I can’t believe that this adored play -- the talk of this year’s Humana Festival – is not yet scheduled for a Broadway showing or any further production. Probably the most appealing and exhilarating work thus far by the highly regarded playwright Sarah Ruhl, To Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday stars one of America’s finest actresses in a delicious showcase role. So I guess we just wait to hear about its next appearance. Sarah Ruhl is already considered a leading American playwright, having been a finalist considered for two Pulitzer Prizes and a Tony Award for earlier plays. Her modern gothic, unique point of view is lyrical and moving and outrageously funny in such successful plays as The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Stage Kiss. Here, Ruhl combines a stark, realistic view of aging and death among combative, loving family members with a saving grace of imagination and magical love. She dedicates this touching play to her mother, who actually played Peter Pan when she was a young girl. I saw Actors Theater stalwart Barney Hanlon as the father, splendidly replacing Ron Crawford. The entirely adept and winning siblings were Scott Jaeck as John, Keith Reddin as Michael, David Chandler as Jim [Hook], and Lisa Emery as Wendy. Kathleen Chalfant , as usual, was scintillating, lovely, vulnerable but resilient, and utterly charming as Anne. She has worked several times with director Les Waters, as has playwright Ruhl; and this subtle, almost understated, but entirely involving and winning production bears his admirable signature. We begin with the eldest sibling, Ann, a bright lively woman aged 70, remembering the highlight of her youth, when she played Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and happily repeated the performance at the school for several years thereafter. Then the family is seen gathered wearily in their father’s hospital room, where the sounds of machines testing and feeding his body, which is partly covered in twisted tubes stretching down pillows and bed clothing, provide a mournful, realistic background to the family’s saddened, weary talk. They discuss adding pain-killers to the IV tube (euthanasia is prohibited) and bicker and comfort one another. These are people with varying political and religious beliefs, grudges and resentments, pity and pain. They have arrived at this moment after much unhappy and disillusioning occurrence, but they also share much background and love. Finally the father sits up abruptly and dies. And the sadness and shock are knocked askew for us when the dead man walks back into the room to use the bathroom, accompanied by his long-dead dog on a leash. The family says a prayer and then quietly exits singing “When the Saints Go Marching In”; and then a sizeable, amateurish uniformed band marches in playing “When the Saints . . . ” Now we know it’s a Sara Ruhl play. Without intermission we get a scene around a kitchen table where the family drinks whiskey and in a kind of wake, discusses “Clinton Era” politics and fantasy, religions, Christmas, Santa Claus, even unicorns. The father’s ghost occasionally enters and uses the lavatory. And then we get magic. Spoiler warning: stop here if you can get to see this play performed. In a bedroom set that looks like the start and end of Barrie’s play, the family gathers to briefly regain the “magic” First we see Anne who has found her old Peter Pan costume, and she puts it on, then exulting at having regained ”the magic” flies a little. Her siblings are named John, Michael and Wendy, so they play Barrie’s roles; and Jim becomes Captain Hook. There isn’t so much a replaying as some suggestions and some ecstatic flying. And then the rigs are unattached, and the elderly family re-enters reality, but fortified with a lingering memory of magic. And Anne lingers to announce a recapturing of magical values, and an appreciation of what it means to be “of the theater.” The audience is by then a puddle, but appreciative and happy.
