Wendy and Peter Pan - Review of 2024 Stratford Festival Production

Every year the Stratford Festival produces a play for young people. It is a wise decision because it gives parents a chance to take the youngsters to the theatre and for the Stratford Festival to nurture the next generation of theatre lovers.
This year’s wise offering is J.M. Barrie’s Wendy and Peter Pan in one of its recent adaptations. The original play premiered on the stage as Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up in 1904 (yes, 120 years ago) and it has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times. The Stratford Festival is much younger than that but planning for longevity is great thinking.
We first meet the Darling family in London at the turn of the twentieth century, the three boys, John, Michael and Tom and their older sister Wendy. They are a rambunctious lot but the boys will not let her play with them. Tragedy strikes when Tom falls ill and dies. The family is inconsolable and Wendy keeps looking for her brother when a year later the windows of her bedroom fly open and Petr Pan and the fairy Tink a.k.a. Tinkerbell arrive. Peter is looking for his shadow.
They will take Wendy to Neverland which is not a suburb of London or Toronto but precisely where the name implies. The Lost Boys live there and could Tom be there too? Wendy’s family is magically taken to Neverland. We will witness life there and join the extensive and adventurous search for Tom and meet some extraordinary characters and events. There is Hook, the pirate captain whose left hand has been eaten by a huge crocodile. The latter is brilliantly created, by, I assume, Special Projects Automation Programmer Johnathon Tackett, ZFX, and we see it crossing the stage menacingly with its bright shining lights. The Lost Boys, a boisterous group of youngsters, will provide kinetic energy and entertain us.
Jake Runeckles as Peter Pan is so active and agile she looks as if she were made of rubber. Runeckles gives an amazingly athletic and effective performance. Wendy in the hands of Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks shows maternal instincts but at the same time adapter Elle Hickson makes her a recognizable modern woman. The reversal of names in the title is intended to emphasize that message. An impeccable performance by Jimenez-Hicks.
Laura Condlin as the nasty pirate Captain Hook is supposed to be scary and funny but with her sidekick Smee (Sara-Jeanne Hosie) hanging from her arm she comes along looking like someone from The Pirates of Penzance despite displaying a philosophical side. Fine work by both actors.
What does the production offer to the young, its target audience?
A great deal of first-rate entertainment. The play opens in the bedroom of the Darling children in London in 1908. The three boys, John (Noah Beemer) , Michael (Justin Eddy) and Tom (Chris Vergara) engage in a pillow fight and horsing around vigorously but want to exclude their sister Wendy because she is a girl. She will not stand for it. Things get more exciting when Peter Pan crashes through the window of the bedroom. There are swordfights, displays of athletic prowess, magic, and comically rambunctious activity. A pirate ship appears and the excitement stops when needed for more serious business.
The piece de resistance is no doubt flying. The actors are suspended up to the stage rafters and moved around in a display of the technical talent of the Stratford Festival’s team. Credit goes to Senior Flying Director and Automaton Programmer Andrea Gentry, ZFX. The Program explains that the flying is coordinated by professionals who do it as part of their everyday job. No need for anyone to be frightened by one of the highlights of the production.
What do the adults who accompany the youngsters get?
Adapter Ella Hickson gives Barrie’s play a welcome feminist twist. The comedy is entertaining for all, but having Wendy as an intelligent, assertive woman who is approaching maturity is a fine touch. Peter Pan may be the classic boy who does not want to grow up but may have chinks in his amour over and above what he may think he can control.
The play takes place in England and the actors try to speak in some kind of English accent. Their success is minimal and the attempt at an accent that they have difficulty with is unnecessary. They would sound just fine with an Ontario accent.
Director Thomas Morgan Jones had a mammoth production on his hands with flying directors, a choreographer (Jena Wolfe), Set and Costume Designer (Robin Fisher), a Fight and Intimacy Director (Anita Nittoly), a Fight Captain (David Ball), a Flight Captain (Agnes Tong) and a regiment of behind-the-scenes workers and helpers. They all deserve individual kudos with the victor’s wreath going to Jones.
Wendy and Peter, adapted by Ella Hickson from the novel by J.M. Barrie continues in repertory until October 7, 2024, as part of the Schulich Children’s Plays, at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

Members of the company in Wendy and Peter Pan. Photo: David Hou.

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