For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday
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Cititour.com Review
Even without reading the author’s note in the program, it becomes quickly apparent that Sarah Ruhl’s “FOR PETER PAN on her 70th birthday,” now at Playwrights Horizons, is a highly personal play. And indeed, when this story of five siblings -- who have come together on the eve on their father’s passing -- sticks to its interpersonal dynamics, it is at its most believable and engaging.
But sadly, not even a first-rate troupe of players, led by the always magnificent Kathleen Chalfant as the oldest sibling, Ann (based on Ruhl’s mother), can get this muddled play off the ground. At 90 minutes, the play feels simultaneously overstuffed and overlong, helped none by Les Waters’ often sluggish direction. Perhaps it might have been best if Ruhl had let this piece stay strictly as a family gift.
As is often the case with Ruhl’s work, the show’s blatantly political and philosophical interludes keep intruding on the more personal proceedings. And while there can be no arguing that the work’s big question, “when do you know you’ve grown up?” is an intelligent one, it feels a bit forced when bandied about earnestly around the dinner table – especially during what is actually a private wake. (In fairness, I’ve never drank as much Jameson’s as these characters have!)
Worse still, the final reenactment of a scene from “Peter Pan” (rather an inevitability, given the subject matter) -- which has been rejiggered to answer that same question -- borders on the ridiculous. While it’s meant to show a more fragile side of Ann, this brilliant woman (a professor with a Ph.D in rhetoric) comes off as a bit silly.
True, throughout the play, Ann is an odd contradiction: an intellectual with both a fear of death and a fear of flying in planes, even though her greatest memory is of her years playing Peter Pan in a local Iowa production as a child. As usual, though, Chalfant can make us laugh with a quick remark or bring us to tears with her honesty, and the production benefits from her casting.
She’s well complemented by the ever-wondrous Lisa Emery as the youngest sibling, Wendy, a tender, somewhat fragile woman frustrated by both her brothers’ political squabbling (the women are liberals and the men are conservatives) and her family’s abandonment of religion. (Yet, another theme in a play that has too many of them!)
The men’s roles, however, are all a bit underwritten and two-dimensional. Still, David Chandler is quite believable as Jim, a surgeon with a somewhat jaded outlook on life; Keith Reddin is appealing as Michael, a fellow doctor; and Daniel Jenkins is spot-on as John, a straight-talking college professor.
Most of all, I wish Macy, the adorable canine who plays the family dog, would have had more stage time – if nothing else, to distract me from what too often feels like a dog of a play.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/peter-pan-her-70th-birthday
Cast
Kathleen Chalfant, David Chandler, Ron Crawford, Lisa Emery, Daniel Jenkins, Keith Reddin
Open/Close Dates
Opening 8/18/2017
Closing 10/1/2017
Box Office
212-279-4200
Theatre Info
Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
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