A few seasons ago we got the umpteenth tour of Peter Pan; this summer, we had Fly, the new sequel; and now, barely a month later, Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel to the same source material. What accounts for all this –quelmania? Have our playwrights simply run out of fresh ideas?
Rick Elice, who wrote Peter and the Starcatcher, clearly hasn’t — he’s just looked around for clever, old ways to express them. The conceit of the production is its brazen theatricality; like the Dallas Theater Center’s annual Christmas Carol, the characters spend as much time talking to the audience, explaining their thinking and backstories, as they do each other. It could be a tired device, but the directors, Roger
Rees and Alex Timbers, have decided to tell the story with such old-school music-hall brashness, it never seems to: Sets are improvised with bits of rope; costumes (including corny mermaid dresses complete with coconut-style brassieres, pictured) look cobbled together from scraps and Dumpster leftovers; rough seas are approximated, Star Trek-like, with the actors simultaneously leaning in one direction. It’s all so fake and so silly, and yet so joyously theatrical.
Even during the rare moments when the antics and sight gags don’t work, Elice’s brilliant workplay, punnery and snappy wisecracks come flying at you as nimbly as a knife-throwing act. You fail to pay attention at your peril.
But you’ll want to pay attention. The smattering of songs are sprightly and smart, the color palette brashly dask in Act 1, garishly eye-popping in Act 2. And the tight cast of 15 actors (who play, among the many humans, doors, crocodiles, ocean waves and Tinkerbell) each dazzle you with their versatility. You do need to groove into their over-the-top, children’s theater style, but — as when John Sanders, playing the villainous Black Stache (a cross between Groucho Marx and John Cleese), finds 65 different ways to scream “Oh my God” after getting his hand cut off … well, you’ve never heard three words said so amazingly over and over again. Give that man a hand — he’ll need it. And one to the rest of those responsible for this delighful romp.
Winspear Opera House
2403 Flora St.
Through Sept. 29.
ATTPAC.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 20, 2013.