Dec 10, 2014

ALMOSTLAND: Peter Pan Live on NBC.


On Thursday (12/4/14) night, NBC attempted to recapture the thrill of watching Peter Pan on live television – and almost succeeded. If the acting, directing and flying were better, they might have added something to the Peter Pan canon. Instead, they gave ammunition to their critics.

Allison Williams has the appropriate androgenous look and youthful appeal to play the boy who never grew up. I’m sure, she can sing, too. It was probably the pressure of live television that caused her to run out of breath and carefully avoid high notes. No such problems with Kelli O’Hara as Mrs. Darling. I’d say she’s the platonic ideal of a Victorian mother except my feelings are more than platonic. The role of Mr. Darling should only be played by the same actor as Captain Hook. No other casting is acceptable. Thus, it would be unfair to criticize the performance of Christian Borle, but we might question his judgment. That leaves Christopher Walken as Captain Hook.

So good in so many things, Mr. Walken is so bad in so many ways that it’s a mystery. What, for instance, was he looking at that was just off-camera and below eye level? Was it a teleprompter? That would explain the, at best, distracted nature of his performance. At best, however, that should only happen once or occasionally. Christopher Walken almost never looked at the camera or the other actors. Even his famously deadpan style and eccentric speech patterns can’t explain the completely disengaged nature of his entire performance. 

Rob Ashford’s work as director is harder to judge. He can’t be credited with imposing a unique vision or style upon either the 1904 original or 1954 musical version of Peter Pan. Nor do we know which bad decisions (casting, for instance) to blame him for and which were foisted upon him. As captain of the production, however, Mr. Ashford is responsible for everything and must go down with the pirate ship.

As for flying, I didn’t see any. Neither in fantasy nor reality do people fly with their legs dangling. Look at Superman. Even planes pull up their landing gear. I saw a lot of hanging and swinging in this production, but nothing that looked like flying. Booo.

Live TV production of famous plays is still a good idea. So is quality family entertainment and television viewing as an event. Ironically, the success of last year’s The Sound of Music (also produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan) set both a precedent and raised the bar very high. Their next production - I hope there is one - will have to clear it. Almost isn’t enough.

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