BWW Reviews: Milwaukee Catches Stunning Stars at The Rep

Theatrical magic, music and serious "Starstuff" conjure a stunning evening on the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater . To end their season, Milwaukee Rep presents Peter and the Star Catcher, a prequel to James M. Barrie's 1904 story of the beloved character living in Neverland, Peter Pan. In the multiple Tony Award-winning production written by Rick Elice, Peter Pan's origins take the audience on a star-crossed journey, complete with super-sized crocodiles, sneering pirates, swaying mermaids and mollusks-who dance Busby Berkeley style to Wayne Barker's clever music. What an adventure to put a twinkle in the eyes of any audience over the age eight!

A show co-produced with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the company's Artistic Director Blake Robinson adroitly steers the helm on these two ships, the Neverland and the Wasp, in a seafaring journey to save Queen Victoria's treasure. When a highly capable, cheeky and intelligent teenager Molly meets the homeless, nameless Boy in the underbelly of the good ship Neverland, stars appear in each of their eyes while they become a team and accomplish "things against impossible odds."

Along the way, innovative Scenic Designer James Kronzer captures the vision created by the Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson novel the musical was based on in the numerous scenes from an 1885 setting. David Mickelson's inventive and outrageous costumes steal several scenes, while the stage sky overhead literally glows covered with bulbs hung from the ceiling to cast an aura over the imagined sea. A production filled with bright stars, a meteoric cast includes Joanna Howard, who plays the indomitable Molly to Noah Zachary's transformation from Boy into the brave Peter Pan. Their unmistakable chemistry dives into the heart of production, "not sentimental, but inside the strong" because "things are only worth what you're willing to give up for them."

Added to heart, over-the-top performances by a poetic pirate personified by Tom Story dressed as captain Black Stache and his playful henchman Smee, a faithful Jose Restrepo, who present the evil duo's comic antics. On the Wasp, a swarmy Bill Slank masked as Arturo Soria captains the ship through a storm that splinters the Neverland into pieces so everyone aboard the two ships crashes on the Island of Randoon, a place inhabited by fearsome mollusks who feed lost boys to a cranky crocodile, Mr. Grin.

Costumes absolutely shine in these scenes while comic quipt transfer from actor to audience: Where there are "pirates with panache," or events which can be "as elusive as the melody in a Glass opera," lines that keep the mind and eye equally engaged with comic repartee or double entendre. Be sure to keep an eye on Andy Paterson's Mrs. Brumbrake together with Nick Vannoy's Alf, a beguiling stage couple.

While Boy may be homeless and nameless, and pirates rule the ocean to thwart good deeds, Molly's mysterious amulet filled with "starstuff" indeed creates magic and miracles where the stars on stage illuminate the theater. The enchanting fun and frolic lightens the heart. In these days where violence burns in Baltimore, Nepal is wracked with a devastating earthquake, and all too often disasters can dampen any ordinary day with despair, theater rescues the human spirit.

In this production at the Rep, discover a ship's bounty of entertaining joy, although hard-won and bittersweet in the ending, this overcomes any anxiety or sorrow, even those places where "it's supposed to hurt-because that means it's supposed to mean something," Theater definitely provides the antidote to the world's or persoal tragedies, laughter mingled often with tears, for day-to-day survival. Amid the production's delightful frivolity overlies down to that deep end of the ocean optimism.

Gifts the audience will use to catch one of these amazing moments from The Rep's enlightening Peter and the Star Catcher. Moments to put in their "metaphorical pocket" and save for a rainy day. An hour or week when joy eludes the spirit that can be replaced with memories when a newly christened Peter and Molly believed "against all odds, the impossible can happen' or "To have faith is to have wings."

Have faith, fly with Peter, and find the wings of laughter, song, and stories,, "starstuff' with,the great power to heal the soul in a wondrous evening celebrating imagination, finding a family, home wherever that might be, and most enduring of all, hope in the future.

Milwaukee Rep presents the Tony Award-winning Peter and the Starcatcher in the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater at the Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex through May 24. For more information, subscriptions to The Rep's 2015-2016 season, please call: 414.224.9490 or visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com

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