Peter Pan
at the Apollo Theater
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Peter Pan’s first public incarnation was as a play in 1904. Barrie tinkered with the material over the years (he even penned the scenario for a proposed 1920 film starring Charlie Chaplin), and since his death in 1937 many others have had their way with the story. Most baby boomers grew up with the 1954 musical version that starred Mary Martin under Jerome Robbins’s direction, first shown on Broadway and then taped for TV; a touring revival of that show played here in 1998, starring Cathy Rigby as the most exciting, boyish Pan I’ve seen. A 1982 version by the Royal Shakespeare Company incorporated elements from various Barrie texts, as did Chicago director Dale Calandra’s 1993 rendition for Center Theater. The House Theatre of Chicago’s Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan–a 2002 hit at the Viaduct–emphasized the story’s psychosexual underpinnings. Cinematic incarnations include the 1953 Disney cartoon, Steven Spielberg’s overlong but provocative 1991 Hook, and last year’s “motion picture event,” with its spectacular flying effects. (A Barrie biopic starring Johnny Depp is due out this fall.)
Cardarelli’s version focuses on Wendy’s maturation. Here she’s an only child who’s approaching adolescence but insists on sleeping in the nursery. Her father’s exhortations to grow up precipitate a visit from Peter Pan, spirit of eternal youth: he whisks her off to Neverland, where Peter’s affection for her rouses the jealousy of his fairy sidekick, Tinkerbell, a Rollerblading mute whose sign language is accompanied by the jingle of bells on her wrists. Becoming a surrogate mother to Peter’s Lost Boys, Wendy tells them lots of stories, mostly about Peter. Peter’s archenemy, the buccaneer Captain Hook, kidnaps Wendy and the boys and tries to poison Peter; Tinkerbell drinks the poison to save him, but Peter brings her back to life with the aid of the audience’s applause, then vanquishes the dastardly Hook.
Young audiences are capable of embracing a vulnerable, flawed superhero–look at Spider-Man and Harry Potter. Indeed, Peter Pan without flaws can have no significant triumphs. Except for the poison-cake episode in Emerald City’s production, neither of these shows stirs any suspense. Tinkerbell’s death and revival is a routine ritual; Hook’s nemesis, the crocodile with the ticking clock in its gut, is just a device to bring scenes to an end; and Peter’s most famous line–“To die will be an awfully big adventure”–has been cut. Softening Peter’s turbulent personality and omitting the story’s scariest elements makes these adaptations little more than efficient but empty diversions.
