Peter Pan Live

[Brookie]

Maybe I'm the only person in the entire country who enjoyed it. It wasn't the greatest, but then nobody was going near Academy Award/Emmy territory with this.

[Mugsy]

Can anyone tell me why Peter Pan is so often played by a woman? It seems so weird and creepy. I mean, he's a boy, right? Why not have a male actor in the role? Someone like Kurt from Glee is exactly the right type.

[captain]

It started in 1904 for a British stage production. They decided that a woman would have a small enough frame to look normal beside the boys.

People article

[prisma]

Tom and Lorenzo have a well thought out assessment of it.

And speaking of creepy, we have absolutely no idea why the production decided to cast a bunch of muscular, good-looking, clearly adult men as the Lost Boys. Not only was it jarring to see all these flamboyant chorus boys standing next to actual little boys and pretending to be the same age as them, but it was creepy as hell the way they all surrounded Wendy and started calling her “Mother” at every turn. It also made no sense why all of these strapping men would look up to the scrawny, sylph-like Peter Pan as their protector. So with an obviously adult female as Peter and a bunch of obviously adult men as the Lost Boys, the resulting undertones were decidedly sexual in nature. The Wendy and Peter relationship turned into a “Boys Don’t Cry” style transgender romance and every time the Lost Boys tossed the two actual little boys in the cast around, we got disturbing reminders of Michael Jackson’s slumber parties.

The whole thing is worth a read.