Peter Pan

Last Sunday, June 30th,  Frank and I took Alex to see the musical Peter Pan at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.

We normally try to sit up close to keep Alex engaged but we had balcony seats this performance. We reasoned that with flying in the show, being up higher might be better. These seats worked out well. This was our view of the curtain before the show began and again during the intermission.

Alex settled in comfortably with his purchased brochure of the show. Buying one of these glossy programs is a tradition for Alex and he loves thumbing through it page by page. This time we also got him a fidget crocodile that he enjoyed flailing about, the pop 'em portions were inconsequential to him.

The phrase "second star to the right, and straight on till morning" is a Disney added flourish. Disney placed Neverland in outer space but J.M. Barrie created it as an island with mermaids and Native Americans in a ocean somewhere. This location actually makes more sense for the presence of pirates; but then, if there are fairies and flying, making sense is not a requirement.

This rendition of the show had a few modernization tweaks. Wendy is portrayed as a focused young woman who is studying to become a doctor. This skill was very handy when she used sutures to reattached Peter Pan with his shadow. I missed that there was no big sheepdog named Nana; but equally amusing was a crocodile that slithered cross the stage periodically propelled by some small person camouflaged within. The flying was suitably impressive, even the youngest Darling child flew. Sitting in the balcony was even more magical in that we never saw any cables or any flying apparatus. We could truly suspend disbelief.

Here we three are posing after the show. We went out to dinner afterward where Alex chowed down a huge bowl of cajun jambalaya with rice, andouille sausage, chicken, and jalapeño peppers. In these photos Alex is happily clutching his tote bag of goodies.

Although famous from Disney's movie portrayal, Peter Pan originally is a character in novels by J.M. Barrie. Per Peter Pan in Wikipedia

J. M. Barrie may have based the character of Peter Pan on his older brother, David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before his 14th birthday. His mother and brother thought of him as forever a boy.

In some ways I, too, think of Alex as forever a boy. We were happy to have gone to see Peter Pan with him.