A Night at the Theater

Okay, I really will get to Peter Pan in a second, but first...Do you think it's awful that when I walked outside tonight to leave for the show, one of our neighbors almost didn't recognize me because I had makeup on and my hair was not in a ponytail? But see, that's the reason why I occasionally don't, usually don't, never get dolled up. If I always did, then there would never be any surprise or "wow" factor when I did, right? (I have never actually thought of that excuse before, but it seems like a pretty good one, right?)

But, about the show. We just finished reading Peter Pan to the kids and so I thought that they might really enjoy seeing the play. (There's a new production of it.) It was, of course, a big debate on whether or not to spend the money on the tickets. We decided to buy the cheapest possible seats though and have a special night out. The seats in the very front row were the same price as the cheap seats in the very back, so I thought that it would be better to be up too close than to be back too far. If you're thinking about getting tickets to Peter Pan though, and are debating which tickets to get, I was wrong. I wasn't aware when I bought them that the theater was going to be much smaller than I anticipated and that, really, the seats in the back are still quite good. Unfortunately for the kids, the stage was elevated and we were at about eye level, so the kids had to strain a little to see everything. They didn't seem to mind a bit though.

In fact, they seemed to love absolutely everything about the whole experience, which made it all worthwhile. They were completely mesmerized the whole time. My favorite part about it was watching their faces and their reactions to it all. Because of that, I loved the show. Now, if you had asked me how well I liked it if I had gone to see it without them, I think that I would probably give you a very different answer. To begin with, I hated very strongly disliked the girl who played Tinkerbell. Honestly, I cannot even begin to describe how awful and annoying I found her to be. She was a middle aged woman with a missing tooth who hissed all the time; not exactly the image of Tinkerbell that Disney has burned into our brains. She also used the phrase "silly ass" multiple times throughout the performance, though I suppose I cannot fault her for the lines she was given. Fortunately, that phrase went right over our kids' heads, along with a few other choice phrases.

The second thing that I found quite annoying (though not nearly on the level of Tinkerbell) was the puppeteer. Rather than having the person who played Nana, the dog, dressed up in a dog suit, they had a puppeteer parading her around. I didn't mind him that much though until the children arrived in Neverland (where Nana does not go) and the puppeteer was then parading an ostrich around instead. Now, we just finished reading the book, and I recall no ostrich whatsoever, and cannot begin to imagine who would think it a good idea to add that to the play. I found it incredibly annoying. The play did a pretty good job overall though of sticking to the story in the book. I would imagine that those who showed up expecting the Disney version were probably a little surprised. There was hardly any singing at all and, as I think I may have mentioned, a middle-aged woman (wearing a pink tutu, I might add) was playing Tinkerbell. The acting was a little over-the-top, but kids like that, so it probably added to their enjoyment.

Now for the plus side...Did I mention that the kids loved it? There were no questions like, "When will this be over?" or, "What are we going to do tomorrow?" or "Can we go home now?" throughout the entire two and a half hour show. Pretty much the only question I got was when Jake would ask (with a look of panic), "It's not over is it?" anytime that people would clap. The set was really amazing because the ceiling all around was like a huge movie theater and the scenes would keep moving and changing around you. When the characters were flying over London and the scenery kept changing, Jake said that he felt like he was on a ride at Disneyland. It really was pretty cool...definitely the best part of the whole thing.

Jay was a good sport too even though he was missing seeing the Braves in the second game of the playoffs. I think he wanted to kill me when once we finally got back to the car and he found out the game was in extra innings, I asked him to turn down the radio because I wanted to try to get a video of the kids telling us what they thought of the show. (And, despite the fact that a couple of days ago I uploaded two videos here, I cannot remember how to do that right now, and it's 12:30 so I'm not going to try to figure it out. So, I'll post a few pictures instead.) Then, after we got the kids down, Jay turned on his computer to find that the Braves hit a homerun in the 11th to win the game...WHILE we were putting the kids to bed. So, he missed it all. Even though he missed out on the Braves and Peter Pan was probably not what he would have chosen to miss them for, he really did have fun too, because in case you hadn't heard... the kids loved it! And it's hard not to enjoy something that your kids are lovin'!