THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

An innocuous Sleeping Beauty, in colorless words and faded colors. There is no chill, for instance, as the irate, uninvited ""Wise Woman"" suddenly appears at the feast celebrating the infant's birth; and no awesome hush, later, when the castle's denizens suddenly drop into a deep sleep (no sight, either, of the cook ""about to hit the scullery boy for his rudeness"" stopped in his tracks). Nothing to excite the imagination, in short, but correspondingly none of the melodrama that marred the Trina Schart Hyman rendering and none of the sentimentality evident in the David Walker version. It's hardly a commendation, though, in view of the opportunities missed here.