darts, screaming, across a bridge, but loses her
balance and falls into the river. Hilarion dashes to her rescue, while
Blanche makes sarcastic remarks. The Princess is grateful that Hilarion
saved her, but is still bent out of shape (not to mention soaking wet!), and
orders the three arrested.
While all this has been going on, Hildebrand’s troops have reached the
castle and have forced the gate. Hildebrand insists that Ida release her
three prisoners and honor her marriage vows. If not, he will kill her three
brothers. He gives her 24 hours to think it over.
Ida rallies her students to defend the castle, but the women have very
little desire to actually fight against men. Actually, King Hildebrand
doesn’t much want to fight women either. He sends Ida’s father and her
brothers in under a flag of truce to try to talk Ida into letting her three
brothers fight the Prince and his two buddies to settle the issue.
She is disgusted that she might be the prize for a fight between men, but
since her women don’t seem very enthusiastic to do actual battle, she
finally agrees. Ida has the Prince and his two friends, still in girls
clothing, brought in and Gama (attempting to keep a straight face)
challenges them to fight his three sons to settle the issue. The three sons
immediately do a strip tease to the tune of a Handel aria so they will not
be encumbered by their heavy armor during the upcoming fight. Thus they
manage to get defeated handily.
Seeing the result of the fight, Ida agrees to love Hilarion and become his
wife, although it does not appear that the long-range prospects for the
marriage will be all sweetness and light. The lady students patch up Ida’s
three brothers, the two kings make peace, and the Vice-Principal gets her
promotion.
"And that's the long and the short of it."
--Mike Storie
