#117 Peter Pan Transcript
The original post for this episode can now be found here.
Transcriptions by: Masha Latvinava
Peter Pan – Episode #117 – November 25, 2020
JESS: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally.
ANDREW: And I am Andrew DeWolf.
BRIANNA: And I'm Brianna Jones.
JESS: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew to like musical theater. How are you doing today, Andrew?
ANDREW: I feel fantastic. Except for one thing, Jess. And I bet you can't guess what it is.
JESS: Did your shadow fall off?
ANDREW: No. I'm not a pirate.
JESS: Oh, you want to be a pirate?
ANDREW: I want to be a pirate. Like, really bad.
JESS: Why do you wanna be a pirate?
ANDREW: Because we just watched Peter Pan and there’s pirates and I want to be fucking Captain Hook.
JESS: Peter Pan. Cue the clip.
(Peter Pan ad plays)
JESS: Peter Pan is a musical with music mostly by Moose Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. With a book by Sir James M. Barrie, based on Sir James M. Barrie’s play Peter Pan, it premiered on Broadway on October 20, 1954 at the Winter Garden Theatre, where it ran for a planned limited engagement of 152 performances, where it closed so it could be recorded – well, streamed live - to the TV audiences all over the world on NBC. It won Tony Awards for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, and Best Stage Technician, which I don't think exists as a Tony Award anymore, and it very well should.
ANDREW: Those stage technicians - they work hard.
JESS: Yes, they do. The basic plot of Peter Pan is Peter and his mischievous fairy sidekick, Tinker Bell, visit the nursery of the Darling children late one night and –
ANDREW: Do we need to explain this?
JESS: - with a sprinkle of pixie dust, begin a magical journey across the stars that none of them will ever forget. In the adventure of a lifetime, the travelers come face to face with a ticking crocodile, a fierce Native American tribe, a band of bungling pirates and, of course, the villainous Captain Hook. Andrew, what did you think of Peter Pan? Do you like my cup by the way?
ANDREW: Oh, that is a nice cup. Are they Native Americans? If they live in a star? That's, like, galaxies away?
JESS: They are Native Starians, Native Neverlandians.
ANDREW: I mean, at that point, if they call themselves Indians, maybe that's just what they call themselves? And it just is a huge coincidence that their culture exactly lines up with Native American culture? Or at least the stereotype that we have of it.
JESS: I mean, the argument could be made that this is all in the children’s heads. Even though this version specifically doesn't embrace that because they bring back the children from Neverland to be adopted by their parents.
ANDREW: Okay, in this version of it, it is explicitly real. The mother and father characters see the shadow detached from Peter Pan. And they both are kind of fine with it.
JESS: They’re just like, “Fine, that’s weird. Wow. Looks like a scoundrel.”
ANDREW: You're not at all concerned that there's a detached shadow from a person who is sneaking into your nursery?
JESS: Okay, Andrew. What is your relationship to the Peter Pan story? Because it is kind of ubiquitous at this point. Whether or not you, like, really dive into it.
ANDREW: Okay, I've seen the Disney one. I've ridden the ride at Disney World. And I think that's actually about it.
JESS: You've never seen any version - You've never seen Robin Williams’ Hook?
ANDREW: I think I have but I literally can't remember it.
JESS: All right. All right, Bree. What is your relationship with Peter Pan, if you have any?
BRIANNA: My relationship with the Peter Pan movie? I saw the movie when I was a kid. It wasn't my favorite.
JESS: Was it the Disney animated one?
BRIANNA: It was a Disney animated one. And then I think I was telling you earlier that my high school put on a performance of it.
ANDREW: Of the Disney movie?
BRIANNA: No, no. Of Peter Pan -
JESS: Of this musical.
ANDREW: Of this musical, okay.
BRIANNA: Yeah, and that wasn't great. But I also don't really remember it because I was in the second grade. Um, and that's about it. I've seen Hook.
JESS: Hook is good, right?
BRIANNA: Hook is really good.
JESS: And Hook basically, as Spielberg... Spielberg was trying to make an adaptation of this musical. And then he got bored doing that and said, “You know what? I’m gonna make a sequel to this musical.” And that's how we ended up with Hook, with very specific references to only this musical version of it. And fun fact, this is not even the only stage musical version of it. Leonard Bernstein - very famous composer and lyricist - did a version of it, which is not very good, that I listened to a lot when I was a kid. And still as a kid, I was like, “This isn't very good.”
