As part of our Surrey in Edinburgh series we sent one of our most experienced theatre reviewers up to the Fringe to see what's going on. The Nine Lives of Antoine de Saint-Exupery wasn't quite good enough for Amanda Hodges in this 3 STAR review
The life of Antoine de Saint-Exupery was an extraordinary one. The author of The Little Prince (reputedly James Dean’s favourite book) was a writer, journalist, poet and pioneering aviator, working as a commercial pilot before the advent of the Second World War when he joined first the French Air Force then latterly the Free French Air Force in North Africa; a reconnaissance mission for the latter resulting in his mysterious disappearance in 1944.
The recipient of many literary awards including France’s Legion d’honneur, St-Exupery’s life isn’t that well chronicled so a stage play satisfyingly exploring the different facets of his short but truly eventful existence sounded unmissable. Unfortunately this isn’t it. Actors Bart Vanlaere and Louise Seyffert are well-meaning and are clearly very attached to the project, but whilst there are facts galore for sure it’s hard to piece together anything truly coherent that makes you feel as if you’re really learning about St-Exupery and this is frustrating.
The play’s intriguing name derives from St-Exupery’s disarming habit of frequently crashing the planes he flew and indeed, as the play opens he’s seen playing chess with Death, a character he regularly encounters but who holds no fear at all for him. This is one of the play’s more successful devices – every time the aviator comes perilously close to losing his life he and Death resume their duet on the chessboard. Soon St-Exupery is to embark on what will be his final flight and as he undertakes this dangerous journey memories and people from his past swirl into focus and the crackly voice of the radio operative from headquarters trying to make contact is the only reminder of the present-day mission.
Yes, Seyffert juggles her many roles – as Death, St-Exupery’s volatile wife Consuela and others pretty well, but I never believed wholeheartedly in Vanlaere’s portrayal, his most touching moment being when confronted by The Little Prince who surely embodied his kind-hearted philosophy of life, in essence, ‘one sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Sure it’s easy to understand and appreciate St-Exupery’s humanist perspective, which emphasized that every man mattered and ‘ that man has gone astray with his clever technology (for) we need a spiritual life,’ but something that’s dramatically meatier needs to be woven around what is certainly a potentially interesting concept.
The Nine Lives of Antoine de Saint-Exupery is at the Assembly George Square Studios 5 Daily at 1.25pm until August 29 to book visit tickets.edfringe.com or call 0131 226 0026
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