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Washington, D.C.: Rigby Earns the Right to Crow in Peter Pan

By: Jul. 20, 2005
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Hurtling and spinning through the air, Cathy Rigby's Peter Pan cuts across the stage like a human pendulum, flurries of fairy dust glittering in her wake. "I'm flying," she sings, and a sense of blissful vertigo extends out into the audience as well.

The number is the most exhilerating part of the charming if sometimes strenuous touring production of Peter Pan currently at Virginia's Wolf Trap. In "I'm Flying," the show whizzes past that second star to the right after pleasantly hovering for a somewhat draggy first act. If the show never completely transports us to that land where "dreams are born and time is never planned," this Never Never Land still has plenty of moments that are capable of turning you once again into a wide-eyed kid clapping a fairy out of a twinkling coma.

 Never considered one of the top-tier classics of the musical theatre canon, Peter Pan's
Charlap/Styne/Comden/Green score is occasionally trite and forgettable ("Wendy") yet also has more than enough gems ("I'm Flying," "I Won't Grow Up"). James M. Barrie's play (he's credited as the musical's book-writer) has spawned a number of films--such as Steven Speilberg's fantasia Hook, and an animated Disney film that makes the musical's rather un-PC view of Native Americans seem progressive in comparison. Of course, the musical also features such beloved characters as Peter, Wendy (appealing if long-toothed Elisa Sagardia), John and Michael Darling (Gavin Leatherwood and scene-stealingly cute Shawn Moriah Sullivan) and Tiger Lily (lithe Lauren Masiello) facing off against buffoonish buccaneer Captain Hook (Howard McGillin), and it has endured mostly due to a revered TV version that starred the original Broadway Peter, the irresistibly pixieish Mary Martin.

Unlike Peter and his pesky shadow, Martin and the role were once thought to be inseparable; since then, others have made their mark on the airborne lost boy--first Sandy Duncan and now Rigby. Clad in a leafy tunic and green tights, Rigby is superb as Peter. Not much taller than John and Michael, the ex-Olympic gymnast brings a muscular grace to Peter's physicality, the shuffling petulance of a preteen boy to her interactions with Wendy and a defiant spunk to her face-offs with Hook.  She sings well, too, in her thin, airy voice and also carries off Peter's fear of adulthood and vulnerability--the kid was kind of forgotten by his own parents. The climactic save-the-fairy scene seems a little phoned-in, but then, Rigby has been playing Peter (on and off) since the Bush administration--the very first one. Ultimately, she's still thrilling.

Tinker Bell is a glowing bloom of light in the show, and Tom Ruzika's lighting designs are loudly colorful. In its sets (by John Iacovelli), too, Peter Pan has a certain gaudiness, but it's completely appropriate. They reflect a child's bright, exaggerated view of reality; the Darling bedroom, with its slightly skewed perspective, drowns in mauves and pinks and Captain Hook's fearsome ship seems carved out of rubber more so than wood. The papier mache rocks of Never Never Land and Blindman's Bluff also have this quality, and the cut-out trees that border Peter's underground lair seem transplanted from Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. Mermaids, lovely and rabid, hiss in a grotto of violet and turquoise light; such wonders don't delight children alone. Shigeru Yaji's costumes are mostly divided into three major schemes--Pirate, Lost Boy and Indian; he particularly finds success with his witty pirate designs. A sea-dog League of Nations, a gaucho pirate grimaces beside a kilted one. Captain Hook, of course, wears his trademark red velvet, gold braid and raven periwig.

 Hook leads his motley band through a number of dance styles--tango, tarantella and waltz. "Hook's Waltz" is probably the most engaging as the splendidly-voiced McGillin (who also plays Mr. Darling) boasts of being the "swiniest swine in the world." Delivering his lines with such melodramatic tremulousness that he almost sings them, McGillin slices into this delicious ham chunk of a number; his Hook has a commanding panache even at his goofiest. As for Patrick Richwood's Mr. Smee--well, his facial expressions are as relentlessly restless as Patti Colombo's choreography; the dances work far more than the schtick. Director Glenn Casale, who otherwise stages the show with spirit, really should have known better. (Come to think of it, why did he let a Lost Boy touch the steaming mushroom above Peter's chimney right after it burned Hook?)

Yet Colombo's choreography, based on the original by Jerome Robbins, can grow tiring in its unflagging vigor and athleticism, and one wishes for more variety. "Ugg-a-Wugg" (a frenzied tom-tom version of Stomp!) stops the show, but after its dazzling assault, the wistful lullaby "Distant Melody" (sung by Peter and Wendy) comes as a relief. And while Rigby's flying is thrilling, one wishes the sets wouldn't wobble and that the thing on her face looked more like a dirt stain than a mic; forget the visible wires. The show's spectacle bleeds into artificiality at times.

This Peter Pan isn't perfect and it won't necessarily restore one's belief in fairies. Yet Rigby is sublime, the show sometimes soars and when an audience composed of almost 50% children stands to cheer for that other gravity-defying green character, it's hard not to think a few happy thoughts of one's own.

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