Peter Pan Live! (2014; NBC TV Special)
I'm going to put it right out there: As a connoisseur of the Philip J.M. Barrie tale, I was thrilled by the new production. Allison Williams was an elegant and polished prep school version of the title character, but, there's nothing in Peter's backstory to suggest that he couldn't be from an upper middle-class British background. In fact, he probably was. It's only the living memory that some of us have - now available to subsequent generations on dvd - of Mary Martin's West Texas twang that would have even suggested otherwise.
There are a lot of other differences between the performance last night and the ones that Martin starred in the mid-fifties and finally committed to video tape in 1960: at least two songs were added and one subtracted from the original score. But, none compared to the entire concept of broadcasting live from a sound stage on Long Island, a gimmick first introduced in last year's broadcast of "Sound of Music", starring Kelly Clarkson Carrie Underwood as Maria von Trapp. The vast movie production loft permits each set to be interconnected by a series of road maps, permitting the actors to walk, run or in this case - fly - from one scene change to the other, thus eliminating the proscenium arch altogether. The actors don't enter and exit so much as the audience does, via discreet use of a hand held mini-cam.
Christopher Walken was a delight in the pivotal role of Captain Hook. He looked the way I sometimes feel as a bitter older man who refuses to grow up. The casting took some risks because Walken's penchant for deadpan menace, I thought, might have been too much for little children. But, he's a consummate performer and the camera adores him, penciled eyebrows and all. Children of all ages will find him both scary and funny. The only disappointment here was that i would like to have seen him also play Mr. Darling, the children Wendy, John and Michael's, father. But, perhaps the producers thought it was too much for the 71 year-old actor.
There are a lot of other differences between the performance last night and the ones that Martin starred in the mid-fifties and finally committed to video tape in 1960: at least two songs were added and one subtracted from the original score. But, none compared to the entire concept of broadcasting live from a sound stage on Long Island, a gimmick first introduced in last year's broadcast of "Sound of Music", starring Kelly Clarkson Carrie Underwood as Maria von Trapp. The vast movie production loft permits each set to be interconnected by a series of road maps, permitting the actors to walk, run or in this case - fly - from one scene change to the other, thus eliminating the proscenium arch altogether. The actors don't enter and exit so much as the audience does, via discreet use of a hand held mini-cam.
Christopher Walken was a delight in the pivotal role of Captain Hook. He looked the way I sometimes feel as a bitter older man who refuses to grow up. The casting took some risks because Walken's penchant for deadpan menace, I thought, might have been too much for little children. But, he's a consummate performer and the camera adores him, penciled eyebrows and all. Children of all ages will find him both scary and funny. The only disappointment here was that i would like to have seen him also play Mr. Darling, the children Wendy, John and Michael's, father. But, perhaps the producers thought it was too much for the 71 year-old actor.