“When you grow up, your heart dies,” Allison “Basketcase” Reynolds sadly theorizes in The Breakfast Club. It serves as a forewarning, one that teenagers shrug off, dismissing the thought it could happen to them. But words like these can haunt adults as we look back wondering if “growing up” changed us for better or worse.
It’s one of the ultimate detriments of aging — the older we get, the less in touch we are with our past self.
But these observations have a positive effect. They make us revisit those pivotal junctions, those feelings lost in our consciousness. Because you don’t notice it in the moment, you only understand it when you’ve seen how far you’ve come. Those necessary reminders of childhood and adolescence are why shows like Peter and the Starcatcher are so important.
Billed as a prequel to Peter Pan, Peter and the Starcatcher introduces us to Peter and company before Neverland. The play, now showing at BDT Stage through May 15, sits in that sweet spot of innocence, teetering on the line before Peter tips the scale, becoming the perpetual boy who will never grow up.
Starcatcher is a fresh take on this well-known story and is a great addition to the Peter Pan lore. The play follows Molly Aster, a 13-year-old starcatcher apprentice who is tasked with protecting the magical “starstuff.” She then runs into three down-on-their-luck orphan boys who help her on her mission. When pirates get involved, disastrous, and hilarious, chaos ensues.
The show received six Tony’s when it premiered on Broadway back in 2009, including best play. And it’s not surprising. With a cutting, fast-talking script peppered with varied, clever comedy, Starcatcher is snappy and unexpected, drawing the audience in and keeping them entertained throughout. While it does capitalize on the sentimentality from the source material, Starcatcher is a new story in its own right.
Sprinkled with the pizazz and passion of the company, the BDT Stage production went beyond doing justice to the play. One of the highlights of the show was the ingenuity of the sets and props. The cast and crew transformed a moderately-sized stage into a space fit for jungle races and pirate ship battles. With some interesting prop use, the production embodied the creative problem solving that is so vital to theater’s ability to transcend space and tickle the imagination.
Starcatcher is an ensemble piece with a rotating door of characters, and each member of the BDT cast shined in every role. Jack Barton brought the appropriate amount of boyish charm to the most boyishly charming character in all of fairytale land. And Sarah Grover gave a stand-out performance as Molly, a character who demands respect and claims leadership — someone whom little girls can look up to. Grover infused the space with a spunky energy and held her ground as the only woman on stage.
But the best performance of the night went to Scott Beyette who plays the hilarious Black Stache. His portrayal of the flamboyant buffoon pirate prompted some knee slaps and belly laughs and was easily the best part of the show.
Even though Starcatcher has a conclusion that seems inevitable, it layers the audience with a series of epiphanies. It beautifully captures the bittersweet limbo — the before and after of growing up. Though we in the “real world” are never presented with the choice of staying in Neverland, we live vicariously through the characters, who deal with the wide range of realities of making the irreversible decision.
We see the cycle of life mirrored to us on stage, as the characters process the nostalgia in their storylines, the audience members process the nostalgia of their own life. We need shows like Starcatcher to awaken that youthful spirit and prompt the recollection of childhood fearlessness. We need them to remember that life isn’t all about money, and responsibilities, and 9-to-5 jobs. It’s also about magic and wonder and whimsy in the world. Your heart needn’t die just because you grew up. Thanks for the reminder, Peter.
