The Mary Martin version of this play was a staple of my childhood. I watched it time and time again, idolizing Peter Pan, harboring a crush on Wendy, and singing along to every song. Even as an adult now, I can appreciate the fun themes of this story, along with the obvious nostalgia factor When NBC announced that Peter Pan Live would be following in the tradition of last year's Sound Of Music, I was overjoyed! Unfortunately, that joy lasted all of about 15-20 minutes. Instead of making me hearken back to my time of youth (like any Pan production worth its salt should do), "Live" actually served to disconnect me from the story and characters.
The main, obvious, glaring problem with this production is that the casting is utterly terrible. I mean, some of the worst casting I've ever seen. The only one even passable was Wendy (Taylor Louderman), and she was just "okay". Allison Williams (as Pan) can't hold a candle to classic performers such as Mary Martin or Cathy Rigby. The energy just isn't there. There is also no innocence in the interactions between pirates/lost boys/indians/mermaids in Neverland, as they are all played by older actors that (once again) struggle to match the energy of previous productions I've seen.
Then, there is the train wreck that is Christopher Walken as Captain Hook. Whoever made that choice should probably be packing his/her bags right now, as it was the final (and largest) nail in the coffin. Walken is a great deadpan actor...which makes him completely wrong for the part. Hook needs to have a swashbuckling air about him, full of pent-up energy and frivolous anger. Instead, Walken does his traditional deadpan (maybe that's all he knows how to do, though, so again it probably just comes down to casting) and never alters his facial expressions once. During his times on the screen, I found myself reaching for something else to do...it was that bad.
Let me be clear on one quick thing too: I'm not rating this performance down because it didn't live up to my childhood nostalgia (though it would indeed be easy to fall into that trap). I love the Peter Pan story in all its formats, and can appreciate the different ways the story has been told. I loved Mary Martin, saw Cathy Rigby live, consider Hook to be one of my favorite movies along with Finding Neverland, and even just recently read (and thoroughly enjoyed!) the book Alias Hook. So, I'm definitely not just locked into one version/interpretation of the Pan mythology. This one just really was that disappointing.
As the title indicates, this is one of the saddest reviews I've ever written here on Amazon. I so wanted to enjoy this live production and was looking forward to it for quite some time, and it just severely let me down with the terrible casting and lack of overall energy. I can't bear to just give any Pan effort a single star, so I will give it two (but mainly because Williams and Louderman deftly execute their songs together). I sincerely hope that there are not kids out there turned off by the Pan story because of this lackadaisical effort, as that would be the real shame in all of this.
The main, obvious, glaring problem with this production is that the casting is utterly terrible. I mean, some of the worst casting I've ever seen. The only one even passable was Wendy (Taylor Louderman), and she was just "okay". Allison Williams (as Pan) can't hold a candle to classic performers such as Mary Martin or Cathy Rigby. The energy just isn't there. There is also no innocence in the interactions between pirates/lost boys/indians/mermaids in Neverland, as they are all played by older actors that (once again) struggle to match the energy of previous productions I've seen.
Then, there is the train wreck that is Christopher Walken as Captain Hook. Whoever made that choice should probably be packing his/her bags right now, as it was the final (and largest) nail in the coffin. Walken is a great deadpan actor...which makes him completely wrong for the part. Hook needs to have a swashbuckling air about him, full of pent-up energy and frivolous anger. Instead, Walken does his traditional deadpan (maybe that's all he knows how to do, though, so again it probably just comes down to casting) and never alters his facial expressions once. During his times on the screen, I found myself reaching for something else to do...it was that bad.
Let me be clear on one quick thing too: I'm not rating this performance down because it didn't live up to my childhood nostalgia (though it would indeed be easy to fall into that trap). I love the Peter Pan story in all its formats, and can appreciate the different ways the story has been told. I loved Mary Martin, saw Cathy Rigby live, consider Hook to be one of my favorite movies along with Finding Neverland, and even just recently read (and thoroughly enjoyed!) the book Alias Hook. So, I'm definitely not just locked into one version/interpretation of the Pan mythology. This one just really was that disappointing.
As the title indicates, this is one of the saddest reviews I've ever written here on Amazon. I so wanted to enjoy this live production and was looking forward to it for quite some time, and it just severely let me down with the terrible casting and lack of overall energy. I can't bear to just give any Pan effort a single star, so I will give it two (but mainly because Williams and Louderman deftly execute their songs together). I sincerely hope that there are not kids out there turned off by the Pan story because of this lackadaisical effort, as that would be the real shame in all of this.