Due to renovations at Sashas, the show has been moved to a new venue: the British International School of Shanghai (BISS) Puxi Campus with a new price of RMB100.
After a stellar debut season that included reigniting dangerous emotional games in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and staging life’s vicious rat race in Glengarry Glen Ross, Urban Aphrodite returns with an entirely newfangled production in both style and content.
Starchild: The Little Prince Reborn merges elements of the fantastic with the imaginary, “leaving audiences in a dreamlike state wrapped up in an entirely different world transformed by the emotional biorhythm of the show,” explains director Ann James.
Premiering at last month’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival to rave reviews, the show reimagines the children’s classic. It highlights its philosophical aspects, focusing on the strangeness of the adult world, the power of human bravery and the constant search for certainty in life.
James touts the all-ages appeal of the show, which harnesses movement, music and imagery to create visual beauty. The show’s amalgamation of different styles including dance, disco theatre and, most importantly, the Suzuki method, emphasizes physical awareness and natural expressiveness, pulling focus away from words and onto actions, acting, emotions and movement.
“Most expat theater right now is really wordy,” she explains. “There is very little text used because the whole idea is to take the story and focus on the larger emotional imagery that comes through it. That is what we are trying to raise to the attention of the audience.”
Musical director Tom Sharrock has composed an original score, which actor Baron Weyerhauser (The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)) describes as “inherently emotional, corresponding faithfully to the feel and heart of The Little Prince.”
Starring as the titular character, Alex Gomar (Glengarry Glen Ross) admits the show’s aesthetics diverge from his training in British theater. However, Weyerhauser expects audiences to revel in the differences, pointing out “a lot of people let preconceptions of what theater should be go away” as they descend into the space and time of the wayfaring prince.
Debuting in Shanghai with a limited run from September 11-14 at Sasha’s, the show marks the opening of Urban Aphrodite’s ambitious upcoming season, which includes productions of David Mamet’s A Boston Marriage, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and the off-broadway classic Little Shop of Horrors this fall.
// Sep 11-12, 7-10pm, RMB100. BISS Puxi.
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