“When I was a child, I believed my mother to be a swan.
One day, she flew away.”

Alex lives with her mother and father in a small house deep in the forest. Her mother was once a swan, who transformed into a woman to bathe in a pond in the forest. When she met Alex’s father, she locked her feathered cloak away to start a new life. They filled up the pond and built a home on top.

But the wind whips at the windows and whispers through the trees, always threatening to call Alex’s mother away. One day she can no longer resist. She follows the call of the wind, unleashing her feathered cloak, and flies away.

Alex and her father are left alone. Alex hunts for clues in the memories she has of her mother, which drift through the house. One day, Alex’s father comes up with a plan. If they dig up the pond buried beneath their home, surely her mother will return.

But a dark shadow is creeping under the creaking floorboards, threatening to steal Alex’s father away forever.

A modern day folktale, Cygnet follows Alex and the journey of self-discovery she begins when her mother suddenly vanishes from her life. Through the magic of allegorical folklore, Cygnet explores young people’s experiences of grief, self-determination, and the eternal bonds of families shaped by time, loss, and distance. Based on the short story Animal Wife by Laura Ehrlich, and inspired by Studio Ghibli and Swan Lake, this is a story for multigenerational audiences aged 8+.

Red Leap’s signature physical theatre sits alongside live projection, puppetry, and actor-operated lighting, all performed on a stage that gradually floods with water over the course of the hour-long performance.