THE LITTLE PRINCE
Because grown-ups are always in danger of forgetting who they once were, Antoine de Saint-Exupery remains a delight and a solace. No one has better explained to children the ways of grown-ups, or reawakened in ex-children that old sense of wonder. Saint-Exupery was an aviator as well as a writer, and when he landed, he used his ethereal prose to record his sky-born epiphanies–discoveries that, once read, seem to have always been inside us, we were just too near the ground to see them.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Our narrator (and the author’s stand-in) is the Aviator, a childlike adult and failed illustrator who wonderingly relates the adventure he met with when his plane was downed in the Sahara: an eight-day encounter with a curious, determined, and literal-minded visitor from a small planet.
The Little Prince’s great treasure is a flower. It came to him, blown by the wind, as a seed and has now grown into the proud, selfish, artfully prevaricating Rose. The Little Prince uncomplainingly waters this haughty immigrant, and at night places a protective glass globe over her.
In the second act (which on opening night was signed), the Little Prince’s earthly adventures make him feel vaguely threatened by our planet and homesick for his own, where he now realizes he has a purpose. A poisonous snake tells him it can solve all life’s riddles with a single bite, a railway switchman impresses on him the responsibility of keeping trains on the right track, and a merchant enrages him by trying to sell him pills that save people time by killing their thirst. (Here he is stuck in a desert with too much time and no water.)
Among many telling cameos are Jeff Jones’s hilariously officious businessman, busy with hostile astral takeovers and a literally cosmic greed; Farrel Wilson as the capricious Rose; and Tom Dobrocky as the fatuous asteroid king.
