Playwright: Amanda Dehnert, adapted from the original by J.M. Barrie. At: Lookingglass Theatre Company, 821 N. Michigan . Phone: 312-337-0665; $20-$62. Runs through: Dec. 12
British literature helped inspire the origins of Lookingglass Theatre Company and one of its biggest hits: the Lewis Carroll-inspired Lookingglass Alice. So it only makes sense that Lookingglass would look to another British literary character who could offer more fantastical flights of stage fancy.
Now there are already many existing stage adaptations about "the boy who wouldn't grow up," ranging from the J.M. Barrie's 1904 original to the 1954 Broadway musical. Working with Lookingglass for the first time, Amanda Dehnert adapts and directs Peter Pan ( A Play ) as a bunch of kids played by adults enacting their own version of the story as part of an elaborate playtime.
And as kids are wont to do ( heralded early on when Royer Bockus volunteers to play the dog Nana as long as she doesn't have to crawl or bark ) , Dehnert has shaken up many of the story's traditional stage conventions.
For instance, the actor playing Mr. Darling ( ensemble member Raymond Fox ) doesn't get to double up as the villain Capt. Hook. ( Ensemble member Thomas J. Cox gets to solely snarl his way through that role. ) And instead of a slender woman taking on the acrobatic title role ( a tradition that shows how Pan hasn't matured ) , the strapping Northwestern University college student Ryan Nunn gets to play the courageous and callous youth.
Having denied a woman the chance to play Peter, Dehnert instead changes a few other characters' genders. Well-known 500 Clown star Molly Brennan mostly plays things straight as Hook's henchman Smee, while Kelley Abell justifies her performance as a Lost Boy by stating, "I'm not a girl."
It is these cutesy adults-as-kids touches like this that will either endear the show with audiences, or infuriate them. Peter Pan traditionalists will particularly grumble at Dehnert's changes for the Indian Tiger Lily. Erika Ratcliff plays the now tribe-less warrior as a bad-ass bully fighting little girl ( which goes against one of Barrie's points that only boys fall out of their cribs and end up in Neverland ) .
On the plus side, Dehnert's physical staging of Peter Pan is full of wonderful and playful stage effects, particularly the full-view rope-and-pulley manipulation to show characters flying. Where the show could improve is with some extra trimming for time's sake, and a greater sense of feeling and emotion. ( The child's play framing device also dampens audiences' fear for any real danger that might befall the characters. )
But as a paean to fantasy and the inevitable passage of time, this Lookingglass Peter Pan succeeds at showing how its title character will live forever young—as long as there are parents to tell the wistful tale to each succeeding generation of children.
