Theater review: "Peter Pan" flies socially aware into the present in new tour

For a show about NOT growing up, the new visually resplendent tour of the Broadway musical version of "Peter Pan" seems intent on doing just the opposite. To be sure, there is a lot to Sir J.M. Barrie's 1904 Edwardian fairytale that flies smack dab against 21st-century mores of Native American cultural sensitivity and open gender opportunities for women, but these problems seem better addressed with a few small tweaks in earlier revivals of the 1954 Broadway musical originally starring Mary Martin. This new tour moves Wendy and her family from Edwardian England to (ostensibly) 2025 United States, where our pubescent Neverland-bound heroine extends her yearning for motherhood to an aspiring medical career. This is but one of many updated conceits by playwright Larissa Fasthorse, with actual Native American pedigree, who adapted the musical and original Barrie play. But does a musical and play that first used a female in the titular boyhood role need to worry about modern trends for pansexual casting? Does a show that puts a female Native American (strident Bailey Frankenberg as Tiger Lily), forging a platonic friendship with said adventurous boy to fight pirates, need a she-warrior makeover? Not necessarily, although this new touring production, directed with effusive showmanship by Lonny Price, mostly makes a case for being culturally woke as long as it remains entertainingly awake at the same time. The newfound medical-career aspirations of Wendy, intuitively portrayed by Aubrie-Mei Rubel, is presented as a natural extension of her yearning to care for others, so her opportunity to play mother for a tribe of lost boys in Neverland is more than just fulfilling maternal instinct. Likewise, a cultural re-realization of the Neverland natives helps avoid the stereotypical "Indians" of the Barrie's concept without completely betraying the childhood fantasy of drum-beating, tomahawk-wielding heathens eternally embattled with "palefaces." But therein lies part of the problem of sacrificing some of the innocent charm of the original play and musical. Granted, by the time the original characters in the original production gather in the second act for a rousing production number called "Ugg-a-Wugg, it became clear that these musical comedy native Americans of the original Broadway production could easily have been from the lost tribe of Chief Wahoo. No "Ugg-a-Wugg-ing" in this touring incarnation, however. The indigenous denizens of contemporary "Peter Pan" sport what seems to be a vaguely Aztec-Polynesian tribal couture appealingly but ponderously designed by Sarafina Bush. The second-act powwow production number moves to the end of the first act (in a two-act show trimmed down from an original three-act musical and play) and has been bizarrely replaced with an interpolated inappropriately sophisticated number, "Comes Once in a Lifetime," borrowed from a rather obscure Broadway 1961 show "Subways are for Sleeping." Interestingly, Amanda Green, daughter of one of the original lyricists Adoph Green (along with Betty Comden), wrote entirely new lyrics for this 1960s pop standard and renamed it "Friends Forever." Lorin Latarro's tribal-ish choreography seems ill-fitting for the hardcore Broadway style of Jule Styne's music (who shared composing duties with Morris "Moose" Charlap). What could still have been a delightfully Broadway-jazzy show-stopping number becomes at odds with itself. A better route might have been keeping the music of the original number but inserting some authentic tribal language, as was reportedly done with the most recent live television version. Considering the goings-on are all under the homicidal threats of a hapless and incompetent pirate king, namely Captain Hook (brilliantly sung, danced and acted by Cody Garcia, doubling as the workaholic father), matters of cultural impropriety may not be so compelling. What remains compelling for this version of the show, which launched a (possibly pre-Broadway) tour more than a year ago, are first-class production values -- from Anna Louizos' hauntingly exotic island sets that move with the same magic of the flying cast members soaring from the city to "the second star to the right and straight on till morning," to the flight direction of Rick Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet and animated projection designs by David Bengali, to the full-sounding orchestra by music director Jonathan Marro, jubilantly conducted by John Mezzio. Also compelling are the magical performances. -- from Zaynn Arora as the adorable youngest brother of Wendy, to Kurt Perry as the mincing groveling sidekick to Captain Hook and, of course, Kruz Maldonado as the title character, an oversized singer, dancer and actor in a near-elfin package. In the end, de rigueur sanguine swashbuckling and silliness, framed in Broadway-calibre production values rare for an allegedly second-level national tour, are more than enough to joyously fly along with the newfound political correctness of this show -- just as earlier productions of "Peter Pan" have joyously stayed aloft as a soaring success over the old-fashioned incorrectness. Contact Howard Gollop at howieeg@gmail.com.