Theatre
J's boys
Christopher Edwards
Peter Pan (RSC Barbican) Vor the third year in succession the RSC's production of Peter Pan is the most spectacular holiday entertainment on offer. When John Caird and Trevor Nunn first assembled the production in 1982 they set out to restore the dramatic and psycho- logical depth to J.M. Barrie's story, and in order to do so they plundered not just the 1904 stage text but also unpublished mate- rial from the original manuscript as well as excerpts from the 1911 novel and the 1920 film script. The most significant of their many innovations was to give the lead to a male actor although in doing this they were simply respecting Barrie's original inten- tions. The effect on the story was im- mediately very interesting. John McAn- drew's Peter is a moody, forlorn and destructive character whose pathos is in- creased enormously by the sense that this is a little boy who refuses to grow up. The fantasy of Barrie's masterpiece contains a powerful note of personal anguish that has as much to do with the difficulty of achieving manhood as anything else, and now this element is made touchingly plain.
What is also clear is that Barrie knew the significance of his tale and saw no need to try to conceal it. The world rejected by Peter may indeed be that rather bleak and joyous place Barrie knew so well and which we glimpse at the end, peopled now by grown-up Lost Boys in suits who have no stories to tell to their children. But Peter is also rejecting the world of adult sexuality. For instance, when Wendy flies into Neverland in her nightshirt one of the Lost Boys is persuaded by Tinkerbell to shoot an arrow to bring down the 'Wendy Bird'. Upon discovering his mistake he cries: 'When I saw ladies in my dreams I called them pretty mother, but when one actually came to me I shot her.' The text is full of similarly pregnant observations. The Neverland to which Peter transports Wen- dy and her brothers is not just an adven- ture island peopled by Pirates, Redskins and Wild Beasts; it is a motherless world where even Captain Hook's men want Wendy to become their mother. Peter, of course, is fearful and angry at suggestions that anything conjugal may develop out of his friendship with either Wendy or Tiger Lilly and when the others fly back to Bloomsbury he refuses to go.
It is no use being too solemn about Barrie's pathology however; the work is essentially a brilliant piece of children's theatre and this year the production seemed more relaxed and confident of its appeal to its natural audience. There was more participation this time — more booing and hissing of Hook, more clapping and cheering of Peter, and of course much justified delight at the splendid and irres- istible flying. Even the narrator dons gog- gles and helmet and soars above the stage!
The set, by John Napier, is magical. We meet the Darling family in their Blooms- bury nursery where the essential introduc- tions are made; first there is the sinister appearance at the window of Peter Pan's face. Next there is the cowardly and tyrannical behaviour of Stephen Moore's Mr Darling who, anticipating his later role, clutches a shoe-horn in his hand in a very hook-like gesture. Then it is away to the revolving Neverland which reveals the underground den of the Lost Boys, the exotic flora of the Redskins' country up above, and, for the climax, the deck of the Jolly Roger. There is also a huge convin- cing crocodile, a couple of comical feath- ered beasts and a pack of wolves with burning red eyes.
Hook has a number of evil attempts to do Peter in. There is the rich damp cake with green icing which Hook hopes will cause the Lost Boys to die of indigestion. There is the poisoned medicine, and there is the attempt to have him drowned in the lagoon. This latter scene is one of the most stunning. The stage becomes a shimmering surface of blue silk, singing mermaids with huge fishy tails swim about trying to drag Wendy and Peter under, and there rising above the waves like a shark's fin is the famous shiny hook pursuing the Lost Boys across the water. The only disappointment is the news that this is the last year the Company will be staging Peter Pan. All the more reason, therefore, to see it before it closes on 19 January.
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