Like the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, the famous book The Little Prince is not really a children’s book. But unlike Grimm’s Tales there is no nastiness here.
Nonetheless adaptations of the 1943 book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery has had a very rocky past. The year 1974 saw a musical screen adaptation – it was a commercial failure. The co-producer of that movie went on in 1981 to mount a Broadway play of The Little Prince. It starred Anthony Rapp (currently a star of the TV show Star Trek Discovery), but it was so troubled the show never made it past previews. Those are two of a host of artistic productions based on one of the best selling books of all time, with more than 200 million copies printed. A full list of artistic efforts to bring The Little Prince to life can be found on Wikipedia: “List of the Little Prince Adaptations.”
Now in 2019 we have right here in Tucson a 90-minute production, being performed by the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. This was adapted and directed by Holly Griffith, who has managed to succeed where so many others have failed. As she says in the programme notes, “This strange boy from another planet looms large in our imaginations. We have loved him for generations, and he has become part of our collective psyche.”
The Little Prince hails from an asteroid and as the story progresses he visits other asteroids inhabited by very curious people (only one per asteroid as they are all so small). This production adheres quite closely to the original text, and in our joint exploration of the asteroids (joint that is, between the audience and the Prince), we see the Prince assume many forms. His cloak remains the same, but it is shared amongst an ensemble cast, each one assuming the Prince’s role for a short time. This is a most innovative way of presenting the story, and it works. The only fixed member of the cast is Kathleen Cannon, in the guise of the Aviator, a human who befriends the Little Prince when he arrives on Earth. Cannon does an excellent job at bridging the gap between humanity and an extraterrestrial, and one can’t help but think of Amelia Earhardt while watching her performance.
This is not really a story about asteroids. It is about a flower and a sheep, both of which the Prince eventually ends up with when he returns home. The existential questions is: did the sheep eat the flower? On this point depends the future course of the universe. “You will see how everything changes,” says the Aviator, depending on whether or not the vain but lovely flower (played with daintiness and amusement by Gabriella de Brequet) survives. It is an expression of the famous thought experiment known as Schroedinger’s cat, where according to quantum theory a cat in a box can be both alive and dead until the state of the cat has been observed by opening the box. In the play, the far distant asteroid acts as the box which we cannot see into. Is the flower alive or dead? Only a mysterious boy, The Little Prince, knows the answer upon which the future depends.
A delightful production, one that should be seen before it ends on Nov. 3, 2019. By the way, my first name is attached to an asteroid (number 4276 Clifford), but I have not yet visited the asteroid upon which The Little Prince Lives. If I do, I’ll report on the state of the flower!
Cast
Aviator …………………………………………… Kathleen Cannon
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Ryuto Adamson
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Julia Balestracci
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Gabriella De Brequet
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Nicole Delprete
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Lance Guzman
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Cole Potwardowski
Ensemble ……………………………………….. Gretchen Wirges
Visit the website for tickets: scoundrelandscamp.org
