Time: 1895. Place: Hull of a Ship on the High Seas of Neverland. Hero: Boy, held captive with lonely orphan boys yearning for a home. Heroine: Molly Astor, captain’s daughter and fearless starcatcher-in-training. Villain: Black Stache, pirate aspirant to run the ship and find treasure. Entire Cast: Actors as over 100 characters, including musicians, who’ll show and tell an imaginative story to stimulate audience imagination and entertain. How did Peter Pan get his name? How did he attain permanent boyhood? What was the origin of Tinkerbell? How did Hook lose a limb? How could a Victorian secret mission for the Queen entail a search for treasure? Story theater here pursues the answers and gets them while having fun with plot and characters as well as satirizing them. The audience must join in by imaginatively absorbing quirky turns of places and characters’ looks, and even transformation of random props into real things (like ships, talking crocodiles, windows, birds) and vice-versa (such as the captain being imprisoned in a picture frame). Often as if in a vaudeville show, there are staged acts--like outrageously funny beached mermaids telling their story. With musical accompaniment, situations are like Gilbert and Sullivan’s gone awry. Pantomime in the British tradition brings to star status the villain Captain Blache, complete with huge mustache. The wily pirate’s dialogue may be loaded with malapropisms, but he’s right on the money (in more than one way) searching for treasure. (Ian Merrill Peakes, besides being agile, looks like the young, not blond Peter O’Toole who seemed to pick up followers easily.) If there had to be only one real woman, it’s great that she’s played by Michaela Schuchman. She may be young and relatively small in size. but she’s also athletic and a good example of being aided by “starstuff” that can conquer nature. Brandon O’Rourke abandons Boy’s almost petulant behavior to become a fine Peter. He’s set as a natural leader for all of his always youthful life. “Feminine” David Jadico improves his partner’s taste in the ship’s mess and is a hoot as second banana in their musical duets. Aaron Cromie as Smee supplies frequent fine commentaries on the outlandish goings-on. It’s not unusual for an actor to take three roles and compete with himself in deserving honors for them all. Director Bill Van Horn has brought an abundance of disparate elements together in outstanding fashion on a not-to-be-forgotten sprawling set. He’s been extremely imaginative in stirring audience imaginations and having them blast off by everyone one his amazing tech staff and in his company.
