Light, Shadows, First Stage, Peter Pan and Wendy

To Keep Flying and To Never Land (Even When The Strings Behind the Magic Are Visible)

There’s a silhouette in the distance—a skyline beneath simple lights acting as stars. 

As the show opens, Alison Mary Forbes and Todd Denning play parents to the young Wendy and company—played almost entirely by First Stage Academy students in both casts. (The “Light,” children’s cast rotates with the “Shadow,” children’s cast throughout the run of the show.) An ingeniously economical set by Sarah Hunt-Frank (and Scenic Artist Samuel Ellingson) uses the same set of rolling platforms for a variety of different pieces of scenery. At the show’s opening, they are pushed together and covered by sheets to be used as a large bed. A fancifully bent window reaches back into a creatively designated vanishing point.

The production solves a number of problems through the use of a rather large group of shadow performers. In a style inspired by the ancient technique of Bunraku, people dressed entirely in black from head to toe (no faces visible) move around cast and set pieces to move the story along. The family dog Nana shows-up as a marionette with a surprising amount of personality for a prop with such little detail. Having read about the style and techniques used, my imagination had come up with something far more faced-paced and visually stunning than First Stage actually manages here, but the actual production was far from disappointing in its entirety. There are a number of visual effects that do a brilliant job of delivering a visual illusion to the audience in a way that simultaneously shows reveals the magic behind it without compromising its visual impact.

The magic of the journey to Never Land is one of the more clever visual bits in the show. The black-clad shadows delicately and cautiously lift the children in flight as other shadows walk briskly by carrying big, puffy low-lying cumulous clouds to give a surprisingly effective illusion of forward movement. One can clearly see the people making the clouds move, but seeing them doesn’t tarnish their visual impact in the least. So much of what makes this production impressive happens in clear view. It’s very, very stylish without looking flashy or overly polished. It’s a very clever show visually. The biggest visual impression here has to be the giant crocodile puppet, which marches on and off stage on a couple of different occasions, taking up a good portion of the visual space onstage. Here size alone is really, really effective. 

The Shadows That Distinguish First Stage

I must admit that when I was looking at the upcoming First Stage Children’s Theatre schedule was released, I cringed a bit when I saw the Disney logo above one of the shows. On further investigation, the upcoming production of My Son Pinocchio appears to be a show fully independent from the sinister shadow of the giant mouse ears in California—it merely features songs from the 1940 animated film. I’m not superstitious enough to think that everything a huge corporations do is pure evil—seeing the Disney logo on a First Stage show was a little disconcerting due to the company’s reputation for overly sanitized children’s fare.

One of the things that I absolutely love about First Stage Children’s Theatre productions is their ability to deliver an approachable complexity to the stage . . . one that will engage children in a way bigger commercial children’s films and TV shows out of Hollywood never seem to attempt. That subtle complexity challenges kids and lets them in on the darker aspects of the world they will be inheriting from the relative safety of theatre seats. It’s not ever anything that would necessarily scare them or give them nightmares, but it’s there if they’re captivated enough by a show to think about the stories in any kind of depth. Thankfully, First Stage’s latest production—Peter Pan And Wendy follows in the tradition of delivering a simple story that maintains a respectable amount of depth for those kids interested enough in the story to think about it a little more.

Shaw reportedly thought of the original J.M. Barrie-penned Peter Pan stage play as ostensibly a story for children that really was more of a play for grown-ups. There are deep bits of allegory in the Peter Pan stories that go much further than most children’s fare. It’s nice to see that Doug Rand’s adaptation of the J.M. Barrie novel brings some of that complexity across. There’s a kind of safe darkness along the edges of  the script that exist in a really interesting parallel universe where maternal love is highly regarded as a very, very precious commodity and emotion and imagination animate all things.

First Stage’s production of Peter Pan And Wendy runs through November 14^th at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theatre. For more information, call 414-273-7206.