I really wanted to like this. I thought that "The Sound of Music" was better than many said it was. This, however, doesn't work at all. Allison Williams is decent in the title role and there are a couple of troopers who make it work, but how Christopher Walken was chosen to play Captain Hook stretches the limits of credulity. He is terrible. He can't dance. He is a nervous wreck. And he can barely sing. Think of all the possibilities. For goodness sake, the put an embarrassed Christian Borle in the role of Smee. It must have killed him to do his usual classy job next to the stiff Walken (by the way I love Christopher Walken). It just never got off the ground. It begins with some decent stuff, but dies on the vine. There is no clean movement through the plot. It is jerky and endless. I wonder if this is the death knell for these productions. If the only reason to do this is the novelty, it may be time to stop. How about some high quality stage productions of some of the classic musicals, only recorded ahead of time.
Review of Peter Pan Live!