ANDREW: Well, is any version of Peter Pan really that great? I guess maybe if you're arguing Hook, but...
JESS: Hook is still not good as an idea. Like, it's a great movie, but it still has a lot of things, you know?
ANDREW: I really just feel like Peter Pan has been done dirty, you know? There's no version of Peter Pan that’s, like, good.
JESS: Have you ever seen the 2003 version with Jason Isaacs as Hook where he's like a badass actual murderer?
ANDREW: See, I want to like that. But I feel like that sucks. Does it suck?
JESS: No, I actually think it's pretty good.
ANDREW: Okay, see, I want Hook to be kind of a badass murder. I feel like Disney takes Hook and makes them like this - Just an idiot? I don't know. The Disney version sucks. This one, I kind of like Hook in this one.
JESS: I like all of this one, I think. In my opinion, this is the best version of Peter Pan. This specific musical. It is the iconic one, it is the one everyone remembers when they think of Peter Pan. This is it incarnate.
ANDREW: I don't know. When I think of Peter Pan, I still think of the animated Disney film.
JESS: I don't think so. Like, I think on a mass... Like, when people think Peter Pan, they think of Mary Martin and the NBC live telecast, which was the first NBC live musical ever. So, they did it every couple of years – live. Like, they went on to the stage, they performed in front of cameras, and it got streamed to homes everywhere as it was happening. And we have recordings of that. And they went from black and white to color TV. In fact, the live streams were part of the reason why color TVs became so ubiquitous in homes, because you wanted to see the colors of Neverland and all that. And that was the original version of it. And then in 1979, Sandy Duncan had a Broadway revival, which was also very well-received. Then in the 90s, you had this Cathy Rigby production, which is what you watched, which I loved as a kid, and I saw live and got to meet Cathy Rigby, and was like one of my first theater experiences, and it was really fucking cool.
ANDREW: I think as a show for kids, this is actually really good. And I think that's interesting, because most shows for kids are pretty bad. I don't know. Or at least they're very much critically-panned. Whereas it seems like this one, maybe not?
JESS: Oh, also. Now that it's just hitting me. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This is posting on Thanksgiving.
ANDREW: Wait, really?
JESS: And I bet you're wondering what this musical has to do with Thanksgiving. Oh, we'll get there.
ANDREW: I mean, there's Native Americans in it.
JESS: Yeah, there are Native Americans in it. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
ANDREW: And pirates, which honestly, pirates have a lot to do with Thanksgiving as well. Look into the history of it.
JESS: Mmhmm. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
ANDREW: I'm actually just lying. Don't look into –
JESS: Christopher Columbus was a pirate, if you think really hard about it.
ANDREW: A white slaver?
JESS: I mean, that's not a pirate.
ANDREW: Actually, I think it is not a pirate.
JESS: But that being said, like you said, this is an actually really good musical for children. It doesn't take that many deviations from the Peter Pan story. It doesn't do anything crazy insane with it. This is the ultimate classic musical, in a way where it is actually timeless. There isn't those weird things it's like, “Oh, that's such a 50s musical thing.”
ANDREW: Okay, yeah. Like in other shows for kids, like the SpongeBob musical - as much as we've said that it got more hate than it deserves - 10 years from now that's going to be dated as fuck.
JESS: Yeah. Name me another musical that still kind of works 60 years later.
ANDREW: Oh, boy. I mean, every one that we've talked about that’s 60 years old, there's so much stuff in it that's like, yikes.
JESS: Oklahoma, Carousel.
ANDREW: Okay, I mean, I guess let's just go right to it. There's a little bit of yikes in this one. Just a tad.
JESS: But I feel like Peter Pan itself has become so ubiquitous that you know about those yikes things in the content in and of itself.
ANDREW: You really can't... How do you remove it, you know? I feel like you literally... In other ones, it’s like, “Man, this doesn't need to be here at all.” But in this, it's like, I feel like you can't remove the yikes stuff from Peter Pan. How do you get –
JESS: Okay, we need the context of what the yikes stuff is.
ANDREW: How do you get rid of the Indians? You can't. I don't think you can.
JESS: I think you can. The movie, Hook, outright ignores the fact that they exist.
ANDREW: That's fair. But that's also not Peter Pan. That's not the Peter Pan story. That's Hook. It's a different thing.
