I saw this delightful production Off-Broadway last year; playing off the particular style of the British musical hall and pantomime of earlier times I found it great fun indeed. Since much of its charm was due to its smallness and intimacy I did wonder how it would manage in a larger Broadway venue, but evidently it did so just fine. While some reviewers are not fans of the campy nature of the enterprise others feel as I do, appreciating its frothy fun.
From New York Magazine:
Peter and the Starcatcher is a tiny show, but spectacle, wit, and joy spill out of it like treasure from a magic pocket. A cast of twelve, a couple of trunks, and a versatile length of rope yield more storytelling than most oversized spectaculars can manage. There’s a naval battle, an island full of savages, and a mermaid chorus, all packed onto a stage that feels no bigger than a conch shell. It’s a measure of the production’s low-tech delights that when Molly, the cast’s sole female, ingests a dose of “starstuff,” crosses her legs and levitates, Jeannie-style, it looks like a miraculous effect, even though we can clearly see the plank, the pivot, and the hand on the seesaw’s other end.
From the New York Times:
And yes, the humor is sub-adolescent, with the sort of groaning puns and flatulence jokes that schoolboys have always found irresistible. But there’s infectious art in how these cast members convey the primal joy we take in such idiocy. And throughout this production they’re sounding chords within us that we don’t even know are there: our hunger for certain kinds of fables and types of heroes and villains, and our wonder that a flying orphan invented more than a century ago continues to loom so large in our imaginations.
And here’s a brief video to give you another taste. (One of the main attractions is Christian Borle who you can now also see in the television show Smash.)
educating alice 