«DON’T LEAVE YOUR PLANET»

Based on Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Don’t Leave Your Planet is a fantasy play that combines theatre, classical music, creative scenography, use of kinetic objects, and modern video art.

The idea for the production belongs to Konstantin Khabensky and Yuri Bashmet. It could have remained a plan forever, but for the St. Petersburg director Viktor Kramer. Kramer took up four tasks: acting as a stage director, author of the literary composition, set designer, and costume designer. The musical score for the play was prepared by composer Kuzma Bodrov; in addition to his own music, the performance features his adaptations of works by Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. The Moscow Sovremennik Theatre became a full partner in the production, which it hosted for six years. In 2022, the play was included in the repertoire of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre.

All roles in the play are performed by Konstantin Khabensky. The Moscow Soloists chamber ensemble conducted by Yuri Bashmet also takes part in the play that makes the musicians and the artist act as equal narrators of the story of the pilot and the prince.

Don’t Leave Your Planet is not a retelling of the story of a little boy with golden hair, but a visual and musical fantasy on the theme of Le Petit Prince. The pilot in the play dies in the desert for real. Suffering from heat and thirst, he begins to daydream. The boy from asteroid B-612 insistently urging him to remember the importance of childhood remains an enigma on the verge of reality and mirage. While the pilot tries to save his life, the prince, with his naive questions and stories, encourages him to save his spirit. The boy from a star leaves only once it is clear the pilot has been saved and returned to his real self and the awareness that “what is essential is invisible to the eye.”