The Jolly Roger poses problems for the cast in Peter Pan Goes Wrong (photo by Jeremy Daniel)
PETER PAN GOES WRONG
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 23, $74 – $165.50
pangoeswrongbway.com
www.mischiefcomedy.com
In 2017 at the Lyceum on Broadway, Mischief Theatre Company’s The Play That Goes Wrong documented the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s floundering presentation of the fictional Susan H. K. Bridewell’s British mystery The Murder at Haversham Manor, in which just about everything that could misfire did — except its ability to please audiences so much that the show is currently on an extended run at New World Stages. Cornley is now back on Broadway with its uniquely pathetic and hilarious production of J. M. Barrie’s children’s classic about (not) growing up, Peter and Wendy, in Mischief’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Penned by the same trio who wrote The Play That Goes Wrong — Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields — and directed by Adam Meggido, this follow-up, which debuted in London in December 2013, is another laugh-out-loud comic romp filled with pratfalls, electronic failures, missed cues, dangerous props, and questionable costumes. Back for more disastrous fun are Henry Shields as society president Chris Bean, Lewis as the bearlike Robert Grove (hapless head of the Cornley Youth Theatre), Sayer as Dennis Tyde, Charlie Russell as Sandra Wilkinson, Greg Tannahill as Jonathan Harris, Nancy Zamit as Annie Twilloil, and Chris Leask as Trevor Watson, the ever-busy stage manager. New to the cast are Matthew Cavendish as Max Bennett, Bianca Horn as Gill Jones, Harry Kershaw as Francis Beaumont, and Ellie Morris as Lucy Grove, Robert’s niece.
It’s opening night for Bridewell’s adaptation of Peter and Wendy, and the merriment is already underway as the audience enters the theater. Various characters greet guests, taking selfies and completing technical work. Chris, who channels John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, took pictures with a couple, then looked over at me and snidely said, “Oh, what do you want?! A photo? A cuddle?” I answered, “A cuddle would be nice,” but he gave me an imperious “No!” as he looked down his aquiline nose and squeezed past me first to help Gill fix the “death chair” in the row in front of me, then to playfully frighten the young girl a few seats to my right, who knew it was all a joke.
Annie Twilloil (Nancy Zamit) plays four roles in Cornley production of J. M. Barrie classic (photo by Jeremy Daniel)
The show within the show begins in London, in the home of the Darlings: father George (Chris), mother Mary (Annie), daughter Wendy (Sandra), and her younger brothers, John (Dennis) and Michael (Max). Also present are Lisa (Annie) the housekeeper and Nana (Robert) the shaggy nursemaid dog. The story is narrated by Francis (Harry Kershaw), who slides on- and offstage in a regal chair, often tossing glitter over himself upon exiting.
After the kids go to bed one night, Peter Pan (Jonathan) and Tinker Bell (Annie) arrive and fly them off to Neverland, where they meet a Lost Boy known as Tootles (Lucy) and attempt to rescue another Lost Boy, Curly (Annie), from a gang of pirates led by Captain Hook (Chris), who rules with a plastic fist over Smee (Dennis), Cecco (Francis), and Starkey (Robert). Hook is also on the prowl to find and kill the ticking crocodile (Max) that maimed him.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a rousing good time, almost to a fault. Some jokes are repetitive, within the show itself (Francis’s battle with the chair, Robert’s troubles with a doggie door, Dennis needing his lines fed to him through headphones) and for people who have seen The Play That Goes Wrong, while others go too far over the top (Annie being plugged in via an extension cord as Tink, the sound board operator accidentally broadcasting snippets from actors’ auditions and backstage chatter instead of sound effects).
Meggido, who has previously directed the Olivier-winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and Magic Goes Wrong (Mischief has also done A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong), keeps up a relentless pace that could use more than a few breathers (for the audience) and would benefit from being a 90-minute one-act instead of a 125-minute two-act with an intermission during which, alas, there is no tomfoolery. However, as with The Play That Goes Wrong, the split-second timing is masterful, particularly evident in numerous precarious stunts, from a wired Jonathan to a collapsing bunk bed, and at times you can hurt yourself from laughing so hard.
The cast of Peter Pan Goes Wrong rehearses in the studio (photo by Danny Kaan)
Simon Scullion’s revolving set is a marvel, especially when it starts spinning out of control like a runaway zoetrope. Roberto Surace’s costumes are amusingly silly, as is Richard Baker and Rob Falconer’s original music, while Matt Haskins’s lighting and Ella Wahlström’s sound expertly balance the incompetence of Cornley with the excellence of Mischief.
The courageous cast is a blast, with memorable turns by Zamit doing impossible quick changes between Mary and Lisa, Leask coming to the rescue time and time again as the beleaguered Trevor, and Cavendish smiling impishly as Max, who can’t hold back his excitement at being in the show. Russell’s calmness as Sandra nicely offsets the unpredictability of Shields’s Bean, who, as Hook, gets into booing fights with the audience.
Be sure to check out Cornley’s four pages in the Playbill, in which Annie seeks a date, the company touts its upcoming production of Wind in the Pillows, and Robert apologizes for leaving two students behind in a forest.