JESS: The 2014 live telecast with Allison Williams and Christopher Walken tried very hard to fix it. So, they had someone from an Indian Tribal Nation come in as a consultant. They translated the entirety of the song Ugg-a-Wugg, which was –
ANDREW: Which, yikes.
JESS: - was the original title and song for the Indians. Um, yeah. And they translated it into Oh-hey, which is actually Indian, Native American language.
ANDREW: Well, which tribe though? You know, who gets to decide what tribe?
JESS: Yeah, that is fair. Who gets to claim the tribe of the Neverland Indians? And we'll talk even further. Pan, which we've laughed about on this show many-a-time about having a Nirvana song in it.
ANDREW: That's what that one was!
JESS: Yeah. They literally just made all the Indians white people. Rooney Mara, literally the whitest of white human beings, plays Tiger Lily.
ANDREW: That's probably the worst way to go.
JESS: And Peter and the Starcatcher made them just a multicultural, like, religious sect. That is what they - And I thought that was a really smart way to go around them.
ANDREW: Yeah. See, the problem with the whole Indian thing is, at this point, it's like a childhood cultural thing. Like, even... What was that movie - Parasite, where the kid was obsessed with Indians. It's like, a different thing than Native Americans, but it's entirely racialized. So it's sucks. Because pirates - pirates are just pirates. It's a real thing that actually happened. It was an actual culture. But it doesn't fucking matter. Because it wasn't racialized. It wasn't on racial lines in that way. But you can't do that with Indians. Because even calling them Indians is kind of a racist thing.
JESS: I remember in the Disney movie, they literally refer to them as like, slurs –
ANDREW: Oh, the Disney movie is fucking – Like, the fact that they allow the Disney movie, and then they go, and they're like, “Oh, but the Song of the South doesn't exist.” Like, excuse me? Come on.
JESS: Literally, there's a song in the Disney movie called What Makes the Red Man Red?
ANDREW: Yeah, that is about as bad as it goes. And you guys aren't going to acknowledge that Song of the South exists, but you're gonna... What Makes the Red Man Red? That's just fine. What's, uh, you know, put that out - 50th anniversary.
JESS: And the thing that makes this musical - this specific musical - work, is the fact that the Indians are kind of like, just in name only. They kind of feel like their own fairy tale thing.
ANDREW: Well, yeah, and that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, it's very difficult for them to remove the Indians because they're not actually referencing Native Americans in any way –
JESS: It’s not referencing a history or a culture. The story itself is part of history and culture, but it's not referencing the actual history and culture.
ANDREW: Yeah. What they're actually referencing is the thing that little kids dress up as and pretend to be, right?
JESS: Yes.
ANDREW: Like, little kids pretend to be Lost Boys. Little kids pretend to be pirates. And little kids pretend to be Indians. And the only one that is actually a problem now and to be fair, it probably should be a problem, but it's Indians because that's kind of racist. You know, it's like those are actual people that we kind of slaughtered.
JESS: Yeah, we wiped up their entire culture, took their culture away from them, invaded and destroyed it.
ANDREW: And we did that with pirates, too. But we justified that because pirates are criminals.
JESS: Another thing about framing of the Indians here. They are not framed as evil mean people or idiots or dumb. They are tacticians. They are smart. They are allies.
ANDREW: It's not like a spaghetti western where the Indians are savages.
JESS: Or even like Back to the Future Part III where they're just dumb.
ANDREW: Yeah, it's like, that's not what they're going for. So, you know, it's difficult to overlook a song called - What was it? Ugg-a-Wugg, where it's just like, “Okay, well, that's kind of racist because you’re just saying that their language is basically just made up sounds.”
JESS: All languages are made up sounds.
ANDREW: That's true, but they're saying that like, “Hey, your language is so made up and stupid that I'm not even gonna bother to understand it. I'm just gonna make it up.” It's like saying like, “Oh, like Chinese people ching chong”, like, you know, like that's racist, obviously.
JESS: I mean, let's think about - Like the Mary Martin production, which was in the 50s, they have literal just white people wearing feathers on their head and called them Indians.
ANDREW: Yeah. It's a thing that you have to separate from it. And yeah, it's a difficult subject to tread. I think the one that you mentioned went about it the best possible way, where they actually got consultants from at least one of the Native American cultures, and was like, “Hey, let's at least make this actual words.”
