Theater review: Peter and the Starcatcher brings spectacular starstuff

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allison davis for freefall

Kelly Pekar and Lucas Wells in Peter and the Starcatcher.

What is it that makes a play perfect for children? Well, lots of action, of course, reams of colorful costumes and exaggerated characters, a little romance (but not so much that things get mushy), and several unambiguously good heroes and evil villains to root for and against.

All these ingredients can be found in Peter and the Starcatcher, written by Rick Elice and based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This incessantly kinetic show, currently onstage in a high-quality production at freeFall Theatre, has more than enough to keep most children entertained, and if there’s not too much there to satisfy a grownup, well, what did you expect from a prequel to Peter Pan?

So anyway, get your kids into the SUV and hurry them over to freeFall. If the new generation is going to turn into theatergoers, it’s a spectacle like Starcatcher that’s going to create the predilection. Then a few years from now you can take them to Marat/Sade.

The plot that Elice/Barry/Peterson present is a little confusing, but goes something like this: it’s the late 19th century, and Righteous Lord Leonard Aster is in charge of disposing of a magical substance called starstuff that, if it falls into the wrong hands, can wreak mayhem on the earth. As he ships out in search of the volcano in which to deposit it, his daughter, plucky Molly, sets sail on a different ship, where she meets three orphan boys, one of whom will become Peter Pan (he’s so oppressed, he has no name when she first encounters him). But intent on acquiring the starstuff for himself is a nasty pirate named Black Slache, who eventually will lose his hand and turn into, who else, Captain Hook.

There are exciting adventures on the ships and a desert island, there are several combats between humans, not to mention a close call with the famous crocodile. And there’s even the beginning of a romance between 13-year-old Molly — who, it might be argued, is the real center of the story — and Peter.

It’s all brought to us with ingenious theatricality (direction by Eric Davis), clever costumes (also by Davis) and stirring music (by Wayne Barker). There’s a great deal of humor (including some anachronistic mentions of Phillip Glass and Ayn Rand that most kids will miss), and enough silliness to keep the more dreadful implications from turning into nightmares. There’s even a magic amulet that keeps Molly and her father in contact, like a Victorian smartphone.

But the greatest strength of this pageant is the freeFall crew’s acting, which is terrific in every case. Three performances particularly dominate our attention. There’s Chris Crawford as Black Stache, a campy, nefarious narcissist of a pirate who seems to be having so much fun, his joy overflows and rolls right up though the audience. Then there’s Kelly Pekar, whose Molly is assertive, courageous, incipiently affectionate, and in every other way a credit to her gender. As Peter, Lucas Wells starts out as a mistreated castoff but soon evolves into a romantic hero, the object of Molly’s half-advances, and the recipient of a magic that eventually gives him his eternal childhood.

But as first-rate as these performances are, they’re matched by Bonnie Agan as Molly’s fussy nanny (who gets amorously involved with the fine Chris Rutherford as unstoppable Alf), and Clinton C. H. Harris as Fighting Prawn, the island pooh-bah whose free life is devoted to revenge against the English who once forced him into their service. These actors and their colleagues comically make their way in a pageant filled with visual surprises, not the least of which features a beachful of mermaids (think men in shell bikinis) who’ve been transformed into that shape by contact with starstuff. Director Davis leaves no conch unturned in his insistence on delighting the audience.

Unfortunately, all this inventiveness still doesn’t make for an adult entertainment. Everything’s too black-and-white, simple, cartoonish, offering little to grown-up emotions and next to nothing to the intellect. But for the class of children who assume there’s nothing as pleasing as a video game, Peter and the Starcatcher just may be a revelation. It’s kaleidoscopically attractive and brimming with surprises. If it convinces some up-and-coming ankle-biters that the live theater’s not to be ignored, well, that may turn out to be the very best use of its enchanted starstuff.