Review: PETER, HOOK AND THE DARLINGS Soars at Open Stage of Harrisburg

J.M. Barrie's PETER PAN first appeared on stage in 1904, and the boy who wouldn't grow up has never looked back. From the original play, which ran for years in London, to the 1954 Comden and Green musical (for those of us of a certain age, the "Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard" PETER PAN), the Disney movie, then HOOK, and the newer PETER AND THE STARCATCHER and FINDING NEVERLAND, Peter Pan is all arounf us. So why do another adaptation?

Well, it's there to do, and to have fun with, and perhaps not to be just another musical or just another Wendy and Peter story. Stuart Landon, of Open Stage of Harrisburg, created PETER, HOOK, AND THE DARLINGS two years ago and now, directing himself, has it fully staged with some innovative set design at Open Stage.

The set features a stage upon a stage, with a proscenium of waves and mermaids, and an evocation of London music hall. The costuming, too, is more music hall than American theatre, and there's a vague sense that you might just have walked into Kurt Weill's THREEPENNY OPERA from the looks of the well-dressed and beggarly, from the self-referential chorusing, and from the sense of Peter Pan as a young MacHeath to Hook's long arm of adulthood. There's a narrative style and a political thread (here the young and not-young rather than the haves and have-nots) that might just suggest Brecht. With all of these influences, can this combination work?

It can, although this is definitely not your parents' PETER PAN, nor is it really a children's PETER PAN - if the story has ever really been for children. It's far from a musical, though in London music hall tradition the cast occasionally breaks into song, almost entirely familiar Victorian fare relevant to the scene. Behind the main characters, the ensemble (Lost Boys and Pirates) serves as much as Greek chorus as specific parts, helping move the story along. James Saracina, who has also worked at Allenberry, is a fine Peter Pan for this production, a more athletic character than most, who not only sword fights with Hook but who climbs rigging, slides from ropes, and commands the stage in a more dominant way than most Peters.

Noelle Sacher, last seen in THE AMISH PROJECT, is Wendy Darling, not a central focus of attention, but a focal point around whom Peter and Hook dance. Hook is area theatre veteran Nicholas Hughes, who might as well have been born to play everyone's favorite one-handed pirate. Most unusually, Tinker Bell is played by Sharia Benn, physical form always visible, voice provided by a chiming triangle. A live-action, visible Tinker Bell, neither a point of light nor an animated skinny blonde, provides the attitudinal fairy with real personality, which is a vast improvement over the traditional imaginary character. On the review night, however, the audience was a far too hard sell, apparently not wanting to believe in fairies, or trying to be too cool to admit their belief, at first. If anything will kill Peter Pan, it will be adults refusing to plunge themselves into the world of Neverland - no wonder they can't fly any more!

It's a relief to see a Peter Pan tale that doesn't work hard at trying to dangle failed romantic implications between Peter and Wendy, and that has as charmingly optimistic an end as does this one. Rather than a maudlin "can't go home again" or unsettling "my own child is running away to Neverland now," there's a more organic ending that feels far more true to Peter's remaining seven years old eternally and to Wendy's recognition that children are meant to become adults. It's also intriguingly feminist, a nod to the idea that it's not only boys who are entitled to danger and adventure in their childhoods.

This version of the Peter Pan story may be deeper than some would like. It's a real call to reflection on childhood and adulthood, on what things should be kept and what should be shed as we age. It's a historical-setting piece that recalls Victorian and Edwardian theatrical productions and pantomimes, as well as telling a story, that may confuse those not willing to invest themselves in the piece. And it's not a "look, I can fly!" happy-happy musical. But Open Stage likes to promote itself as thought-provoking, and this piece certainly is. It's a reflection on the Peter Pan tale we think we know, and a suggestion of the deeper meanings we tend to ignore in it. If you're open to it, expect to be moved and possibly to find it more honest, more satisfying in many ways, than the now-traditional formula.

At Open Stage through December 13. Visit openstagehbg.com for tickets and information.

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