Bilingual Little Prince double the fun for director
What: The Little Prince Where: McPherson Playhouse When: Friday, 10 a.m. (school showings) Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20; students, children: $10 Reservations: 250-386-6121, rmts.bc.ca
When artistic director Roderick Glanville describes Kaleidoscope Theatre’s production of The Little Prince as a two-for-one deal, he isn’t talking about ticket prices.
He was referring to the show’s appeal to both English and French-speaking theatregoers and how Antoine de SaintExupery’s story, first published in 1943, can be appreciated by both children and adults.
“I wanted to honour the original story in French, to incorporate these kinds of stories to expand our audiences to reach [students in] French-immersion programs,” which are huge in Victoria,” he said, admitting the professional theatre for young audiences took a “calculated risk” staging a bilingual production.
Glanville is directing his own adaptation of the classic story about an aviator who crashes in the Sahara and encounters the young visitor who has fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid.
Universal truths about the human condition emerge during the pilot’s poetic encounter with the inquisitive, golden-haired youngster in the classic tale featuring characters including a wise fox and a snake. “If you’re English you’ll get the text, and if you’re French you’ll get it both in French and English,” he said.
“The little prince is always asking questions and repeating himself, so nobody is left out of the story,” said Glanville, whose production features a combination of puppetry and live action.
Canadian folk-music icon Oliver Swain will perform original music and narrate, with actors Trevor Hinton and Madeleine Humeny manipulating puppets created by Pamela Stringer to play the pilot and little prince.
Glanville decided to test-drive his concept for the show, which originated as an English table-top version with repurposed marionettes at a family festival in Centennial Square last summer.
“We had people sit in and watch, and those who don’t speak French said they had no problem understanding it,” he said.
Glanville said he was also inspired by the show’s classic theme of discovery and that it “empowers youth, which is our mandate,” and works on two levels.
“For me it’s a great joy to take a story I care about that works as a parable for adults, but is also a children’s story,” he said.
The company is particularly excited about its partnership with Swain, who will perform new material and a tapestry of pieces from his catalogue.
Swain will sing, as well as play banjo, guitar and standup bass, said Glanville, adding: “it’s also a great opportunity for him to learn how to act.”
Glanville said he was excited about how “the emotional resonance of stringed instruments” has the capacity to create “something magical” for young audiences.
Swain, a longtime fan of the “excellence and diversity” of Kaleidoscope’s programming, said he welcomed the chance to collaborate, noting some of his material was a perfect fit stylistically and thematically.
“Naturalism, science fiction, the questioning of social constructs and an embrace of creativity and compassion as a vehicle for self-discovery were some of the central themes of my last album,” he said.
The production afforded him the opportunity to create some “intimate and unique pieces,” and lush soundscapes by harnessing the power of his studio work, he said. “The creative team has been very open to exploring possible ways to incorporate my performance, and we’ve come up with some really inventive ways to integrate everything together.”
While The Little Prince clocks in at 75 minutes, longer than the ideal running time for shorter attention spans, Glanville is confident young audiences will be captivated based on test-audience reaction.
“At the 40-minute mark, that’s when you normally might see fidgety kids, but that’s when the fox appears and the story goes in a totally different direction,” he said.
“You go: ‘Oh, we’re going to lose them.’ But we didn’t lose them at all,” he said.