‘Peter Pan’ Rekindles Its Old Magic
The classic musical is a restaging of the original 1954 production with an updated script.
“Peter Pan,” the enduring Broadway musical classic about a young boy who never wants to grow up, returned to the Fox Theatre last month. The production is largely based on the 1954 smash hit that burnished the already legendary reputation of Mary Martin as the young boy who escapes to Neverland.
In a break with tradition, the title role in the Atlanta production is not played by a slender young woman but by a 17-year-old young man, Nolan Almeida.
The script, which was originally based on the J.M. Barrie play of the same name has been updated by the American Indian playwright, Larissa Fasthorse, to make the references to the indigenous people of Neverland and to some of the female characters more acceptable to modern sensibilities.
There’s even a program note in the Encore publication handed out to Atlanta theatergoers before the performance that acknowledges they are attending a theater that was built on land originally occupied by the Muskogee tribe.
There’s no special mention of the other tribe that the long success of this show celebrates. They form a long list of legendary Jewish creative Broadway innovators beginning with the brilliant stage genius, and original director, Jerome Robbins, born Jerome Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital on New York’s Lower East Side. The director of the Fox production is Lonny Price, a Broadway veteran with a long list of credits, who is also a member of the Tribe.
In the company that has been touring with the show for almost the last year-and-a-half is Kurt Perry, whose material grandfather escaped the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and came to America in what must have seemed like a miraculous escape for him at the time. Perhaps it was so traumatic an escape from the threat of murderous reality that Perry said his grandfather remained silent about it during his lifetime. In fact, it was not until Perry was 21 that he pieced together how his grandfather had come to settle in the family home in Portland, Maine.
The discovery of his Jewish roots changed Perry’s life and led him to a return to Judaism, and a dedication to its teachings.
The origins of “Peter Pan,” with its magical escape from reality at the turn of the last century, must have also resonated with Jews who read Barrie’s story and saw his play.
In the early years of the 20th century, Jews dreamed of escape from a world that seemed set against them. The Zionist ideal of Theodore Herzl that caught fire at all levels of Jewish life then was, in part, a reaction against the antisemitism and injustice of the Alfred Dreyfus trial and his conviction in France. He was exonerated two years after “Peter Pan” first appeared on the stage.
An exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem a half-dozen years ago about “Peter Pan’s” origins delved into the meaning and intriguing story of this most beloved drama as a social and cultural phenomenon.
It took 50 years for the play to make its way from Edwardian Scotland to its most famous production in America. When it did, it was with music by Morris Isaac “Moose” Chalap, a Philadelphia Jew, and lyrics by the Bronx-born Carolyn Leigh, who was also Jewish.
During tryouts on the West Coast, it was felt that the show needed more music, so Jule Styne, born Julius Kerwin Stein, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, was brought in as was Berry Comden, born Basya Cohen in Brooklyn, and Adolph Green, whose parents were Hungarian Jews.
The iconic songs they all created, “I’m Flying,” “I’ve Gotta Crow,” “I Won’t Grow Up,” “Never Never Land,” and “Wendy” still envelop the audience with their warmth and magic, as they did at the performance this writer attended at The Fox.
The show, with its fantasy of escape and eternal youth, captured much of the childlike sense of wonder and adventure of the show, particularly for the many middle schoolers and their parents that filled the audience.
It has been more than 70 years since the original 1954 Broadway performance first made its way to television. It was an early color telecast on NBC that attracted a record-breaking audience. The stars of the show, Cyril Ritchard, who played Captain Hook, and Mary Martin as Peter Pan, each won awards for their performances. Martin called it her favorite role.
It was rebroadcast four more times on network television over the next 25 years. Today, you can find it on YouTube, where it enchants a new generation of fans, just as it did here in Atlanta at The Fox.
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