In the late fall of 2012, I saw Peter and the Starcatcher in The New York City. I would go back and try to find out the exact date and time and theater, but this post is already late and I don’t feel like rummaging through my otherwise useless box of playbills (they are useless all of the time, except in a situation like this. And yet here I am ignoring them. I’ll come back and correct this later). Also, I really like saying The New York City—I think it is hilarious. The show, directed by Alex Timbers, was brilliant. It’s a joyful exploration of imagination and childhood, friendship and fate, and fashions itself as a prologue to J.M. Barrie’s story of Peter and Wendy. The two children characters, Molly and The Boy (who becomes Peter Pan), were played by Celia-Keenan Bolger and Adam Chandler-Berat, respectively.
One of my best memories of this play (besides the fact that my date cried and I was very moved by their sensitivity and I probably decided I had found ~the one~ as a result), was a scene that consisted of very long, possibly made-up words. If my memory serves me correctly, Molly, who is a very intelligent young girl, starts reciting words to The Boy and sharing their definitions. During this scene, Celia-Keenan Bolger went truly full-out and blew everyone away with her pronunciation ability, and ended up getting Adam Chandler-Berat to start giggling. It was about 20 seconds worth of the two of them onstage alone, with goofy smiles, laughing along with the rest of the audience. It was my favorite part.
This past spring, I was in a production of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, at The College of New Jersey (capitalized “the” makes everything better), which, if you didn’t know, is slightly comedic. Spoiler—we didn’t know! We had been directed to play the show in a very straightforward manner, so when the audience was laughing during one of the largest scenes in the show, we were all taken aback. It was shocking having a real audience, and actually having that audience respond to us! I got into it, and I started giggling. I had to cut a few of my lines short because I was laughing too much. And we all had fun!
Some people think that breaking is a sign of weakness, or lack of ability on an actor’s part. But I would disagree. Breaking is human. Breaking is enjoyable. Breaking is a collective experience— and that’s what makes breaking onstage so great. Everyone is laughing together. The line isn’t there anymore. Everyone is sharing the humor, the absurdity, the talent, or the random case of giggles together. It’s not about who is elite or talented or who paid the most for their seats. It’s not about a fourth wall or whether it is realistic or not. It is a group of people enjoying themselves, all together. And that is certainly beautiful.
Peter and The Starcatcher was adapted for the stage by Rick Elice. It opened for previews on Broadway at the Brooks-Atkinson Theater on March 28, 2012, with an official opening on April 15, 2012. It ran on Broadway until January 20, 2013. The second National Tour recently finished in Vermont on April 14, 2015.
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