JESS: Um, all right, let's talk a little bit more about the characterization of it. Especially of Peter Pan, because Peter Pan I feel like our culture has co-opted into “good boy”. Like, the cool kid.
ANDREW: Peter Pan’s not a good person.
JESS: No, and the book very clearly represents him as not a good person. An aloof person. Like, in the book, Peter Pan, when the Lost Boys get older - because Peter Pan is the only one that doesn't grow up - he either takes them out and kills them because they got too old or they escape Peter Pan and become pirates. If Peter’s aloofness - he's like Patrick Bateman. Literally, he is Patrick Bateman.
ANDREW: Now, I kind of always interpreted in a way the pirates as being former Lost Boys, because like, where else do the pirates come from? You know, like, it doesn't make sense. And I know that it's supposed to be like, Neverland, no one ages. But, uh, I don't know, I never really thought it made sense that these pirates are just kind of there. You know? I think, yeah, I don't know. It just It doesn't make sense. So it kind of has to be that way.
JESS: It's interesting, because Peter Pan is a sociopath. He really is.
ANDREW: What would you call him in like a Dungeons and Dragons game? He's a lich, or, like, someone who seeks immortality, in a way?
JESS: Yeah, he also actively thinks he's the greatest guy in the world. And it's creepy. And there's an entire song about how great he is. “I'm so awesome. And I got to make noise about it.” And everyone's like, “You're being an asshole.” And he’s like, “I don't give a care. I'm Peter Pan. I can do whatever I want. I'm so cool.”
ANDREW: Well, I think he's kind of like - he's an actual little kid. And little kids don't care about other people.
JESS: Yes, but take a look at the Disney one. The Disney one has a little of that, but he's also “responsible”.
ANDREW: The Disney one - he is just the hero, that's it.
JESS: Yes, he is hero boy. And in Hook, as much as I like Hook and I think it's an okay movie, he's just a guy. And they never talk about his deeply insane values held as a kid. And it would be one thing if he was just a kid, but he's a kid that murders people... Let's talk about the story of it.
ANDREW: His whole thing is he’s a child that flies around with a dagger. There's three defining traits of Peter Pan. He has the ability to fly, he doesn't age, and he has a dagger.
JESS: Let's talk about all three acts, because this is a very rare three-act musical.
ANDREW: Yeah. Honestly, you can't even really tell. I guess, unless you're looking for it. I don't know.
JESS: Well, when you see it in a theater, there are two intermissions.
ANDREW: Which is probably good for little kids.
JESS: Yeah. And this is a short musical. This is only an hour and 45 minutes. It is super, super short.
ANDREW: Yeah. But you know, like, when you have children, the audience that are probably like six –
JESS: “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
ANDREW: Yeah, you know, it’s a good idea. I think that's a good idea.
JESS: But let's talk about Act One where basically Peter comes in, invades this house to get his shadow back and just kidnaps three children.
ANDREW: Don't forget, man. There's that big dog.
JESS: Yeah. Nana, their nanny.
ANDREW: Yeah, they have a furry that takes care of their children. And the furry lives in a dog house inside their house. I liked the whole beginning part, except for when they find the shadow. I always thought that was weird. But how... How does the mom find the shadow and is just, like, fine with it? She's a little bit worried, but she's like, “Oh, just someone shadow I guess let me put it in a drawer.”
JESS: Well, the dad has to get to his business dinner. There's important things on the line.
ANDREW: Yeah, I don't know. That was a little weird.
JESS: What about the part where Peter Pan just hears that Wendy's brother’s kind of mean sometimes and fucking kicks him while he's dead asleep?
ANDREW: Well, Peter Pan's the hero.
JESS: He's a real, like, fucking white knight.
ANDREW: Well, his goal is to get Wendy... It is Wendy, right?
JESS: Yeah. Wendy is the girl.
ANDREW: Okay. Yeah. Um, I couldn't remember if I was thinking of the daughter's name –
JESS: That’s Jane, god.
ANDREW: Okay, Peter Pan's entire goal is to bring a girl back to Neverland to be his mom.
JESS: Yes. Everyone wants Wendy to be their mom. The pirates want Wendy to be their mom.
ANDREW: It's really weird.
JESS: Bree. Will you be out mother and knit us pockets and tell us stories?
BRIANNA: Yes, boys.
ANDREW: Wendy's totally fine with it too. Which is kind of weird.
