The Little Prince review

Dylan Barone as the Little Prince and Marie Menuge as the Rose lend wow factor in the aerial harness and in their balletic duet. Barone moves around the space as quickly as a skater on a rink, embodying childlike wonder and innocence, while the small cast play multiple roles and work hard to fill the stage, which flicks rapidly from scene to scene on account of there being no set to move. Instead, scenes are painted with video projections, designed by Etienne Beaussart, a mishmash of sci-fi fantasy art and early-era computer graphics. This kitsch late-1980s/early-1990s aesthetic is garish enough to make your eyes pop, and when the Little Prince takes off and lands, the tectonic planetary animations are giddying. More striking though are the simpler scenes, in which a monochromatic video clip or a shift in Stéphane Fritsch’s lighting accompany the performances.

Terry Truck’s music flips stridently between melodrama and eclectic themes, jolting the audience into scene after scene, and giving the dancers a solid foundation. Tournié’s choreography and Truck’s music complement each other very well, but remain artistically aloof from the mood of the book, tending toward the generic; the nuance and idiosyncrasy that give the book much of its charm are not amply reflected: the gulf in world view between the innocent, wide-eyed Little Prince, and the grown-up crash-landed pilot who meets him in the Sahara Desert is barely developed, and some elements of show will seem incomprehensible to those who have never read the novella.

Yet there are highlights. The scene between the Little Prince and the Lamplighter (Marcin Janiak) is engaging, Peggy Housset’s costumes are clever and Mouron’s epilogue song performance is truly stirring – I felt I was hearing a rendition with which Jacques Brel or Édith Piaf would have been most satisfied. Overall, this show is an oddity that will confuse the uninitiated, but delight with its levitational centrepieces, and at its best, when its elements fuse, it’s a rollercoaster ride.

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