A Note from the Artistic Director: Welcome to Peter Pan
Welcome to the Ballet West premiere of Trey McIntyre’s magical, fanciful, and charming production of Peter Pan.
Choreographer McIntyre created this ballet version of the J.M. Barrie story first for the Houston Ballet in 2002 and he has re-produced and revised it numerous times for multiple companies around the world.
The Origins of Peter Pan
The creation of the actual story by Scottish playwright and author J.M. Barrie had an interesting development. The character of Peter Pan, a boy who could fly, who wore leaves for clothes, “still had all his first teeth” as he was described, refused to grow up, and who had great mistrust for adults, first appeared in Barrie’s 1902 novel The Little White Bird. Barrie then expanded on the character for his stage play Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.
In the play’s plot Peter is flying through the Bloomsbury district of London and repeatedly stops at the home of the Darlings - a family loosely based on close family friends of Barrie’s - to listen in through the window as Mother Darling tells her children bedtime stories. On one occasion, Peter loses his shadow and Wendy, the oldest child, helps him find and reattach it. Peter invites her to his home in Neverland so she can tell bedtime stories to his crew – The Lost Boys.
The original play was an instant success in London and soon moved to Broadway stage in the USA. Filled with adventures in Neverland including fairies, pirates, mermaids, and Native Americans as seen through an early 20th Century European eye, it thrilled audiences wherever it was produced.
Thanks to Peter Pan’s success on the theater stage, Barrie decided to adapt it into a novel in 1911 originally entitled Peter and Wendy. This book too became a success and like with his play, Barrie continued to revise it and add to it until his death in 1937, most notably, four years after the book’s premiere publication when Barrie added a final section – When Wendy Grew Up, an Afterthought.
This was eventually incorporated into the complete story and ultimately was key to the whole narrative as Peter, forever a boy, visits Wendy who has “betrayed him” by growing up. Wendy’s daughter Jane now agrees to join Peter in Neverland and the cycle continues as long as there are children in this world.
Why Peter Pan Endures
i>Peter Pan remains an enduring story because its themes speak to humanity. The story underscores the conflict between the innocence of childhood and the social responsibility of adulthood. Barrie seems to have understood the psychology of children in ways that were ahead of the times, and he based many aspects of the story on people and situations from his own life.
It was, in fact, speculated that that the character of Peter Pan was based, in part, on Barrie’s older brother who died at fourteen in a skating accident. This tragedy profoundly affected Barrie’s mother for the rest of her life. She reportedly did take personal solace, however, in the knowledge that “in dying a boy, he would remain a boy forever."
McIntyre's Vision: Through a Child's Eye
In turn, Trey McIntyre presents his ballet version, through a child’s eye. He creates a world where adults are either just peripheral or downright evil in their intent. Where the concerns of childhood are tantamount and magic, adventure, and fantasy take precedence.
Peter Pan and the children of the story prevail in Neverland through their creativity and tenacity. The only thing that is stronger than Peter Pan is the progress of time and the inevitable adulthood that all the human children must grow into.
For McIntyre, Barrie’s tale represents a mirror of the artistic journey itself, and his ballet is in his words “a reminder to us all to hold on to the boundless imagination of youth even as we step into adulthood.”
The Music of Edward Elgar
McIntyre has chosen the music of English composer Edward Elgar as arranged by Neil DuPont. It’s a fascinating, and in my opinion, a brilliant choice. Elgar was a contemporary of J.M. Barrie’s, and his melodic and lyrical music is supremely danceable.
While his music has been celebrated as quintessentially “English,” he actually always felt a deeper connection to mainland European music. Elgar, like Barrie, never felt like he fit in. Both men, for different reasons, felt like outsiders in their respective worlds. Not too dissimilar to Peter Pan himself – “The Boy who wouldn’t Grow Up."
Bringing Neverland to Life
With fanciful sets by Thomas Boyd and magical costumes by noted Broadway, television, and theater designer – the late Jeanne Button, this production comes to life almost as a living pop-up book.
Looking through a contemporary lens, McIntyre has done away with some of the more antiquated representations of Native Americans while maintaining the exciting and whimsical adventurousness of Neverland- a land where anything is possible. The flying in this production is some of the most extensive in any ballet, requiring endless rehearsals to create an effect that is truly reminiscent of the flying in our dreams.
Fun For All Ages
Ultimately though, alongside the complex subtleties of the story, its development, deeper meanings, and complex technical requirements on the artists and crew, the ballet remains a joyous production for children of all ages, allowing a child to be a child, and an adult to stay connected to that youthful wonder that is vital to us all.
Thank You for your patronage!