There is more to fairy tales than just handsome princes, magical spells and “happily-ever-afters.” The stories, dismissed by some as childish or whimsical, are often dark and moralistic. Terrifying, even.

Leave it to director Mary Zimmerman, a Northwestern professor in performance studies, to uncover the brooding moral ambiguities of classic fairy tales. In her latest show, “The Secret in the Wings” at the Lookingglass Theatre, Zimmerman and her excellent company never quite leave the haunted forests so prevalent in the tales they examine.

The fragmentary show — which also includes dance, one completely sung segment, performance art and even stand-up comedy — is structured like a dream. The narrative is framed by an updated take on “Beauty and the Beast” while the other tales unwind around the frame, sometimes without closure. Many are resolved at the show’s end, but others have no complete denouement.

“It’s often funny and whimsical at times but I think there’s a deep melancholy underneath it,” Zimmerman says about the show’s rich tone. “And a sense of mystery.

“It’s about childhood terror and the necessity of story to allay that terror, and about how the whole world is enchanted,” she says. “That’s both positive and great and beautiful but also really kind of scary. The real and unreal. It’s very easy to imagine trees as menacing people or the other way around, people as fairy princesses.”

Captivating from the start, “The Secret in the Wings,” invariably raises questions about reality.

Take the opening scene, ominously lit with staggered lamps that diffuse their muted light across the stage. A young girl, Heidi, is left home by her parents who dash off to a party, leaving her with their neighbor, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

But he’s an ogre, the girl protests.

Nonsense, her parents respond.

Transfixed, the audience hears fumbling and sees shadows. Then, slowly, in order to capitalize on the heightened mood, Mr. Fitzpatrick lumbers down the staircase dragging, yes, a lizard’s tail behind him. Fitzpatrick resembles every stereotypical image of the pervert neighbor as he staggers towards the little girl: cigarette lighted, biceps covered in tattoos, hair mussed, overweight and just downright eerie.

Plus, he has a tail.

“I have a tail,” he says. And the audience laughs, shocked at his admission. Then he says: “once upon a time …” The four words are expected but carry a unique meaning given the context.

“The Secret in the Wings” is marked by its consistent cleverness, whether in the way of homophones, puns, or just innovative visuals. Despite its dark and sometimes unsettling tonality, Zimmerman supplants abject sorrow with her intelligent and sharp writing.

“The whole show revolves around that aesthetic of the homemade, the provisional,” Zimmerman says. “On the other hand, it mixes that with a very crafty adult sophistication.”

In the tale called “The Princess Who Wouldn’t Laugh,” a king stages a contest for his humorless daughter, played with acrid aplomb by Louise Lamson, so she can win a suitor.