The characters the Little Prince meets along his journey through the universe are all spelled out in their movements: the beautiful Rose he loves is elegantly balletic; a drunkard is lopingly rubber-bodied (they were concerned about that one in non-drinking Saudi Arabia, where the character is cut from the book version, but people laughed); the king draws on courtly classical technique; the conceited man uses show-offy leaps and spins; and the acrobatic lamplighter climbs a Chinese pole suspended in the air.
Marie Jumelin’s projections, meanwhile, conjure up multiple worlds where the prince, with his mop of blond hair and philosophical turn of phrase, meets these deluded characters often consumed by pride, greed or power (it’s a moralistic tale, without doubt), and Truck’s score draws on musical styles from around the globe.
But the liveliest audiences were in Istanbul: “They were applauding before anything happened, warming up the room.” In Luxembourg, people were more restrained: “Heavier, like their sausages,” says composer Terry Truck.
“After 10 years of that, I wanted a simple show that was just human,” she says, because the story itself is about coming back to simple, human values.
Co-director Chris Mouron appears on stage to narrate parts of the tale (speaking French, with local translation in surtitles) but the nature of the storytelling, through dance, acrobatics and aerialism, lends itself to crossing international borders.
