The Balladeer with guitar enters singing "I'll Tell You A Truth" to introduce a tale of star-crossed lovers.
King Arik and his daughter, the Princess Barbara (pronounced "bar-BEAR-a") make a royal entrance as the
chorus sings "Make Way." The Balladeer supplies some background on the King who invented a curious
game in which a prisoner in the arena has to choose between two doors: behind one is a ferocious tiger. It
can be a bloody game of chance. A demonstration is in progress. The crowd reacts as the prisoner hesitantly
approaches one door and then the other. Finally he chooses the wrong one (needless to say) and a tiger
leaps out and devours him.
The Balladeer comments "However, suppose he had chosen the other door" and we get a replay of the scene
as a beautiful lady steps through the door.
Meanwhile, back at the palace we are introduced to the brave Captain Sanjar. The exhausted warrior enters,
announces a victory and collapses on the spot.
Left alone Barbara kisses Sanjar awake and embraces her. They sing "Forbidden Love." Occasionally they
are interrupted by Guards and/or Handmaidens, but when left alone resume their declarations of love for each
other. They plan to run away together and sing "Gaul" but they know it will never work.
King Arik confronts them. Princess Barbara can never love a common man according to the sacred
commandment. Sanjar is taken prisoner. The Princess must find a way to save her lover. But how? Ah, ha, of
course, she'll go to the Royal Tiger Keeper who bears a remarkable resemblance to the Balladeer we met
earlier (who bears a remarkable resemblance to the Snake we met even earlier). Barbara offers him her
jewels in exchange for a tiny bit of information... behind which door is the tiger kept? They sing "I've Got What
You Want" (in a style not unlike a bump and grind number in a burlesque house) in which he advises her that it
would be better for her not to know which door Sanjar should choose. But she insists and he whispers the
secret in her royal ear.
Nadjira, Barbara's servant girl, who also has her cap set on Sanjar, is brought in. Lo and behold, she's to be
the prize behind the second door. Barbara protests to no avail.
The Balladeer comes in pushing the tiger cage in place. Barbara sings "Tiger, Tiger," her torch-ure song,
determined that if she can't have Sanjar, Nadjira never will. You mean the tiger gets him? But either way,
Barbara is going to lose her man.
Again, the arena as the crowd sings "Make Way." Facing the two doors, a terrified Sanjar looks to Barbara for
a signal as to which to choose as he sings "Which Door?" The spotlight shifts to Barbara in her hopeless
distress: send him to the tiger or into the arms of Nadjira? "This choice is tearing me apart." Finally, she points
her royal finger at one door. Sanjar approaches the door hesitantly. The decisive moment!
The action freezes and the devilish Balladeer has the last lyric. Curtain.
