For just plain endless belly laughs, give yourself a treat and take in Peter Pan Goes Wrong from a theater company just called Mischief at the Ethel Barrymore. This follow-up to Mischief’s The Play That Goes Wrong which had a long run on Broadway from 2017 to 2019 and is still playing Off-Broadway at New World Stages, follows the same basic template. An incompetent amateur troupe of British loonies mounts a familiar classic (in this case J.M. Barrie’s fantasy of the boy who wouldn’t grow up), and everything that can go wrong, does. Cues are missed, props are misplaced, the scenery falls apart, lines are forgotten, actors sustain multiple injuries. It’s Noises Off with flying, pirate ships and just enough audience participation to be engaging and fun, but not so much to become annoying.
You would think the bits and jokes would become repetitive, but it somehow all works. That’s because the characters all have been given believable motives to either make the play work or to find love with fellow cast members. Playwrights Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields joyfully double as players. Lewis is a riot in a variety of roles including Peter’s shadow not quite fitting into a black leotard and Nana the dog who gets stuck in a door for much of the first hilarious scene.
Sayer is equally goofy as a performer who cannot remember his lines and must repeat whatever he hears through headphones with disastrous results. Shields makes for a marvelously frustrated Captain Hook, especially as he interacts with booing kiddies in the audience.
Matthew Cavendish is endearing as a performer who can’t act but who puts his heart forward because of his crush on Wendy (wonderful Charlie Russell) and eventually triumphs.
Nancy Zamit has fun with quick changes as she switches from Mrs. Darling to the maid Lisa in a matter of seconds (Roberto Surface designed the crazy costumes). Greg Tannahill crashes into scenery as Peter and causes mayhem by flirting with all the ladies in the cast. Ellie Morris draws laughs as an accident-prone Lost Boy, eventually winding up in a wheelchair.
Chris Leask is blusteringly blunt as the crude stage manager with a beer bottle constantly in hand or stuck in a back pocket. Plus we get the added bonus of a gleefully fumbling Neil Patrick Harris in the narrator role. Simon Scullion designed the ingenious revolving set which transforms into a deathtrap for the actors and director Adam Meggido perfectly paces the pratfalls for maximum jollity.
