Peter Pan
Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
Hartford
Feb. 4, 2025
Peter Pan is one of my all-time favorite stories across pretty much every adaptation I’ve seen. The Broadway musical playing at the Bushnell this week ranks as one of the best adaptations, and breathes new life into the timeless story.
The play keeps the action brisk by throwing together all of Peter Pan’s greatest foes and frenemies in a breathless two-act play. Across the course of the evening, the audience is introduced to Wendy and the other Darling children, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily, the crocodile, and of course the infamous Captain James Hook and his faithful attendant Smee, not to mention a handful of Natives and pirates to boot.
The performances are all top notch, with Nolan Almeida’s Peter Pan leading the way for the audience to feel like children again.
Captain James Hook is one of the most fascinating characters in fiction, and Cody Garcia is more than up to the task of playing the swashbuckling villain. Garcia and the script lean heavily into the more campy aspects of Captain Hook, but I still enjoyed the performance. Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook was always a little terrifying to me, because how could a grown man have so much hate in his heart that he wanted to murder a group of children? But Garcia’s Hook is conniving, bungling and petty enough that I can see how such a man would want to destroy Pan without the scary elements.
The true scene stealer of the performance was Tiger Lily, played with exuberant defiance by Bailey Frankenberg. There are as many different versions of Tiger Lily as there are adaptations of Pan’s story. In this play she’s the leader of her tribe of Natives who inhabit one half of the island. Lily is frustrated by Pan’s demand that she refer to him as “Captain,” which leads to low-grade guerilla warfare between her tribe and the Lost Boys, which never rises above them stealing from each other.
Frankenberg simultaneously embodies the pride and wisdom of an eternal child. She delights in poking fun at Pan every chance she gets, yet is wise enough to engage with Wendy as an equal, despite the fact that she falls into her nemesis’ camp.
Peter Pan has some wonderful special effects. I was wondering how they would transport the cast from the Darling bedroom to Neverland; a magical scene that simulates the children flying through the skies of London felt like I had been transported myself to Neverland. The staging of Neverland, as a familiar yet exotic jungle, grounded the play in a nice way: of course a place like this would be home to pirates and never ending childhood. Tinkerbell is also handled in a humorous but inspired way, as a small light that flits around the stage and manages to have a personality as large as the human beings she pals around with.
The play pretty closely follows the traditional stories of Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys, but there are enough neat little twists and turns that I don’t want to give them away. The core tension remains, the sweet innocence of youth versus the encroaching shadow of adulthood. I’ve always enjoyed how, while the characters make their choices about which path they will take, the tension is never resolved. The Darling children eventually choose to grow up; Peter and the Lost Boys choose to stay as children. There’s little moralizing about it. That allows the audience to simply enjoy the feeling of being a kid again, without the guilt of being admonished to grow up again.
I haven’t even mentioned the music yet. Peter Pan is full of wonderful songs that still manage to advance the plot and characterizations of the play, while being catchy showpieces for the talented cast. It’s hard to discuss the songs without giving away some key plot elements so I won’t, but suffice to say the audience was delighted by every song.
Peter Pan is a magnificent musical, and has rekindled my love for the J. M. Barnes classic. It’s in Hartford for a limited run, so be sure to get out and see it.
NEXT
Peter Pan continues at the Bushnell through Feb. 9.
Jamil goes to Real Art Ways for the first time in 2025.
