I have been thinking about Peter Pan. This was brought on by
the recent live special, which I was predisposed to like. I remember the Mary
Martin versions in black and white when I was very little and I was enchanted.
I knew she was on wires and I was certain Tinker Bell would not die but I loved
it anyway.
And I adored Cyril Ritchard and frankly still do. What a
delightful non-threatening villain. (By the way, I found a delightful blog post
that is written by a woman who has wonderful childhood memories of him and
their unique relationship. Click here for it – but then please come back to me:
So, where were we? Oh yes – why I was not thrilled with the
new Peter Pan. I thought what’s her name Williams was adequate, but barely. I
love Christopher Walken. He was almost good but he was too careful. It was as
if he was concerned he would slip and fall or throw his back into a spasm. The
children were limp and production was a mess. But it was the very lameness of this version that started me
to thinking about what is really wrong
with Peter Pan itself.
Most important, Peter Pan really should be played by a very
boyish young man. In the original story by J.M. Barrie (written for adults)
Peter is never fully described. He does mention that Peter still has his “first
teeth”, with a beautiful smile. He is “clad in skeleton leaves and juices that
flow from trees” – whatever that means. And he plays a flute like Pan. It is
only in the theater that Peter Pan is traditionally played by an adult woman,
which I think is weird.
It did make a great vehicle for Mary Martin who had a
peculiar type of talent and was prone to strut around the stage anyway.
But an adult woman with very short hair is not the same as a
beautiful boy. When you do that to Peter Pan, you mess up the sexual subtext
and undercurrent that, to me, is the whole point of the story - unless you are
trying to remind parents to keep the windows locked and get a fiercer dog. And
don’t go out for dinner.
To me, the story is about the pull between staying a child
and embracing sexual maturity. If you refuse to grow up – if you don’t want to go
to school, learn to be a parent and find it beneath your dignity to climb trees
– then your option is to run away to Never Never Land and live on the island of
Lost Boys.
Sadly, we have plenty of men in our culture today who have
done just that only now they just go to a sports bar or Hooters. Or Monster
Truck shows. But I digress.
The other sexual subtext is the issue of Captain Hook. He is camping around with Smee and the
pirates and is worried about being further eaten by a crocodile (!). He is
obsessed with the prepubescent Peter Pan and is paying far too much attention
to the Lost Boys.
Meanwhile, Peter Pan is falling in love with Wendy. This is where the wheels fall off when
Peter is being played by an adult woman. To keep the creepiness factor down,
they have to lean pretty hard on the idea that Peter is longing for a home like
Wendy’s and her two brothers with parents and a dog and all that is “normal”.
This longing is driven home when the first thing Wendy does for Peter is to
give him back his shadow – a shadow of his former self? – even stitching it on
so it will stay.
But if Peter were played by a male, it would all make much
more sense. Peter could be imagined as growing up. That’s impossible when Peter
is clearly an adult already and female at that. The shadow thing would make
much more sense. He would grow up “intact”, shadow and all. He would eventually
find his way home from Never Never Land.
Even when I was a kid and certainly would not have known how
to articulate my feelings about all of this sexual awakening business, I always
knew this was what Peter Pan was
about. And that’s why, as much as I loved Peter Pan and Mary Martin and the
Indians and the Lost Boys and the pirates and Smee and especially Captain Hook (because I loved Cyril Ritchard), I wanted
to see a Peter Pan played by a beautiful boy.
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