COMMUNAL CHOREOGRAPHY : CHAMBER BALLET STAGES ‘PRINCE’

There were wonderful moments in “The Little Prince,” St. Exupery’s quasi-children’s tale as transformed into dance drama of sorts by the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet.

When the curtain rose in the 841-seat Japan America Theatre on Saturday night, the capacity audience gasped and applauded. With good reason.

Mark Stock had created a neat and sweet let’s-pretend wasteland that could have been the Sahara Desert, could have been a moonscape, could have been Everykid’s dream of comfy desolation.

In a corner, upstage right, a tiny wreckage of an antique airplane smoked and smoldered, its nose accordioned to the ground. Center stage quaked the eternally whimsical Michael Marlin as the grimy Aviator, slightly stunned, the broken wing of his aircraft tucked tenderly under his superficially bruised arm.

Soon the quizzical titular Prince--an appealingly un-coy 10-year-old girl named Leslie Engelberg--emerged from behind a cut-out rock. The philosophical fantasy could begin.

In his quest for eternal verities, the Prince encountered a gingerly King who loomed higher than normal because, beneath his courtly robe, he happened to be balancing and walking--semi-symbolically--upon a globe. Marlin again.

Soon Marlin-the-deadpan-King became a quick-change artist, transforming himself into a Conceited Stranger, a Tippler, a Mogul and a Geographer. In each guise, the genial gentleman performed nifty magic tricks.

Rhythmically, he juggled myriad little globes. Nonchalantly, he demonstrated many a sleight of virtuosic hand. Cleverly, he performed an increasingly besotted pas de deux with a white top hat. In each instance, he was irresistibly suave and knowingly show-bizzy.

And that wasn’t all. A gaggle of man-and-woman-birds flapped their cape-wings picturesquely. An adorable pair of baby volcanoes traipsed across the stage on baby-ballerina legs. The extended, somewhat rocky, arm of Rocker Verastique impersonated a snake.

The ambitious Chamber Ballet had registered plenty of tender, loving charm. The performance, overall, was smooth, eminently eager. The company had created a potentially profitable diversion that ought to delight little ones for many a holiday matinee.

But two important elements had somehow gotten lost in the translation from literature to terpsichore: the serious explorations that lurk beneath the surface of St. Exupery’s fanciful narrative; and, more damaging in this context, substantial dancing.

The most memorable aspects of this “Little Prince” involved the scenery, stage tricks, star turns and mime. The fundamental balletic escapade--a disparate group effort that enlisted four--count ‘em, four--choreographers--lacked depth as well as focus.

Although the program did not tell the audience who had choreographed what, a company spokeswoman revealed some crucial identifications. Raiford Rogers had provided the thorny Rose adagio for a somewhat shaky Victoria Koenig (who sported a singularly unattractive red skirt representing the floral blossom and a silly green bodice with a single long sleeve representing the downside-up stem). Rogers also had concocted modest cliches for the Snake, a trio of leotarded Echoes and a corps of twinkling tippy-toed Stars.

Patrick Frantz had come up with the strenuous mock-ornithological maneuvers as well as a cunning little solo for the wise Fox (Kristine Soleri, formerly of American Ballet Theatre). Stanley Holden had supervised Marlin’s spiffy music-hall routines. Koenig, the resident Rose Queen, had directed the homey horticultural comings and goings in the second-act garden.

It all was nice, to be sure. Stylistic unity, however, had been sacrificed, as had most opportunities to capitalize on the aesthetic impact of dance per se. Everyone was too busy telling the story, too busy being cute, too busy interpolating mere snippets of hand-me-down rituals.

It must be significant that the Little Prince himself could function in this production neither as protagonist nor as catalyst. Demoted to super-numerary status, he merely served as a passive mini-observer, as an innocent decorative bystander. Dramatic focus and continuity suffered accordingly.

The slick, meekly trendy score composed by Lloyd Rodgers and performed by something called the Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra didn’t exactly propel the action forward or reveal deep dark secrets about the characters and their universe(s). Soft-core minimalism can only go so far.