NBC aired its anticipated, live production of Peter Pan starring Allison Williams of HBO Girls fame and the inadvertently deadpan living legend Christopher Walken.
In today's times of TruTV violence and bad reality TV, live musical theater seemed like a pleasant family-friendly antidote to all the low-brow ugliness foisted on us. Quirks aside, we hope it's a tradition that will continue.
A jarringly androgynous yet vocally impressive Williams (in my humble opinion) held her own as the world's most beloved adolescent and patron saint of unemployed artists and musicians everywhere.
Some questioned whether we should perpetuate the tradition of a woman playing a teenage boy (insert fashion model metaphor here). Walken's performance, from a theatrical standpoint, was an abysmal disappointment. His timing was off; he was listless and seemed to forget his lines. Appearance-wise, he looked like Gene Simmons after a NutriSystem diet or a haggard Tony Iommi in a VH1 Behind the Music special. That all said, we loved him for doing the best Walken ever, as Josh Gad said on Twitter.
Perhaps the most predictable outcome was the web response to the play. Snarky humor was everywhere, but the musical got some insightful commentary too (and fun ideas for next year's live spectacle).
From CL contributor Ned Averill-Snell:
Here are a few more of the kajillion posts from last night …
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2014.