Adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 'Night Flight' take risks

In 1929, a young French pilot became head of theAeroposta Argentina Company. In an early biplane, with few flight instruments, he took to the skies and risked his life transporting South American mail over vast distances.

Pioneering pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry logged many miles in that job. And he gathered inspiration for his poetic early novel, "Night Flight," one of the first books to capture the romance, risks and rewards of manned flight.

Book-It Repertory Theatre is transforming the novel into a musical theater piece that launches its world premiere at the Moore Theatre tonight.

Described as an "operetta," this adaptation of "Night Flight" has a libretto by Book-It co-artistic director Myra Platt, and a score by Platt and noted Seattle composer Joshua Kohl.

Though not quite so daring as a flight from France to Buenos Aires in the 1920s, the show has presented its own risks, as Book-It's first production at the Moore, and as a different sort of gig for Kohl.

The composer admits it's a big departure from the unfettered experimentalism of his ongoing work with Degenerate Art Ensemble, the avant-garde Seattle performance group Kohl co-founded.

"Myra wanted me to write music for 'Night Flight' that will stick in people's minds, and they'll come out of the theater humming," he says.

"I've never had a project where my goal was to write catchy, memorable songs. And it's not something you just decide to do. You have to learn to love doing it."

It helped that Kohl has an affinity for the mystical prose of Saint-Exupéry. Best known for his enduring fable "Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)," he was a French aristocrat who studied architecture but found his calling as an early commercial pilot, and as an author whose works were largely inspired by his aeronautical adventures. (Saint-Exupéry perished in 1944, at age 44, when the French military plane he was piloting crashed off the coast of France.)

"Night Flight" focuses on Saint-Exupéry's semiautobiographical pilot Fabien and his older boss Rivière. Eager to prove the superiority of airmail over mail delivery by sea and land, Rivière dispatches Fabien on a dangerous mission during a thunderstorm — and then reflects on the nature of flying, and fears for Fabien's safety, after the plane goes missing.

"It's essentially about someone who could simplify his life by going back to the ground," says Kohl. "But once you've spent so much time in the sky, it's hard to return to regular society."

Platt's father, a former pilot, first suggested the novel for a Book-It treatment. As the project took shape, Kohl (composer of the music for Book-It's recent version of "A Tale of Two Cities") signed on as a collaborator.

"We call it an operetta, because it's basically about 80 percent music," he explains of the one-act work. "And this time we have a live band — an amazing group of musicians on bass, accordion, violin and guitar."

The show's musical palette is "kind of 1920s Argentina, with a French tinge to it," Kohl says.

"I do a lot of really strange music, so I needed to know how far I could push things. It took months of throwing ideas away before I got the balance between the era, the earworm catchiness Myra wanted, and something I could really enjoy."

Tango was one influence, but not what Kohl terms "the dark, rough, sexy nouveau tango of Astor Piazzolla. This is a more romantic, French-influenced, early-tango style."

The "Night Flight" cast features Seattle actor-singers John Bogar as Fabien and John Lowrie as Rivière.

And how will the show simulate the rapturous and terrifying experience of flying in Saint-Exupéry's era?

"Matt Smucker, our set designer, does a really amazing job creating a skylike effect at the Moore in this vast, open proscenium space, with all the curtains stripped away," answers Kohl.

"He's got all these little light bulbs hanging like stars... . I shouldn't give too much a way, but it's beautiful."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com