Peter and Wendy
So, for the third time its been staged at New York City's New Victory Theater, I went to the Mabou Mines production of Peter and Wendy,their play based on James Barrie's Peter Pan. I admit that I've never read the book. I saw the Mary Martin movie and the Disney cartoon version as a child and loved them.
I've seen several productions by Mabou Mines over the years-some work and some haven't (Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Phil Dick was awful, primarily because the main male character was played campy, totally destroying any credibility or faithfulness to the source material). I've enjoyed The Shaggy Dog Animations and would happily watch it again. But Peter and Wendy is their masterpiece. It never fails to move me to tears.
It's large part puppetry (Peter is an adorable/monstrously selfish perpetual lost boy marionette with red hair), Nana the dog is a hand puppet later rejiggered into the crocodile stalking Captain Hook. Hook is a marionette. Wendy is the remarkable Karen Kandel, a stately, gorgeous woman who has played the part and voiced multiple characters each of the three times I've seen the play. John and Michael Darling are "created" by clothing flapping, birds made of --not sure what--fly through puppetry manipulation. For anyone who is a fan of excellent puppetry it's a must-see.
But for me, the magic of the stagecraft, while awe-inspiring, is only one part of the production's attraction. It's also the performance by Karen Kandel, the often melancholy Celtic music, and --the underlay. Rick Bowes says it's a sentimentality about and nostalgia for childhood--perhaps for him. For me, it's the push-pull of child-parent love/need the pain of the parents left behind when the children are spirited away by Peter. I've never been a parent but this production helps me empathize more than any other piece of art I've ever seen. It's the idea of loss--loss of innocence, of a specific type of imagination most children have and that artists of all kinds long for and sometimes recapture (I'm not an artist and have no creative imagination). So anyway, yes I cried at the end. For Wendy as a mother and all the other moms in the world whose children leave home (eventually for good).
I've no idea if this makes any sense whatsoever but there it is.
A great piece of theater for adults and children.
I've seen several productions by Mabou Mines over the years-some work and some haven't (Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Phil Dick was awful, primarily because the main male character was played campy, totally destroying any credibility or faithfulness to the source material). I've enjoyed The Shaggy Dog Animations and would happily watch it again. But Peter and Wendy is their masterpiece. It never fails to move me to tears.
It's large part puppetry (Peter is an adorable/monstrously selfish perpetual lost boy marionette with red hair), Nana the dog is a hand puppet later rejiggered into the crocodile stalking Captain Hook. Hook is a marionette. Wendy is the remarkable Karen Kandel, a stately, gorgeous woman who has played the part and voiced multiple characters each of the three times I've seen the play. John and Michael Darling are "created" by clothing flapping, birds made of --not sure what--fly through puppetry manipulation. For anyone who is a fan of excellent puppetry it's a must-see.
But for me, the magic of the stagecraft, while awe-inspiring, is only one part of the production's attraction. It's also the performance by Karen Kandel, the often melancholy Celtic music, and --the underlay. Rick Bowes says it's a sentimentality about and nostalgia for childhood--perhaps for him. For me, it's the push-pull of child-parent love/need the pain of the parents left behind when the children are spirited away by Peter. I've never been a parent but this production helps me empathize more than any other piece of art I've ever seen. It's the idea of loss--loss of innocence, of a specific type of imagination most children have and that artists of all kinds long for and sometimes recapture (I'm not an artist and have no creative imagination). So anyway, yes I cried at the end. For Wendy as a mother and all the other moms in the world whose children leave home (eventually for good).
I've no idea if this makes any sense whatsoever but there it is.
A great piece of theater for adults and children.
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