JESS: Yeah, she’s like, “I love having these boys look up to me and need me. I love being needed.”
BRIANNA: Isn't that what women are supposed to do? Grow up and be mommies?
ANDREW: Yeah, but they're not even growing up. They're just asking her to be a mommy right now.
JESS: Yeah, literally “Be our mother.”
ANDREW: Also I'm not quite sure that that is the only thing girls are supposed to do.
BRIANNA: Yeah, I know. That was me making a joke. Ha ha ha.
ANDREW: Women are not allowed to make jokes.
JESS: No jokes allowed. Women can’t make jokes. They're not allowed to be comedians.
BRIANNA: Women aren't allowed to be funny?
ANDREW: Not allowed. Neither are men.
JESS: Jokes are over until we get this whole thing sorted out.
ANDREW: Jokes are canceled. No more comedy. I'm done with it.
BRIANNA: Oh, boy.
JESS: All right. All right. All right. So, Act One ends with a pretty cool effect of Peter flying all over the place. I think that looks really good.
ANDREW: The flying looks fantastic. I don't know how they made it look so good. You can't see what they're hanging from it all. And the way that they fly looks so natural. At least, you know, comparatively to what it could have looked like.
JESS: I think that's mostly because they chose very wisely with their choice in lead. Cathy Rigby - great singer, like you have to admit, her singing voice is top notch. And she's also a gymnast. She is very flexible and can do some pretty crazy things with her body.
ANDREW: I like when every one of them is flying, and the only one that's really doing anything is the lead.
JESS: - Is Peter Pan. Because she’s the only one that physically can.
ANDREW: Yeah, and the other ones who just kind of like, “Ah, wow”.
JESS: Where she's like flipping the fuck around and bouncing off shit. I want to say, um, I don't really want to use my time here to talk about this musical I have a nostalgic childhood feeling for, and talk about the 2014 Christopher Walken and Allison Williams travesty. Allison Williams does her best there, but my God, she does not know how to handle the wirework. Like, she gets stuck upside down a couple times.
ANDREW: Oh, no.
JESS: She does not know how to distribute her weight with those wires and such, so it comes off very badly for her.
ANDREW: You would have thought they would have trained more for that and prepared better.
JESS: Well, the thing is - no amount of training can really get you to do everything perfectly. Unless you're an Olympic gymnast the way that Cathy Rigby is.
ANDREW: Okay.
JESS: So, Act Two is mostly about the pirates and the boys wanting to have Wendy as a mother. And then a lot of Act Two is just meandering around, but I want to talk about the scene where Tinker Bell convinces the Lost Boys to murder Wendy out of the sky. And then one of them thinks they've done it and then Peter, as soon as he hears that Wendy dies, tries to murder one of the Lost Boys.
ANDREW: I mean, these are a group of kids in the woods. They don't they don't have a mother, so they don't understand that you can't murder people.
JESS: Yeah, I mean if you kill another person, you gotta die too. An eye for an eye.
ANDREW: Look, if you don't have parents, you want to murder. We've all seen Annie. She doesn't even have pupils in her eyes. There is no soul there.
JESS: There's no love. There's no soul.
ANDREW: I'm just kidding. Of course. Why the fuck did they listen to this little asshole fairy and try to kill some –
JESS: It is weird that they want this female presence and then ignore Tinker Bell.
ANDREW: Tinker Bell's not –
JESS: She's one of the dudes, man.
ANDREW: She's not a person. She's a fairy.
JESS: Do you believe in fairies, Andrew?
ANDREW: I don't believe in fairies.
JESS: One just died!
ANDREW: I actually do believe in fairies, but I like to murder them. So, I say that as often as I can.
JESS: I was just thinking – in the 2003 Peter Pan movie where Hook comes across the fairy at a tree, says “There's no such thing as fairies” and then just squashes it. That movie’s great and everyone was a-fucking-sleep on that movie. That movie’s great.
ANDREW: Goddamn, now I wanna watch that. What is that called?
JESS: It's just Peter Pan 2003.
ANDREW: Geez, how have I not heard of this movie?
JESS: It's a lot of fun. It's a fun movie accurate to the book. Like very, very dark in some places. Good kids movie. What do you think of the Lost Boys in this musical?
ANDREW: Um, I honestly don't have much of an opinion.
JESS: They have like, these comedic moments where they just talk to each other and it's meant to be hilarious.
ANDREW: I don't think that they're very funny.
