The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is the most translated book (excluding the Bible).
Translated into over 600 languages, it wins this competition by quite some way – with Grimms, Alice in Wonderland, Pinnochio & Marx translated into around 200 languages.
And there are many adaptations into many different mediums, the latest big budget ‘80-year commemoration production’ touring the world tells the story with song, dance and a massive cast; so a production as this one, telling the story with a single performer in one hour, left much to the imagination of the audience.
The choice of a single performer was a good one and the choice of Toby Thompson is a perfect fit. One that chimes with excellent theatre for young and active imaginations. That it worked for young audiences was clear by the way young voices called out to fill in essential elements/questions in the story.
It also worked for this adult, I was able to lose myself in the depths of a multi-layered story on a flat Thursday morning. And to remember in the words of the original, that all grown-ups once were children and “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what's essential is invisible to the eye.”
So how did performance poet Toby manage to do this so well. Here are some of the bits I remember… He is confident in setting up and then with moving between the different layers of story within story… moving between playing the piano and addressing us with a question, “How shall I begin? Once upon a time?... then do I have to end with ‘happily ever after?” We, the audience, are already complicit in how the story will be told and we can follow between Toby, as narrator, the pilot aged 6, the pilot as an adult, the character of the Little Prince, the multiple characters in the stories that the Little Prince tells.
He pin points precisely that dynamic between child and grown up, the thread that binds the different layers of story together.
"Grown-ups love figures… When you tell them you’ve made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? “ Instead they demand ‘How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him."
He includes many of the Little Prince’s encounters with different characters, through a relaxed transformation between each vignette; the king with no subjects, the conceited man who wants selfies and followers/friends, the businessman who must count everything (because if it can be counted it can be managed). In keeping the tone simple, and avoiding too many actorly acrobatics, it means his narrator character stays closer to us, the audience, and we stay closer to the story.
Toby’s telling of the story is well supported by a creative team responsible for the set, the music and the projection. Little steps of beautiful poetry move the story along, grains of sands portraying the multitude of stars, a secret written down and hidden in a shell, water hidden in a planet to save the pilot’s life, the big blue heart at the start, the flight of birds projected flying the little prince away…
Not all the characters are included, the snake is a notable omission, making the ending ‘happier’ - but that doesn’t mean we don’t get there without feelings of loss and sadness.
The character of The Rose is simpler than in the book, but the production still lands this key relationship in which the Little Prince struggles to love his Rose. And how he learns from the fox about the nature of friendship…
“if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”
“People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
The text of the original book mixes with Toby’s own poetry seamlessly, he owns both and finds his way through the different layers of story with confidence. In one beautiful moment, he connects a sigh and his breath to a text about sadness.
And at the end The Pilot/Narrator challenges us the audience to take on the sadness of a bleak ending. He proposes that the story is false, that it never existed, that we’re stupid to believe in these things and he exits the stage. This is a powerful theatrical moment, all the characters have left, the stage is empty, we are let down, disappointed, hopes dashed and left facing the silence of ourselves and the illusion of theatre, dreams and the imagination. However, Toby’s return as the Little Prince is perfectly timed to catch us from that barren moment. “What?” the Little Prince insists, “You don’t believe?” And he gives us, children and grown-ups alike, the hope of imagination and the possibility of seeing with the heart.
