PETER PAN, REDUX

Hi--back as promised.  But, oh my.  Oh dear.  Well--darn it all.  Maybe the situation with "Peter Pan" at seventy is, it just isn't the same as "Peter Pan" at nine, or ten, or twenty-seven.  Maybe, at seventy, there are too many other Peter Pans still flying around in our brains.  And, maybe, the little yellow records I mentioned the other day really were as good as it got, and I shouldn't have trashed them, or given them away, or lost them, or whatever I did that caused their disappearance.  But, I can tell you right now that if I did have them back, I would only look at those little records and not ever play them.  Some things are better left where they are.

That being said. I still want to affirm that I heartily support NBC presenting live theatre.  "The Sound of Music," last year, and "Peter Pan," on Thursday evening were great ideas, and I hope they keep right on doing it. Quality programming does raise television to a higher plane, and we need a lot more of that.

Years ago, one of the television networks introduced me to Edgar Allan Poe when I watched "The Cask of Amontillado," and nearly wet my pants.  I recovered, and shortly afterward embarked on a reading frenzy of Poe's short stories.

On another summer afternoon, I saw "No Exit" by Jean Paul Sartre.  I was probably in high-school then.  The presentation was in black and white and  dramatized the theory that Hell might not really be all fire and brimstone.  Hell just might be three people who can't stand each other, locked in a small room with no hope of escape for all eternity. Think about that.  When I finally began to understand what I was watching, I was really relieved that fire wasn't involved; but, by the end of the hour, I had to consider fire might have been a blessing.  That play stayed in the front of my brain for fifty years, and only recently did I learn it had come from Sartre.  

So--what happened with Peter Pan that left me disappointed?  Primarily, Peter Pan and Captain Hook.  Allison Williams is darling and has a great voice, but I kept waiting for Peter to show up.  Her performance was careful, right on point and right on cue but, for me, Peter was missing.  I never felt his spirit or his spark.  Sadly, Peter never  flew, he was simply flown.

Christopher Walken, I thought, looked as if he were in a daze, bored, and perhaps a bit confused by all that was going on around him.  Actually, when I'd watched him in a portion of the preview the week before, I assumed he simply was still perfecting his take on the Captain and would come to life for the actual telecast.  I was wrong.

Now for the big confession.  I quit watching at 9:15 p.m.  I missed the last 45 minutes and I know a lot went on. NBC reassured me on Friday night's newscast that children across the country clapped their hands loud and long, and Tinker Bell did survive. For that I'm grateful and more than a little guilty I wasn't there to help.  I would hate to think of a world without her.