Theater on Both Sides - A Repeat Experience

It's amazing what one actor can do for a show.
My second English class took another trip into the city today, this time for Peter and the Starcatcher.  Some readers will know that I have already seen this show (my previous blog post is linked to;  I'm always surprised by how much of a pretentious ass I sound like when I re-read posts...) and they'll know that I loved it.  Or they just refreshed their memories.  Either way, Peter and the Starcatcher was awesome the first time around.  Not so the second time.  I mean it was good.  It was very good.  It was still quite funny.  But some of the humor is a little blunt.  The puns are somewhat obvious.  I hadn't realized that because Christian Borle played them so subtly.  He did not ham it up.  The new Black Stache is a much campier actor; so the show is still funny, but not in the same way.  It felt smarter the last time I saw it.
The staging is still remarkable.  Lighting and Sound America did an interesting piece on the show in their July 2012 issue which informed me on a number of interesting factors (I would link to it, but I can't find it).  The proscenium arch is decorated with what is essentially gold painted trash, which is an interesting touch.  Everything seems a little bit thrown together, like a bunch of people got together in a mostly empty space and decided to put on a play, and the proscenium adds to that.  It looks like part of the gilded interior of the theater, but it's made of hundreds of everyday objects.  Which is really cool.  I'm not sure what that means from a critical perspective, but it's cool.

Perhaps some of my nonplussed reaction to my second trip to the Brooks Atkinson theater stems from my new-found dislike of Peter Pan.  The reason this show was on the schedule for my class was that we read the original version of the book (not the play) recently.  And you know what?  Peter is an asshole.  This play references the original material in interesting ways, but I can't escape from understanding those references.  In the final monologue, they quote, round-about-ly, the last line of the book "so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless".  I understand that reference and it makes me angry.  Peter is a dick to everyone.  He forgets people and kills people and doesn't care.  This is held up as the ideal of the one child who never grew up.  Now, I think you need to grow up a little to be humane.

In any event, the production was very different.  Was it fun?  Yes.  Would I still recommend it?  Probably not...

Starstruck

I get lights in theater.  Even if I hadn't known that a specific effect existed, I can often figure out how they were done just from experience and reading.  That was not so for Peter and the Starcatcher.  I looked at that show and thought to myself: "I do not know how that was done."  It was awesome.  That ladies and gentlemen is what Tony Award winning lighting design looks like.  Speaking of technical Tonys (which get next to no love during the broadcast), Peter and the Starcatcher swept the "Design for a Play" awards.  Lighting design, costume design, scenic design, and sound design all went to this show.

Now I fully recognize that all that alone is not enough to put most people in seats.  It's enough for me to want to go see a show, but I recognize that that's not so for most people.  But what is enough is the fact that the entire production is amazing.  From the beginning prologue (it's very Henry V) to the final look (which to me becomes even more striking in memory), the play completely immerses the audience in this particular version of Victorian England.  It has basically two major sets - one for the ship The Neverland and one for the island on which they are shipwrecked - and the cast makes them come alive with perfectly in unison motion. If the ship moves, they tilt.  It's genuinely remarkable how they make the docks of Victorian London and the deck of The Neverland come alive simply by moving.  When they get to the island, lighting design takes over to distinguish between the different environments.  With a shift, the stage transforms from a sandy beach to a jungle to a mermaid grotto.  And the show is really freaking funny.  In discussions about the chest around which the plot of the show revolves, Molly (the only female actress) explains that Starstuff (the contents of the box) makes you who you want to be; if you're good it will make you better, but if you're evil and want to take over the world, if you're a person like "Genghis Khan, or Caesar, or Ayn Rand" (quote from the show) it would be devastating if you were to come into contact with the Starstuff.  In short, pretty much everything is that funny.

Go see this show.  If the tech Tonys weren't enough, Christian Borle (who plays Black Stache) won for Best Actor in a Featured Role in A Play.  So there's that...