The Little Prince Broadway Reviews

Despite the performers spending time suspended about the stage, the production remains stubbornly earthbound. Until, that is, what turns out to be a somewhat perverse move: the single showstopping scene, in which Antony Cesar flies over the audience, happens after the curtain call, when there is no show to stop anymore.

Even after an uneven opening stretch, and even if you are not quite sure what is going on after that, it doesn't matter. The Little Prince is a meditative experience, a bath of colors and sounds, directed and choreographed by Anne Tournié. The show's shifting tableaux are best experienced as a kind of fairground for the senses, no illicit substances required. It is unusual to see something on a Broadway stage that is a visual treat, without overdoing the visuals-that conveys wonder but subtly. It feels experimental, unpolished, and ambitious, all in good ways.

Tournie's choreography is part Petipa, part Horton, part Tharp, part Barnum & Bailey. A typical non-balletic flourish is for the dancers to lift themselves on one hand and kick their bare feet in the air. Truck's dreamy music, with its electronic effects, should do nicely at the next White Party, to be played at 6 in the morning when the drugs are beginning to wear off. Most disappointing are Marie Jumelin's video designs, projected throughout the show on the upstage cyclorama. Jumelin attempts to duplicate Saint-Exupery's illustrations. Rather than evoking an elegant simplicity, the animation is simply crude.

Nothing in 'The Little Prince' wakes you up so much as those flying follicles, and all of it is swallowed up by one of the theater district's largest houses at 1,761 seats. Nor is the book's meaning or profundity properly explored. We leave not knowing how to feel about 'The Little Prince,' other than that it is French and vaguely whimsical; its messages and life lessons wiped away by a production more content with being wannabe ASMR than an embraceable tale. To see the book's potential, check out the far better animated film that was released in 2016. The lack of a thrilling adventure, the middling spectacle, canned songs and a corny CGI landscape make for a 'Prince' that's much too petit for Broadway.

For all of the frenzy and wordiness of the first half, the second, quieter half of 'The Little Prince' is more radically poetic, experimental and adventurously, genuinely engaging - for children and adults alike.

Everyone in the large cast, whether engaging in various dance styles, gymnastic tumbling or soaring and twisting high above the stage, gets a moment to shine, with the slight, wild-haired Zalachas in the title role impressive throughout. Even when the production crosses into the overlong and bloated, Zalachas comes swinging by, demanding our attention yet again.

It's hard to say for whom the show is intended. Children, the presumed target audience, are likely to be bored out of their minds (thankfully, there's an intermission to provide them the opportunity to vent), while baffled adults will find their stamina tested by the 110-minute running time which seems to go on forever. The overblown but underwhelming production seems lost in the vast Broadway Theatre, but probably would have seemed right at home in the intimate New Victory. There will be some, no doubt, who will find the proceedings magical and transporting. After all, lava lamps were once all the rage.

'What is essential is invisible to the eye,' a fox tells the little prince. 'It's only visible to the heart.' The line is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's beloved 1943 novella, 'The Little Prince.' It's also on a t-shirt that's selling in the lobby of the Broadway Theater during the four-month run in New York of this touring stage version by a French creative team, all of whom are making their Broadway debuts. The line is unintentionally ironic when the narrator utters it on stage, though, because this 'The Little Prince,' - half dance-theater, half circus acrobatics - is a half-hearted theatrical adaptation that's almost entirely visual. There are very few words, and they are upstaged by the vivid video projections that serve as backdrops. The only character who speaks is the narrator, mostly in English but sometimes in French*, portrayed by Chris Mouron, who also wrote the libretto (such as it is) and co-directed the production.

It takes work to stay engaged with this production of 'The Little Prince.' Work that challenged adults (the couple next to me was one of many to leave at intermission), in addition to the children it is targeted towards. This, coming from a critic who went in prepared to 'oohh' and 'aahh.' Never did I imagine that the theatrical adaptation of a childhood favorite would require the most adultlike patience to endure

On the night I saw the show, the crowd was not pleased. 'What the hell was that?' said a friendly-faced lady to her husband and children as the four of them stood outside giggling during intermission at The Little Prince, having decided not to return for the second half. 'Are you guys leaving, too?' asked a nearby woman. 'Oh good! Now I know I'm not crazy!' (She wasn't crazy.) As another couple put it as they crossed the street as fast as they could, 'We could've stayed home and watched Tammy Faye Bakker!' In these troubled times, it is heartening to see so many people agree about at least one thing: The Little Prince is quite confoundingly bad.