Peter and the Wolf is an old Russian folk tale, upon which Prokofiev's musical score was based. The story ends starkly - the wolf has swallowed the duck, and even the slaughter of the wolf does not bring the duck back. The music is beautiful and evocative. In the Phoenix production, the music is used ineffectively - it seemed to be something to interrupt in order to continue the adaptation's "hook" of insufficient resources to mount the play, requiring the participation of youngsters from the audience. This ploy was disrespectful of the music. Furthermore, the drastically altered end of the story, which has the duck being disgorged from the wolf who is then sent to a zoo, stripped the meaning from the tale. Nobody learned anything from this adaptation of a classical folk tale - but perhaps the small children in attendance got to feel important when they stepped onstage to help the production along.