JESS: No.
ANDREW: And I don't really particularly remember any of them that well. They're all just –
JESS: You have the twin ones, you've got soiled, slightly? Slightly Soiled.
ANDREW: Yeah, I mean. Pissing and shitting yourself is not a character trait - sorry.
JESS: Neither is just being fat or being a twin.
ANDREW: Being a twin is a character trait. Because that means that you’re either the good one or the evil one.
JESS: But Andrew, we need to talk about how Hook tries to, like, trick them into eating a cake. Like, that’s his big plan.
ANDREW: Hook in this is great. Can we talk about Hook?
JESS: Let’s talk about Hook.
ANDREW: I like Hook in this a lot. He is the goofy version of Hook, which is fine. I don't hate the goofy version of Hook, which is which is like, you know, he's just a little bit of a dummy. But I think that he is fun and menacing enough that he actually has an impact.
JESS: Right. And this continues the trait of having the father character also play Hook as both, like, the - I think that's always a good trade. And I feel like the only version that's ever not done that is the 2014 Christopher Walken version where they just have the guy who played Smee play the father, because Christopher Walken couldn't be fucked.
ANDREW: Christopher Walken was like, “Yeah, I'm not, No.”
JESS: Have you watched the clips of that, Andrew?
ANDREW: Yeah, he's something. He's doing his best. Can we get some audio clips of that right now?
(Audio clip from Peter Pan 2014 plays, where Christopher Walken forgets his line)
ANDREW: All right, Chris.
JESS: Man, that was cringe worthy, wasn't it?
ANDREW: Chris, you uh, you doing okay out there?
JESS: And literally the line he was waiting for was, “The game is up.”
ANDREW: It's like the most cliché line in the entire show. And he’s like, “Oh, what am I supposed to say? What was it? Oh - ”
JESS: (insert Christopher Walken-like coughs and clearing of throat here) That was what happened.
ANDREW: It’s true, though.
JESS: People paid money to put that on. People put effort into that.
(Jess and Andrew alternate doing Christopher Walken cough impressions)
JESS: Act Three, Andrew.
ANDREW: Yeah.
JESS: This is where they're all on the pirate ship. And they try to kill the Lost Boys.
ANDREW: You know, I actually was thinking to myself, like, “Is there gonna be an actual pirate ship set?” And then there was.
JESS: Were you happy about it?
ANDREW: I was happy about it. I just, I really like pirates. You know, I think that they're cool.
JESS: Do you like the pirates in this musical? Like when they're on screen you're like, “Hell yeah, I'm into this.”
ANDREW: I have some fun with them. You know? I think that Captain Hook is a poor representation of a pirate captain. We need better pirate representation in media. I am coming out as a pirate, actually. I am a pirate.
JESS: I'm proud of you for finally saying it.
ANDREW: I'm out of the crow's nest.
JESS: There we are. He came down from the crow’s nest. I think this is actually the best scenes of the show - on the pike.
ANDREW: Yeah.
JESS: And I think the actual fight scene between Pan and Hook is pretty well done. For stage fighting.
ANDREW: Oh yeah. There’s some, like, fun fight stuff. I think it's a little goofy, the part where like, Peter’s in the ship and he's sending people in to die, essentially.
JESS: Peter fucking murders those people.
ANDREW: He does. We don't see them again. They're dead.
JESS: No, he fucking killed them.
ANDREW: Yeah, no 100%.
JESS: We didn't talk about the “Do you believe in fairies” scene where they turn to you, Andrew, and ask - Did you clap?
ANDREW: I didn't. I mean, I've already admitted that I've tried to kill as many fairies as possible. So I was actively fighting the crowd. Obviously, my words are not heard though, since this happened in the past.
JESS: My favorite is the live productions where they don't have an audience. So it's just like, “Yes, yes. Keep clapping.” Dead silence. “Yes. Keep it going.”
ANDREW: Oh, please. Please clap.
JESS: Jeb Bush. Peter’s going full Jeb Bush.
ANDREW: Peter turns to the audience: “Please, clap.”
JESS: Can we talk a bit about how they bring home all the Lost Boys and just assume that their parents are going to fucking adopt them?
ANDREW: And then they do?
JESS: Yeah. No, fucking get out in the streets. Go to the workhouses.
ANDREW: Oh, my God.
JESS: You wanted to be here so bad. I don't have to take care of you.
