There have been many, many countless adaptations of Peter Pan. There is something about the story that continues to touch people long after its author is gone – which is a good thing, because JM Barrie gave the rights to Peter Pan and everything related to it, to Great Ormond Street Hospital, meaning that every time a movie, play, or book is written about Peter Pan, proceeds go to helping kids get better…
But this newest production of Peter Pan is something very special indeed. For starters, it’s in Kensington Gardens, which is, really, where the whole story started. There was a quote in front of my program that said “Kensington Gardens is not just where little boys who fall out of their prams are found and taken to Neverland it *is* Neverland”. There is something to that, there is something to knowing that, as you’re sitting in the theater, you’re sitting in the place where it actually started, where, if you believe in such things, it actually happened.
And perhaps, in one way or another, it did happen…
The production is incredible, but at the same time very simplistic. They make no effort to hide the wires the actors fly on, but instead incoroprate them into the action, and eventually you do simply forget they’re there, even though they’re clearly visible right in front of you. While each set is simple, the transitions between them were beautiful and so smooth, that even though you were looking for them you couldn’t find where they’d gone to. So you found yourself really starting believe that Wendy’s tiny little house really did fit ten fully grown people….and, the neatest techincal aspect of all, was that it was theatre in the round, done properly …and the marquee ceiling above the audience wasn’t just a ceiling – it was also a full omimax screen…when the children rose up to fly over London to Neverland we flew *with* them…and that was truly stunning…
The waves and mermaids were ribbon dancers, and the actors themselves were fly-performers, so the flying sequences were amazing…
But the most beautiful thing about the production was that they meant what they said when they advertised it as being as close to the original as possible. This was the real story, as close to the real story as I’ve ever seen. Ever since I read the book last year, I’ve been aware of how much people feel compelled to change the story of Peter Pan, to make it happy and sugar coated – and that’s not what it is. It is, at its heart, a story about mortality and fear and accepting that we all have to grow up – and that if we choose not to, if we choose to stay in Neverland, what we would have to sacrifice to make that choice. The real story of Peter Pan is that of a boy who was forced away from his family and ended up in a fantasy world when his mother forgot about him. There are elements to the story that are heart-wrenching, and this production, captured it, the innocence of it and the pain of it, nearly perfectly. The raw sensuality of Tiger Lily when she attempts to “thank” Peter for saving her life, only to have Peter not comprehend or want what she’s offering, the cracking of Wendy’s heart when she realizes that Peter will never love her, despite the fact that she knows she has started to fall in love with him…
Peter Pan is about youth and joy and…about time…”the ticking crocadile chasing after us all”…which is why it’s so symbolic that the croc’s clock finally runs down right before he catches Hook…
And the scene with Tinker Bell…they didn’t keep the original “clap if you believe” tradition, and I suspect that was because they know they’re going to have a lot of young kidlets in the audience, and clapping could get out of hand. Instead they asked everyone in the audience who believed in fairies to whisper their belief, in little small voices so that fairies could hear. And the result was this…almost a wind…of a whisper, touched here and there with “fairy bells’ bought from the merchidise booth and clutched in little hands, and you suddenly realized you were crying…
And, both to my shock, my joy, and my “oh no….nononono” they kept the original ending. The real ending. Not a varation of it, like most of the hollywood versions do, and certainly not the Disney version where they simply cut off well before the true end. No, this was the real end – the projection on the screen above your heads started to spin, and as it spun you saw the seasons changing in Neverland, years and years worth of seasons…and when Peter came back to the nursery, not only was Wendy grown up and Jane in the bed…but Peter had forgotten everything…everything but Wendy…
“Where’s Tinker Bell?” “Who’s Tinker Bell?”
And there was this one line, that they just tossed off and that most people probably didn’t even hear, but that made me cry all the harder…
“Micheal, Peter – Micheal isn’t a little boy anymore…Micheal was a solider and –“
The sentence is never finished…
Then Jane wakes up, and you know it will all start all over again…”as long as children are innocent and gay…and heartless…”
It took me quite some time to stop crying…