Prince Leonce is suffocating from ennui. I am so young and the world is so old, as he says. He cannot rid himself of his feelings of joylessness and emptiness, and so when his father, the king, insists that he marry a princess that he has never even seen, the prince organises his escape. With the help of his attendant, Valerio, he wanders far and wide until, in Italy, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman. Marriage seems to be a foregone conclusion .
With his embellishment of a stock fairy-tale structure, Georg Buchner creates an astringent comic response to German romanticism which is also a denunciation of social decadence and hypocrisy. This subsersive work, which together with Woyzeck and Dantons Death stands as one of the writers crowning achievements, is performed by a talented group of actors whose youth belies their experience, and is directed by the internationally acclaimed and multitalented French artist Laurent Chétouane.