ANDREW: (imitates Scrooge) That's what we have workhouses for.
JESS: (imitates Scrooge) Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? We’re around that line between Christmas and Thanksgiving, so we needa start bringing in the Christmas material now.
ANDREW: Boy.
JESS: They already got Christmas music on the radio. Come on.
ANDREW: Ebenezer Scrooge. No, they adopt them all and it's a very happy ending. It's like when Daddy Warbucks adopts the entire orphanage at the end of the day.
JESS: That didn't happen.
ANDREW: That doesn't happen in Annie?
JESS: No.
ANDREW: Oh my god. That's crazy. I thought Annie was a masterpiece.
JESS: No. President FDR says, “We'll find houses for you and homes to adopt you all.” Remember, the President made the promise.
ANDREW: “You guys have money to rent these homes, right? Oh, you don't? Get out of my sight.”
JESS: “Can't even get up to kick you.”
ANDREW: “I won't be bothered.”
JESS: Yeah, cus he's in a wheelchair.
ANDREW: He always pretended he wasn't, though.
JESS: Yeah well, that musical will tell you differently. He's just chilling in a wheelchair the entire musical.
ANDREW: Doesn't Daddy Warbucks hate him?
JESS: I mean, what do democrats eat?
ANDREW: Shit?
JESS: Yeah, most of the time it looks like. Let's talk about the epilogue of this musical which I think is super fucked up.
ANDREW: The epilogue?
JESS: Yeah.
ANDREW: All right. Well, why do you think it’s so fucked up?
JESS: Where Peter comes back thinking it's been a week but it's been 60 years and he comes across old lady Wendy. It's like, “Oh, no, you grew up without me.” And she's like, “I have a granddaughter.” He's like, “I'm gonna take this bitch instead.”
ANDREW: I think that this is one of the best scenes because it shows the true Peter Pan.
JESS: It really does, though. Like, he doesn't give a fuck about Wendy as a person. He gives a fuck about that mother figure in his life and only that.
ANDREW: He just wants his mommy and his mommy has to be underage.
JESS: You remember in Company - the musical Company? Where the plotline leads to them being like, “Bobby, you're gonna have to want to be with somebody. Not with just some body.”
ANDREW: Yeah.
JESS: That's Peter Pan. He's like Bobby. Like, he just wants that being there to be that mother figure.
ANDREW: You're gonna have to be with some buddy, not just some mommy.
JESS: If Peter Pan did grow up to be Robin Williams, does he have a mommy fetish?
ANDREW: 100%.
JESS: Yeah, he totally does. He watches so much incest porn. Like, that's what he does all day.
ANDREW: His only category is stepmom porn. That's it.
JESS: No, step is too far. It has to be real mom, it has to be blood-related.
ANDREW: I feel like they don't have that as a category usually.
JESS: You never know.
ANDREW: It's a little too risqué unless you're living in Alabama.
JESS: Then that's just your neighbors.
ANDREW: You get the binoculars out, you don't even have to go to pornhub.
JESS: But you know who definitely doesn't watch porn?
ANDREW: You?
JESS: The New York theater critics. We're about to go into our next favorite segment, the best segment on this entire show. It's time for Breeviews, where we get to compare our opinions with those of the New York theatre critics. And for this one, we've actually broken up a bit. We're gonna see from the 1979 production all the way up to the most recent production. So, we've got a lot of ground to cover here, Bree.
ANDREW: You know, there’s no Ben Brantley here, I've noticed.
JESS: There is no Ben Brantley here.
BRIANNA: Did he have nothing to say?
JESS: He did not say anything about this show.
ANDREW: You know what they say. If you don't have anything positive to say, just don't say anything at all.
JESS: Then obviously you're not Ben Brantley.
BRIANNA: Yeah. Okay. The New York Times critic Walter Kerr says, “Of the 1979 production, Peter Pan, for all that Mary Martin and television were able to make of it, was never exactly a landmark musical in Broadway history. It was a patch job - be nice and call it a patchwork quilt - But there is trouble. In the long second act (of three), It's simply this. Barry's plotting - my god, am I going to defend the plotting of Peter Pan - and the little psychological contretemps that developed between Peter and Wendy have been ditched, or mentioned cursorily and tossed away. Tossed aside in favor of production numbers created specifically for the other performers nearly 25 years ago, I found myself gradually neutralized, except in midflight.” You guys have anything to say about that?