Broadway’s ‘The Little Prince’ dazzles, reaching just below the stars
Photo Courtesy of Broadway.com
After nearly 15 previous musical and theatrical adaptations of the classic work “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, another rendition of the story opened Monday, April 11, on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre. With dazzling acrobatic acts and dances, “The Little Prince” on Broadway tells the story of the aviator and the Little Prince primarily through the combination of dance and Cirque du Soleil-style performances from every member of the cast except for the narrator.
Audiences are guided into de Saint-Exupéry’s timeless tale by the voice of Chris Mouron as the Narrator. Mouron’s background as a solo artist and songwriter perfectly prepared her for her acting and creative role for this production of “The Little Prince.” In addition to playing the Narrator, she co-directed and was the librettist for this production from its 2019 premiere in Paris to its current run on Broadway.
The French connection in the Broadway production is prevalent throughout the performance, with Mouron speaking all the lines of various characters with her French accent. Mouron varies between English and French for some parts of the show, concluding the production with singing completely in French during “The Song of The Little Prince,” drafted for this production.
Since the performance is so physically active, with all the stunts and swinging around in the air done by the cast, the technical decision not to mic any performers makes perfect sense. With no microphones, most members of the cast are unable to say their own lines for the audience to understand. The solution the creative team came to was having Mouron, as the Narrator, say every single line for each character, in addition to the narration de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his book.
Mouron told the story incredibly eloquently, but she failed to differentiate between characters by speaking with different tones of voice, making it confusing to tell which characters say what. Having primarily only English-speaking audiences, Mouron’s narration is at times difficult to understand for theater patrons at large. To remedy this, the creative team installed four television monitors placed on either side of the stage at the orchestra and mezzanine levels for audiences to read the subtitles of what is being spoken. Having to alternate between reading the screens and watching the stage for the remarkable aerial artistry can take an audience member out of the context of the show. For only the concluding musical number were the words being spoken projected on the background set on stage instead of being printed on the television monitors.
The choice to include the spoken word on the projection behind the full cast on stage made that particular moment so much more impactful. If the creative team had decided to do the same for the rest of the show, it could have also pushed the audience to be more involved with the written word, compared to just the acrobatic performances.
Each member of the cast dazzled the audience with their aerial choreography, with many having backgrounds in ballet, gymnastics, acrobatics and specializations in aerial straps. Srilata Ray, who played both roles of the Snake and the Lamplighter, won multiple gold medals in Mumbai, India in 2018 and the Yoga Olympics in Bangalore, India the year prior.
In addition to very physical aerial performances, the use of projections for the Broadway production only added to the fantasy of the story of “The Little Prince.” Each projection was incredibly stylized and accurately expanded the storytelling capabilities of the theatrical production with the use of video and motion graphic elements in the projections. Toward the show’s conclusion, a couple of projections included actually detracted from the story and left some audience members confused. When the Little Prince lands in the African Desert, prior to meeting the Snake, he journeys around the desert, with this production including him walking along a road leading to more people and traveling through a projected snowstorm and tropical forest. The original work by de Saint-Exupéry did not speak of such travels of the Little Prince and the inclusion of them on Broadway did nothing to advance the story or the artistic aerial performance in any way.
Despite the nuanced critiques of this adaptation of The Little Prince, audiences exited the Broadway Theatre with their hearts and minds opened to receive paper hearts falling from the ceiling and to remember the joys of the Little Prince’s childlike innocence. The production dazzles and astounds old and young audience members alike and reminds them to look for the beauty of life with their hearts, since, as de Saint-Exupéry wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Opportunities to see this visually and musically sparkling show end on August 14, at the Broadway Theatre.
