Peter and the Starcatcher

New York Theatre Workshop

(212) 279-4200

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“It’s goofy, it’s immature—it won’t grow up!” said Jesse Oxfeld in The New York Observer. But a show that “knows what it is” can make for a wonderful night out, and this Peter Pan prequel is “so high-spirited, so inventive, so smart” that even its puns are a pleasure. As in the best-selling 2004 children’s novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Peter here is initially just a “sullen orphan, at first called only Boy,” said Jennifer Farrar in the Associated Press. Along with a clutch of other motherless boys, he is being transported by ship to a life of slavery. But the point of this tale is to reveal “where Peter Pan came from, and why he could fly.” So, with the help of a girl named Molly, he eventually discovers his “inner spunk” and happens into a bit of magic.

“On the page, the script for Starcatcher verges on preciousness,” said Ben Brantley in The New York Times. In performance, though, “it acquires the excited, self-delighted giddiness you associate with really good yarn spinners.” For a show commissioned by Disney Theatrical Productions, the staging is stubbornly low-tech. To make us believe that the orphans’ ship is battling stormy seas, all the cast members are given to work with are “a ladder, some rope,” and “effects that might have been used a century ago.” Yet the ensemble’s low-budget solutions only enhance the evening’s sense of whimsy. “There’s not a body harness in sight” when Peter finally channels his ability to take flight, but somehow “this show never stops flying.”

Maybe that depends on how much “shiver-me-timbers jokiness” a viewer can take, said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. Act 2’s smart-aleck comedy “trivializes the dramatic stakes” in the run-up to the play’s climax. But thanks in part to the infectious, “exuberant energy” of the actors, led by Adam Chanler-Berat as the young Peter, such missteps are forgivable. Of particular note is the “inspired” Christian Borle as Black Stache, the “pre-amputation pirate better known as Captain Hook,” who’s initially more mischievous than malicious. He and the rest of the cast display “unflagging commitment to the quirky material.” In an age when “mainstream family entertainment” rarely requires any imagination, their gung-ho attitude is “a breath of salty sea air.”