Peter Pan is as much a theatrical phenomenon as he is a literary one. Creator JM Barrie adapted his own stage play into the novel Peter and Wendy years after the play’s initial success, and the character has been a staple of English theatre ever since. There’s something delightfully homespun about the idea of a flying boy, crocodiles, pirates and fairies being depicted through the plodding mechanics of the stage, tangibility grounding the story in a way most film adaptations miss.
The idea of a stage play that traces the origins of Peter – his relationship with Hook, his attachment to the Lost Boys and his strange hold on the Darling children – is a solid one. Prequels get a bad rap usually because they fail to make a case for their own existence, but the Peter Pan story can be taken in any number of directions. Several authors penned the series of novels that Peter and the Starcatcher is based on, and Disney owns the rights, so a stage adaptation was inevitable. But the results are more than a cynical cash grab.
The plot revolves not around Wendy but her mother, Molly (Olivia Deeble); here she is 13 years old, the daughter of Lord Aster (Alison Whyte) and an apprentice “Starcatcher”. These are a secret society of people entrusted with the guardianship of “starstuff”, a magical dust capable of manifesting people’s desires. When Molly encounters Peter (Otis Dhanji) and his fellow orphans Prentiss (Morgan Francis) and Ted (Benjin Maza) – the Lost Boys reduced here to two, their backstory also changed – she is pulled into an adventure involving swapped treasure chests, powerful lockets and shiploads of chicanery.
If some of Barrie’s most iconic creations survive largely intact, others are either jettisoned or altered beyond recognition. Captain Hook is hookless and known as Black Stache (Colin Lane, as deadpan stupid as his Lano and Woodley character). Tinker Bell is a bird for the most part, transformed into her pixie self only at the play’s conclusion. But the most significant change is with Peter himself. No longer so solipsistic or incapable of empathy, he is depicted here as an innocent, full of wonder and enthusiasm.
Director and designer David Morton (creative director of Queensland-based company Dead Puppet Society) mounts a production that cleaves to the particular charms of rough theatre, leaning on modest puppetry and stage effects, astute use of physical movement and some rich lighting design rather than blockbuster coups de theatre. His cast throw themselves into the plot with liveliness and flair, doubling as musicians or puppeteers, tossing around accents and asides with abandon. It comes dangerously close to pantomime at times, but its energy rarely sags.
As the eponymous boy who refuses to grow up, Dhanji brings bright magnetism and vulnerability to the role; he has a knockabout quality that recalls matinee screen idols by way of the Artful Dodger. In key ways, Peter has been stripped of complexity and ambivalence, but he remains a likeable protagonist. Deeble is excellent as Molly, acrobatic and swashbuckling, bursting with pride and panache. Lane hilariously hams his evil pirate schtick, constantly breaking the fourth wall to cajole or berate the audience. Paul Capsis is memorable as a dastardly seafarer and John Batchelor is terrific in a number of roles, not least the mermaid who bestows Peter with his name.
While much of the stagecraft is effective – the addition of shanty-style musical interludes gives a sense of ritual to proceedings – it’s also highly reminiscent of the Old Vic production of A Christmas Carol (returning soon to the Comedy Theatre). If it isn’t particularly innovative, it does manage to convey some of the wide-eyed wonder of the original, that sense of a grand mythology emerging.
Just what Peter himself means – the boy who refuses to grow into adulthood – is harder to fathom in this iteration. His arrested development is played as a kind of whim rather than any rift in the natural order, so there’s little hint of the tragic impulse that sits just under the surface of Barrie’s creation. At the conclusion, Peter is safely ensconced in Neverland and Molly heads back to England, the flying boy neatly confined to the world of imagination. It feels like a loss.
Peter and the Starcatcher is on at the Art Centre Melbourne’s Playhouse until 1 December, then Adelaide Festival Centre from 9 January 2025, Sydney’s Capitol theatre from 31 January, and Brisbane’s QPAC from 14 March. See here for tickets.
