Review of The Little Prince
Russ Bickerstaff
Shepherd Express
July 22, 2004 |
THE SIMPLE PRINCE |
In the middle of the desert, a boy asks an aviator to draw him a sheep. He ends up drawing a ram, so the boy asks again. This time the aviator draws a sheep, but the boy still isn't satisfied, so he draws again--this time, something extremely simple out of frustration. The child is happy with it because it is pleasantly vague--ambiguous enough to satisfy the his imagination.
The scene plays out on a sparse stage at Concordia University, where Acacia Theatre Company demonstrates a playfully profound understanding of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's story, The Little Prince. Earlier this year, the Skylight Opera did a much bigger musical adaptation. It was an entertaining effort, but the child in the desert would've handed it back to them unsatisfied. Doing a dramatic presentation on a much smaller budget, Acacia's Little Prince, is simple and abstract enough to satisfy the largest imagination of the smallest child.
The decades-old story of an aviator, stranded in the desert and visited each sunset by a child, opens with the sound of acoustic guitarist Nick Stolz. Stolz's music, present throughout the production, is unamplified, distant and dreamlike in all the empty spaces of the auditorium.
Will Harlow delivers the opening monologue in his role as the crashed aviator. Throughout the production, he doodles on a sketchpad. Dressed in identical costume, sketch artist Andrew Serge Bernier draws on a huge easel large enough for everyone to see. Matching the rest of the production, Bernier's sketches are simplistic and expressive.
Harlow's compelling performance as aviator is matched by 11-year-old Ethan York as the boy. With better than half of the show resting on his shoulders, York holds up extremely well. The boy tells the aviator of his journeys. Joaquin M. Hernandez and Anne Miller play nine roles from the child's stories. Hernandez cycles through many of them in an overwhelmingly short period of time. Miller is at her most charming in the role of a fox who wishes to be tamed by the boy.
While Acacia prides itself in presenting a Christian worldview, The Little Prince, is actually a tight little subjective dramatic prism. The story is abstract enough to entertain everyone with an imagination big enough to fill in all the empty spaces.
Continuing the dialogue.....
The Little Prince
Dear Friend,
“What is essential is invisible to the eye.” A very powerful message if you think about it. Christianity is based on the faith of things unseen. Faith itself is the substance/evidence that the unseen, which we trust and believe in, is really there.
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. Hebrews 11:1
From the beginning of time God has required faith in the invisible. When God called Abraham, it was Abraham’s willingness to believe and follow that caused God to have him blessed by Melchizedek. The Disciples were visited by the risen Christ and were praised by him for recognizing him. Thomas, however, doubted the truth of Jesus’ resurrection and rejected the unseen…
Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe. John 20:25
Jesus obliges Thomas by allowing him to touch and see, but He then rebukes his lack of faith.
Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ John 20:29
The Little Prince tells the pilot, “Children will understand.” And the Pilot replies, “Children were never the problem. It was the grown-ups that couldn’t see….” Children seem to be able to be closer to God due to their innocence. As we “grow up” we become more concerned with “important matters” forgetting that focusing on worldly things distance us from the love of Christ and the truth of God. We forget that the world itself is “ephemeral… in danger of speedy disappearance” as the Geographer explains. Instead we attend to daily chores forgetting to attend to the spiritual and thus distancing ourselves from Christ.
The fox explains, “Rituals are very important.” How many of us forget the necessary rituals of prayer and contemplation. How many times have “important matters” delayed these important rituals that connect us to God and allow for God to “tame” us?
In our hurried lives we often forget that: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” We become “thinkers” and forget that this isolates us. The little prince says that he began to analyze what “his rose” said and did and that this clouded his ability to love her. “I didn’t know how to take pleasure in all her grace.” In becoming embroiled in “important matters” we often forget to take pleasure in the daily Graces that God bestows upon us.
It is important that we remember that it takes time to be “tamed” “to establish ties.” We forget that to God, we are “unique in all the world.”
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; you are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:16
The Little prince also reminds us of Christ’s triumph over death and His promise that those who believe in Him shall never die. “Just because I’m gone, doesn’t mean I’ve gone away. It will look a little as if I were dying. That is not true. It’s just that this body is too heavy for me to carry all that way.” As a German proverb says “those who live in the Lord never see each other for the last time.”
Now don’t these seem like “important matters?”
Sincerely,
Acacia Theatre Company, Inc.
Board of Directors
