"Finding Neverland" on Broadway - Riley San Nicolas

April 30th

Broadway: Finding Neverland (review)

Late afternoon. I scramble out of the subway and immediately dash into the nearest Starbucks about to piss my pants. Wait behind an old man whose just as quick to the draw as me and I find relief. That’s the real beauty of Starbucks. One on every corner and with a free open bathroom, no questions asked. 

 But anyway, on 47th and Broadway, middle of Times Square in the fading light of a warm, receding afternoon. The lights are bright but the shine of the day is still rubbing its cheek upon the glassy faces of the buildings and the obnoxious glamour of the big signs. 

 I walk to the theatre and a whole gaggle is waiting outside to buy tickets and get in. I pick my ticket up from will call and go up the steps to the mezzanine where I find my seat high up in the nosebleeds overlooking the whole scene. 

 Immaculate crystal chandeliers hang in elegance from the ceiling shedding its prism light onto Victorian inlays and a grand stage. It’s packed with all sorts of people milling about. My first time in Broadway theatre and perhaps my first musical? It’s been a long day and my excitement has yet to be found.

 Lights go down. Applause. The stage lights up and the main character slides in on a bench and jumps straight into the first number. The lights and sound and live instrumentation and  the dance is all exhilarating and I’m sucked in immediately.

 The play, Finding Neverland, is based of off the 2004 movie of the same name. The story is about J.M. Barrie, the author known most widely as the author of Peter Pan. Barrie is a run-of-the-mill playwright composing half-assed works that are all strikingly similar and unoriginal. His life changes when he meets the Llewelyn-Davies family: a charming widow and her 4 sons. He forms a strong platonic relationship with the mother, Sylvia, and becomes a surrogate father figure to the boys, who inspire him to write about a far-off fairy land where boys don’t grow old. 

 It’s a fascinating background story of one of the most widely adored fairy-tales in English literature. There are wonderful moments where the common everyday reality of Barrie and the Llewelyn-Davies’ lives are interceded with the fantasy that makes Peter Pan so compelling. Captain Hook invades the author’s thoughts. Time freezes for the boys and Barrie as they break into a song about the freedom of youth. The boys fly around the stage as they get ready to go to bed. It is simply enchanting. 

 The songs are all well-delivered and time, and being a musician, I really appreciated the live instruments and the singers’ talents. The musical numbers only lift the story higher into fantasy and releases everyone’s imagination. You feel as though you are not just inside of the characters minds and lives: for a couple of hours, you soaring towards the second star to the right. 

 I applaud loudly along with the rest of the enthralled crowd. I make my way outside to the New York night and as the billboards and taxi cabs and fancy suits materialize and the tragic hardships of life come crashing back down to me, I am left with only one thought: I never want to grow up.