Peter Panto: A Musical Panto
People’s Light Theatre
39 Conestoga Rd.
Malvern, PA
Jan. 5, 2024
“Turn off your noisemakers,” Tinkerbell tittered over the loudspeaker. Smile at each other, she told the audience, and “smile at the show’s corporate sponsor: Novocure.”
Huh? I had just arrived at People’s Light Theatre for their 50th anniversary celebratory staging of Peter Pan, which had been marketed as a reimagined “Peter Panto.” Peter Pan is a story about both the limitlessness of youthful imagination and the melancholic necessity of shedding our fantasies as we age into adulthood. The theater’s well-intentioned panto adaptation, however, reduced that message to a sugar rush of references and instant gratification.
Panto is short for pantomime. It's a musical comedy format developed in the UK that usually includes drag performers and audience participation. The pantomime translation sounded good enough — in theory — to make me drive from Philly all the way to Malvern to watch a two-hour family-friendly show. But I knew something was wrong when I took my seat only to see a cardboard iPhone the size of a person occupying the stage, introducing the play with a glittering, green display reading “Peter Panto.” The curtains had yet to lift, and already my anticipatory childhood glee had taken a grinchy turn.
The ironic part is that my heart had actually started to shrink even before entering the theater. I got the whole gist starting at the concessions stand.
Inside the lobby was yet another sign branding the panto "a vibrant mischievous magical experience that welcomes all with open arms (and plenty of candy).” I eavesdropped while a man waiting in line to buy a brownie asked the person behind the counter for their assessment of the show: “It’s lively. You’ll be singing along by the end,” they reviewed.
In panto, audience members are usually encouraged to participate in the production: Boo the villain, cheer for the hero. It can be fun — or it can get out of hand without proper guidance.
The Tinkerbell persona that kicked off the pre-show corporate sponsor greeting spurred the first example of this when she instructed patrons to go buy the four-dollar brownie on display at the concessions stand, prompting a tween to shout out a correction: “Six dollars! The brownies are six dollars!”
Then an even younger child shouted out, “Inflation!” It was a quip aimed at the adults in the room, all of whom laughed knowingly and raucously as though it was their own joke. The cast could not contain the chaotic energy that had consumed the crowd; they’d been whipped into a frenzy.
There was no telling where the actors ended and the audience began. By the show’s conclusion, certain interjections were interrupting what was meant to be sincere and earnest dialogue. Adults and children alike could not stop themselves from booing Hook in the middle of his redemption arc. The unrestrained panto approach flattened the story’s depth of field and through distracting asides. The audience was of the attitude that since they had paid for their experience, they did not need to be invited into the action — it was theirs for the taking.
But back to the brownies.
Tinkerbell’s near-death experience is likely the Peter Pan plot point that most people are familiar with: She needs us, the audience, to believe in her magic in order for her to be brought back to life. The stakes of this belief are lowered in this retelling, when Tinkerbell’s death is staged as a joke made up of famous final lines. Right before she collapsed onto the ground, Tinkerbell belted out Cynthia Erivo’s signature high notes from the Wicked movie’s "Defying Gravity" cover — and then in one breath sang: “And the brownies really are four dollars not six I checked inflation is very real but at People’s Light you get a good value for your dollar.”
Fin.
To their credit, I found Tinkerbell’s dying statement to be true… the overall production value of this show was high. The actors were talented vocalists. There was a live band. The set’s transformations were vibrant and complex.
The people in the audience seemed over the moon with their purchase — I heard many remarking to their families how much fun they were having. I tried to push away the feeling that I was buying into the modern exploitation of children’s entertainment. But perhaps this was my fault for choosing to see one of the limited number of shows staged in the first week of January, which everyone knows is controlled by Christmas mania.
I stepped outside at intermission, exhausted and unprepared for the second hour of this unrelenting upper. It was snowing outside, and so frigid. I needed a smoke break — but I don’t smoke. Instead I stood in the cold night and puffed on my own opaque breath, entertaining myself in just the same way I had done when I was a kid.
Peter Panto's final performance was on Jan. 5. Check out other shows happening at People's Light Theatre here.
