Review: PETER PAN AND TINKER BELL: A PIRATE'S CHRISTMAS at Scherr Forum Theater

The centuries-old tradition of pantomime came to Thousand Oaks December 13 with 5-Star Theatricals' staging of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas, which stars John O'Hurley, best known as the melodiously erudite J. Peterman in 22 episodes of Seinfeld. To many Americans, pantomime is simply a performance without speech, but this is an erroneous assumption. The tradition goes back centuries to 14th century England, when it began its association with the Christmas season. There are many elements that help characterize a pantomime production (now shortened to "panto"), but its major hallmarks include gender role reversal, a storyline of good vs. evil, slapstick comedy, colorful, eccentric costumes, audience participation, and dealing with a fairy tale or children's story.

Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas satisfies all of those hallmarks. The show is produced by Kris and Becky Lythgoe, whose Los Angeles-based Lythgoe Family Productions have been producing shows for family entertainment for over fifteen years, receiving congressional recognition for their contributions to the arts and arts education. The show was adapted by Kris Lythgoe from James Barrie's Peter Pan characters, with a storyline that is faithful to the familiar tale, but modernized to appeal to contemporary audiences. The script makes frequent references to local landmarks, including restaurants like Mastro's and Crown & Anchor, with the pirates' ship called the HMS Ventura, all of which bring a chuckle to the adults in the audience.

In line with the pantomime tradition, the Lythgoes' production reverses the gender of the story's main character, Peter Pan, who is historically played by a female. Young Alkaio Thiele possesses the poise, affability, and acting prowess to pull off the role convincingly and looks right at home dangling from his wires-and-harness hookup as he soars above the stage. John O'Hurley coasts through his performance as Captain Hook with ease. In a recent interview, he told me, “Hook is a boob. After all, he’s fighting a 12-year-old kid who manages to cut off his arm and feed it to a crocodile. So I don’t think he’s really the best antagonist around, but he certainly looks best in his outfit. I try to make him approachable, but larger than life. He’s really a testament to narcissism; like J. Peterman, but just a little bit more depraved.”

The star of the show, however, is the hilarious Ben Giroux as Smee, Hook's loyal boatswain. Giroux's slight stature, an admitted five-foot-two ("5' 10" on JDate," he quips) contrasts with O'Hurley's six-foot-two frame to create an instantly comical vision. Giroux's patter, much of it off script, is not unlike that of a comedy club emcee, with one liners delivered in rapid fire succession that are often punctuated by rim-shots and cymbal crashes from the off-stage band. From threatening to sentence Wendy (Julia Roome) to spend the rest of her days in Fillmore to cracking jokes with audience members, Giroux's rat-a-tat delivery is clearly the highlight of the show. His best moments come prior to the final scene, when, in front of a traveler curtain, he invites 12 kids from the audience who had purchased "Golden Tickets" to be targets of his barbs in a performance of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," with each being given a nonsensical gift, ad-libbing gags in accordance with each kid's name or appearance, much like Don Rickles prowling a Las Vegas nightclub. At one point, Giroux even does a credible impression of J. Peterman, which O'Hurley dismisses with faux disdain.

The rest of the cast perform well, especially Nayah Damasen as Tinker Bell and Ryan Bohmholdt and Casey Stone Malkoff as the younger Darling children, John and Michael. Camryn Eakes and Raquel Glasser are fine as, respectively, Tiger Lily and fellow female warrior Luna Rosa, and each is given an opportunity for well-received solo numbers.

Of lesser effectiveness are Captain Hook's three pirates, caricatures consisting of a single-gloved, moonwalking Michael Jackson (Davon Rashawn), a mumbling Elvis Presley (Camal Pugh), and John Lennon (Kevin Ivins), who speaks his lines in Beatle song titles and is made up to look more like Jack Sparrow at Woodstock. In a show that is meant to appeal to pre-teens, one wonders why three long-dead pop stars would be used as characters instead of more contemporary personalities who would be more relatable to children. The songs are equally archaic. Instead of using the score from the magical 1954 Broadway hit ("Never Never Land," "I Gotta Crow," etc.), the Lythgoes populate the score with ancient pop hits like "Nature Boy" (Nat King Cole), "In the Navy" (The Village People), "Think," (Aretha Franklin), "Hooked on a Feeling" (Blue Swede), and "Close to You" (The Carpenters). What? No "Crocodile Rock"?  The use of songs that have little or no familiarity to anyone born in this century unless they are subscribers to Sirius's oldies channel is puzzling at best and, in addition to the three aforementioned stereotyped pirates, the show's only drawback.

Allowing an audience of restless kids to vocally interact with the actors is in the grand tradition of pantomime, but it also invites anarchy, especially in these modern times when unruly audiences have become more and more prevalent. Thankfully, the several hundred children in the Scherr Forum behaved themselves admirably, responding only when invited to by the cast, who prompted them to boo, hiss, cheer, or yell, "Look out behind you!"

Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas is a great way to introduce youngsters to live theater, with a familiar story, actors who know how to play to children, with plenty of laughs, slapstick, and verbal tomfoolery to keep even their jaded parents and teachers engaged.

---

Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas plays through December 29 at the Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks. For tickets, visit www.5startheatricals.com.

Photos by Veronica Slavin

To post a comment, you must register and login.