For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday

Shattered Globe Theatre closes its 2016-2017 season with the Chicago premiere of Sarah Ruhl's "For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday". The production stars Kathleen Ruhl, the playwright's mother, whose portrayal of Peter Pan as a teenager provided inspiration for the play. Although the opportunity to cast the actual subject in such a personal piece would seem to be a recipe for success, the show's piecemeal emotional tone undermines the production.

The opening monologue, featuring Kathleen Ruhl as Ann (or at least her daughter's version of herself), is delivered from the apron. With the blood red velvet curtain behind her, Ruhl fumbles with glasses and a souvenir program from her turn as Peter Pan, setting the audience up for an intimate, naturalistic 85 minutes.

Unfortunately, once the curtain opens on the hospital room where the father of Ann and her four siblings lays dying, the dialogue takes a turn for the stilted. Certainly this is, in part, intentional, given that the family includes two PhDs, two MDs, and the sister who feels inadequate, but despite a few successful moments of connection between the actors, the fits-and-starts pace makes the scene difficult to connect with.

When the conversation moves to their father's kitchen and talk turns to politics, the cast does connect occasionally on some of the dark humor, but there's an odd turn-taking feel as each sibling weighs in on the lives of the others, past and present. Even for an overeducated, politically fractured family, the scene reads as staged, rather than felt.

In the final scene, as the group travels somewhere between Neverland and their last night in the nursery, Director Jessica Thebus and her cast, to a certain extent, shake off some of the weight of the text. The fearful, playful, longing moments here do seem to make good on the monologue's promise, but even these are bogged down by problematic pacing.

Michael Stanfill's projection design, Shelley Strasser's lighting, and Sarah Jo White's costumes are at their best in this final scene as Ann becomes Peter, Wendy, John and Michael become their namesakes, and Jim, presumably the oldest and definitely the most rigid of the siblings, becomes Captain Hook.

Jack Magaw's scenic design, which doesn't quite support the play's contemplation of class issues in the early going, redeems itself here at the end, making use of nothing more than a strap-bound trunk and sheets strung up by wooden clothespins.

Individually, the cast's performances are good, though given the subject matter, the moments of connection between characters are somewhat few and far between. Kathleen Ruhl's somewhat fumbling delivery, which is charming and authentic in the prologue, doesn't do quite as well in the hospital or kitchen scenes, though she makes a comeback as Peter.

Eileen Niccolai (Wendy) and Patrick Thornton (Michael) are the most consistently successful. Niccolai plays Wendy as the approval-seeking peacemaker, but the anger bubbling beneath the surface is ever-present and feels earned when it erupts in the kitchen. Thornton, likewise, embraces the role of a younger son, the second medical doctor in the family, who defers for the sake of family harmony, but doesn't necessarily like it.

As Jim and John, Ben Werling and H.B. Ward, respectively, give performances that cross in the night. Werling is stronger in the hospital room and the kitchen, where he carries both the weight and privilege of the responsible one, but in Neverland, he doesn't quite seem to understand or embrace his emergence into the role of the villain.

In contrast, Ward's rumbling discontent in the earlier scenes never quite reads as logical or earned until he throws himself wholeheartedly into his role as John in Neverland and the audience gains insight into a soul that could and would have been more playful under different skies.

Doug McDade deserves special mention for most fully inhabiting the role of George, the patriarch. His "ghost" wanders in and out of the kitchen as his children pass the Jameson and he goes about his business, eating, reading the paper, and petting the family dog. The choice in the text could have been disastrously executed, but McDade's nearly silent performance lends such a poignant melancholy to the proceedings that the pat conversation with Ann at the end, when he finally grants her his approval, is a bit of a letdown.

"To Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday" runs through May 27 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, Chicago. For tickets or information, call 773-975-8150 or visit www.theatrewit.org